Around and about South America . s have an aver-age height of eighty feet, and an average diameter at base oftrunk of three feet. A neatly graveled walk leads between,and where the avenues intersect stands a pretty you walk along the noble passage, you look upward be-tween the giant trunks at the distant mountains, at the bluesky, at the sea. Each produces a distinct effect. You con-trast these forest monsters with the pygmy shrubs and flow-ers, and it seems as if the palms belonged to some othersphere, as if this verdant corridor led to the mansion of thegods. Though these royal p
Around and about South America . s have an aver-age height of eighty feet, and an average diameter at base oftrunk of three feet. A neatly graveled walk leads between,and where the avenues intersect stands a pretty you walk along the noble passage, you look upward be-tween the giant trunks at the distant mountains, at the bluesky, at the sea. Each produces a distinct effect. You con-trast these forest monsters with the pygmy shrubs and flow-ers, and it seems as if the palms belonged to some othersphere, as if this verdant corridor led to the mansion of thegods. Though these royal palms are the special boast ofthe Botanical Gardens, it should be known that they con-tain also what is probably the finest collection of tropicalflora in the world, excepting only that at Buitenzorg, nearBatavia, in the Island of Java. The climate agrees witheverything imported, though the enormous empire itself sup-plies nearly every exhibited species. The picturesque ar-rangement of the plants has been effected with but little. PUBLIC BUILDINGS AND GARDENS. 233 artificiality, and in a way more instructive and pleasing thanI have seen elsewhere. The contrasted plants alone addgreat variety to the scenery. Sometimes an avenue is linedfor a distance with similar trees, then with others; next withone species on one side and another on the opposite; after-ward in clumps, no two alike; and finally in clumps allalike. For the professional botanist, a visit to this orderedEden would be like a foretaste of paradise. Though but avery mild sort of amateur myself, yet during my long stayat Rio there was no week in which I did not at least oncewend my way thither, and roam enraptured through themiles of labyrinthine verdure. Of the number of interesting plazas in Bio perhaps thefirst would be the Campo Sant Anna, or Acclimation Square,on the sides of which are the Senate, the Mint, the NationalMuseum, the municipality building, and the station of thegreat Dom Pedro II. Railway. The little
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookpublishernewyo, bookyear1895
