the greatest courtesy. One of our party, an
American, refused, and lifted his straw-hatted
head as high as possible. Don Pedro,
however, deserves a passing salute, especially
from Englishmen, who are received and treated
by him with every mark of favour. Indeed,
he appears thoroughly popular amongst his
own subjects.

Englishmen abound and flourish here. The
merchants of our nation are amongst the
richest people at Rio; and as we walked back
again at leisure, many of their villas were
pointed out to us, being for the most part,
the finest to be seen. These villas are situated
in beautiful grounds and gardens, where
every tree, shrub, and flower are such as are
known to our eyes in England only in the
finest conservatories. Statuary and fountains
make pleasant these gardens, and you may
imagine the deliciousness of an evening
scene there, such as Von Martins has
described:— " The mimosas have folded up
their leaves to sleep, and stand motionless
beside the dark crowns of the mangueiras, the
jaca-tree, and the etherial jambos. Sometimes
a sudden wind arises, and the juiceless
leaves of the acaju rustle; the richly-
flavoured grumijama and pitanga let drop a
fragrant shower of snow-white blossoms; the
crowns of the majestic palms wave slowly
over the silent roof which they overshadow,
like a symbol of peace and tranquillity.
Shrill cries of the cicada, the grasshopper,
and tree-frog, make an incessant hum, and
produce by their monotony a pleasing
melancholy. At intervals, different balsamic
odours fill the air; and flowers, alternately
unfolding their petals to the night, delight
the senses with their perfume. Now the
bowers of paullinias, or the neighbouring
orange-grove,—then the thick tufts of
eupatoria, or the bunches of the flowering
palms, suddenly bursting, disclose their
blossoms, and thus maintain a constant
succession of fragrance, while the silent
vegetable world, illuminated by swarms of
fire-flies, as by a thousand moving stars,
charms the night by its delicious odours."

We returned into the city through the Rua
do Ouvidör, the most wealthy street in the
capital, abounding with the shops of jewellers,
goldsmiths, drapers, and milliners. Here,
instead of open fronts, there were splendid
plate-glass windows, and a great display of
wealth and French tradespeople. We saw,
also, two or three shops of old books, but
were not able to discover one shop for the
sale of new ones. The Brazilians, like their
cousins, the Portuguese, are more addicted to
concerts, theatres, and assemblies, than to
reading, except that of newspapers, which
are numerous, and contain light literature.

After refreshing ourselves at our inn, we
were strongly recommended to go to the opera,
to hear the pritna donna, Signora Castillione,
in La Semiramida. She appeared to be a
wonderful favourite; but not having come on
shore with opera dresses, we had no desire to
be turned back; the fate of some of our more
adventurous fellow-passengers; the etiquette
of such places being as rigorously enforced
here as in Paris or London. We contented
ourselves, therefore, with witnessing the re-
opening of the Imperial Chapel, after a
general repair, the whole front and towers
being illuminated, and mass going on inside,
amid the thundering din of squibs, crackers,
and explosions of powder in various forms,
making noise enough for a great battle. An
odd idea of Christian worship!

The next morning we took a stroll through
the public market, which adjoins the Lago do
Paco, or Palace Square. A market is, in every
foreign country, an interesting spot, but
especially in a tropical one. We found this most
amply supplied with fowls, fish, vegetables,
and fruits of a great variety of kinds; monkeys,
parrots, and other birds. The fish were of
numerous sorts and sizes, from one kind as
large as a large pig, down to shrimps. There
were prawns like small lobsters and a beautiful
array of dolphins. Yams, potatoes
ordinary and sweet ones, oranges in endless
abundance and of the most delicious ripeness,
sweet lemons, guavas, pitangas, custard
apples, figs, bananas, both ripe and green, for
exportation; fruit of the egg-plant, bread-
fruit, vegetable marrows and quashes
innumerable; mormohn apples, loquots, onions,
garlic and shalots, with their stalks woven
into long pieces of matting, on which they
hung like tassels. In fact, the supply of all
sorts of vegetables was most affluent. But
the vegetable which excited my curiosity
more than all the rest, was a species of green
juicy stalks of about a yard long and three
inches in diameter. These lay in heaps, and
the market people were busily peeling off
their outer coats, soft and succulent, till they
left only a sort of cylinder of pith about an
inch and a half in diameter. They were
bought up as fast as they were ready, and I
found that they were the extremity of the
flowering stems of the carnáuba palm
(coryphera cerifera), which is considered one of the
greatest luxuries of the table.

One of the most interesting objects
connected with Rio is the botanic garden. Its
magnificent avenue of palm-trees, its
fountains, its trees and flowers from all the finest
climates in the world, growing in the open
air; its profusion of fruits—oranges, lemons,
citrons, bread-fruit, bananas, grapes, &c.—the
assembled luxuries of nature from her most
favoured regions— make it a scene scarcely to
be paralleled. Unfortunately, it is situated
ten miles from the city, and our limited time
compelled us to a shorter excursion. This
was across the bay, to Praia Grande, whose
white walls and back-ground of woody hills
looked very attractive from the city. And
we could have scarcely made a happier choice.
It was not here that " distance lent enchantment
to the view."  The beauty increased on