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R IO DE J A N E I R O . 81
Another object of utility, in which the health and the
amusement of the public have been consulted, is the Passeo
Publico, or garden for public promenade. This piece of
ground is laid out in shrubberies, lawns, walks, and parterres.
Bowers are erected here and there, round which the jasmine,
the clematis, and the passion flower intertwine their creeping
branches. We observed several native plants of great
beauty ; but a vehement desire seemed to prevail of cultivating,
in preference, those of Europe, notwithstanding their
sickly and diminutive appearance, contracted in a climate so
unsuitable to their constitution. But the most contemptible
object in the garden was a miserable representation of the
papaya tree in copper, of its natural, size and painted green,
whilst the real plant, growing close beside it in all the exuberance
of tropical vegetation, laughed to scorn its stiff and *
deformed mock brother. A broad terrace walk at the lower
end of the garden, overlooking an arm of the harbour, commands
a delightful view of its rising shores, which are every
where fringed with coppice. At each end of the terrace is a
neat square building, whose walls within are covered with
paintings. As specimens of art, they are not entitled to much
notice, but the subjects are far from being uninteresting.
The views, in one of these buildings, are entirely confined to
detached parts of the harbour; the ceiling is covered with
devices in shell-work ; and round the cornices are representations
of fish, peculiar to the country, worked in small shells.
The ceiling of the other building contains similar devices
wrought in feathers; and figures of many of the native birds
are arranged round the cornice, each clothed in its proper
plumage. On the walls of the latter are eight paintings, de-
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