The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1906-08-23

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estates, laid out in terraces and wind
ing:paths up the hillside and ornament
ed with statuary and tropical shrubs,
Directly in front rises the distant,
square topped Gavia, lifting its wealth
er-Oeaten face 5000 feet above the val
ley, the seward looking peaks of Dias
Iramos and the green mountains of
Tijuca Soon the lake becomes a brack-
ISL swamp. where wild birds are pad
ding: then Jungle, where wild flowers
perfume the air; the country road
changes to lane barely wide enough
for the car track and runs into what
appears to be a thicket of wild bamboo
and banana in the midst of which
little fondita ,restaurantl is set Oh one
side and very tall iron fence on the
other Here we alight at ponderous
iron gateway in the iron palng and find
ourselves at once in a many pillar
ed, marble-paved room, with marble
benches ranged around its sides, where
visitors may sit while waiting for the
return car, which passes every twenty
minutes on the way back to town.
This is the vestIbule to the famous
,Jardin Botanico, and passing through
it one stops amazed at the tlrSt Slght or
the world-renoWned avenue OF royal
palms, which begins at the gate ana
stretches away across the garden to the
foot of the mountain, distance OF
more than half a mile. 1t is impossible
to give in words any idea of the
magniticence of this living. arboreScent
gallery, which surpasseS anything OF the
kind on the face of the globe and is
worth coming all the way to Brazil to
do, Of n n n
columns whose graceful bright green
capitals seem to support portion OF
the blue dome that arches above. AS
one looks down the long vista of col
umns-each straight, firm and smooth
as though carved in stone, a dim vision
of some Egyptian temple rising to the
imagination-one feels as if monarchs
had been drawn up in line to do him
homage. or as if he had been translated
to another sphere and this verdant gal
lery must lead to some mansion OF the
gods. The most blase traveller walks
in silence between the towering ranks,
impressed too deeply for words, as at
first view of Niagara, or of snoW-tOp-
ped mountain, or a grand cathedral and
other rare sights which bring the souls
of impressionable 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 palms
real (Oresdoxa regia,) planted thirty
feet apart in a double row, enclosing a
wide gravel path. The palms have an
average height of ninety feet and an
average diameter at the base OF four
feet: their trunks have grown as
straight as plum line device could
make them. High up in the air their
enormous feathery tufts are in perpet-
nal tremor, shaken by every breath of
air. AS an appropriate setting to these
masterpieces of nature the garden IS
surrounded by the widest of tropical
scenery.
| Between the giant trunks you look
| upward to incomparably blue skies, to
nearby mountains, or beyond to the
sea, whose murmur you can family
hear. A shorter alley is found cross
ing the main one near its beginning,
the two forming a gigantic cross.
About midway down the avenue is a
fountain, and here other avenues,
scarcely less splendid, branch off at
right angles, lined with old mango
trees, whose long arms, gnarled trunks,
and dense, interlocking foliage would
alone distinguish this garden above any
OtuoI. AlteI CuO AVENUE VI PeslIuo
everything else appears tame and one
is hardly prepared to do justice to what
is probably the finest collection of trop-
zeal flora i'll the world. There are
groves of cinnamon and Glove trees,
acres of tea shrubs from China and
Japan and Ceylon, myrtle trees and
NAPLES, pines and camphor trees, cocoa,
| bread-fruit, vegetable butter the
long, crooked fruit of the jaca that
looks like stuffed club at theater,
and rare exotics, from the tiniest para
site to the lOftiest monarch Of the Am
azonian forests Many trees from trop'
zeal Asia and Africa, as we'll as from
other parts of the world, have found
their home in Brazil through the In
strumentality of this garden. To the
left of the royal palms is fine grove OF
bamboo, which is a favorite resort fol-
picnic parties. There are ponds AND
pools, grottoes, cascades and hundred
winding paths leading to new surprises
The garden lies near the shore, directly
at the base of a spur of the Sierra ds
Carioca, and forms part of an expert
mental farm and agricultural school.
1 FANNIE B. WARD.
CA9To7IA.