The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1892-05-29

Inereza NIL overlooking the lower bav and
harbor entrance. 1t belongs TO an order of
Carmelite nuns and was founded about
l149 by q devotee named Jacintha, who
persuaded one of her relatives to purchase
chGcGrG on this site to which she and her
sister retired. Their convent was never
permitted to receive more than twenty-one
nuns at a time, eighteen of the black veil
and three of the white. The last admis-
sion was in 1861, and now only about half
dozen of the nuns are living. When
they die their splendid property
will also revert to the state. Turning
sharply to the right, our tramway leads
into the broad, well paved Rua do Passeio
and runs past Rio de Janeiros favorite
public garden, the "Passeio PLblicon
kOnly q glimpse of lis central lawn and
shady paths can be obtained from the
street, but 1t is the most attractive spot in
the city, though the Oldest, having been
opened to the public exactly 10 years ago.
Many of its original features have DIS
appeared, but it still retains some of the
characteristic beauties designed by its
founder, the Viceroy LUZ de Vasconcellas.
On its side facing the bay is an enormous
marble paved, elevated terrace, from
which may be obtained magnificent view
of the lower bay and harbor entrance. Its
garden is filled with the choicest native
and exotic trees and shrubs; and whether
strolling through its shaded paths in the
day time or by gasight or listening to music
upon its crowded terrace in the evening
the Passeio Publico is e place not soon to b e
forgotten. Opposite its entrance is
street which was formerly named 1.-The
Street 'of Fine Nights" because on all
moonlit evenings Viceroy Vasconcelias
used TO pass through it on his way to spend
an hour in the garden. Facing it is also
the department of justice, the Casino. and
the National library, standing side by side.
LARGO DA LAPA
Now we come to the Largo da Lapa-the
Lapa church and Carmelite convent on the
left. on the right the famous arches of the
Carcoa aqueduct, the Freitas hotel in
front and the big bronze fountain of the
new waterworks occupying the center of
the Square. Here the street ascends and
affords charming view of the bay and
Gloria hills covered with handsome resi-
dences and crowned with q pretty octa-
gonal church, which the imperial family
used to frequent. At its foot is an untidy
public garden and beyond the garden is q
large square edifice which was built for q
market but is used as a tenement for the
poor. and is said to shelter a thousand
people. Now we enter the Rua do Cattete
at the beginning of which stands large
Questioned private house, built IN the Ital-
ian style aud backed by extensive gardens.
SQUARE
open courts with spiral stairs leading to
the entrances, within which are two mar
bic ball-piayers who seem to be tossing q
ball over the housetop. 1t was built by a
Brazilian capitalist and is known as the
'Palacete Cornelio." Just beyond is the
"Palacete'' OF the Baron de Nova Fri
burgo, the richest priva.e house in Rio.
built of marble imported from Lisbon and
adorned with carvings, paintings and
| no nv
lie garden known as the Fargo do Hachado
the tramway divides, and again couple of
blocks farther on, near the new Methodist
church, it divides again, ushering US st
length into one Of the most picturesque
streets in the world.
BY and by the city street becomes a
country road, and we come nearer and
nearer to Corcovado, the colossal ''Hunch-
back" till 1t length it seems to stand
/ directly over US, sheer precipice of gray
rock towering skyward 1000 feet. Wind
ing around the edge of a small salt lake
Lagoa Rodereigo de Frietas, which is sep
arated from the Atlantic only by a narrow
sand bank-we see on the right hand many
interesting old Portuguese estates, laid out
in terraces and winding paths up the hill
sides and ornamented with statuary and
tropical shrubs. Directly in front rises the
distant. square-topped Gavia, lifting it's
weather beaten face 5000 feet above the
valley; the seward looking peaks of Dias
/ lramos and the green mountains OF Tijuca.
Soon the lake becomes brackish swamp,
where wild birds are padding; then a
jungle, where
WILD FLOWERS PERFUME THE AIR;
then the country road changes to lane,
barely wide enough for the car track, and
runs into what appears to be thicket of
wild bamboo and banana, in the
midst OF which little fondita trestauranN
is set on one side and very tall iron fence
on the other.
THE FAMOUS JARDIM BoTANICo.
\ Here we alight at ponderous gateway
in the iron paling and find ourselves at
once in many pillared, marble-paved
room, with marble benches ranged around
its sides, where visitors msy sit while
waiting for the return car, which passes
every twenty minutes on the way back to
town. This is the Yestibule or entrance 10
the famous Jardim Botanico, aud passing
! through ii one stops amazed at the first
sight of the world renowned avenue of
royal palms, which begins at this gate and
! stretches away across the garden to the
| foot OF the mountain, distance OF half a
mile or more. 1t is impossible TO give in
words any idea of the magrificence of this
! living, arborescent gallery, which sur
|
the globe and is worth coming all the way
to Brazil to SEGA colorado of natural
Corinthian columns, whose graceful, bright
green capitols seem TO support portion of
the blue dome that arches above AS one
looks down the long vista of columns
straight, firm and smooth, as though
carved in stone, dim vision of some
Egyptian temple rises to the Imagination
one feels as if monarchs had been drawn
up in line to do homage, or as if he had
been translated 10 another sphere and this
verds1t gallery must lead to q mansion OF
the gods. The most blase traveller walks
in silence between the towering ranks, i'm
pressed too deeply for words-as at the
first view of Niagara, of a snow-topped
mountaion, of grand cathedral, and other
sights which bring the souls of impression.
aple people to their knees, whatever may
be the attitude of their bodies.
To come down to figures, there are $50 OF
those noble trees, the palma real (ores
doxa regia), planted thirty feet apart in g
double row inclosing a wide gravel path
The palms have an average height
of eighty feet. and an average diameter
ct the base of three feet, their
trunks have grown as straight as by plumb