The famous avenue of royal palms in the Botanic Gardens would almost repay anyone for the voyage from Europe. These are, I believe, the tallest palms known, and the long avenue is strikingly impressive. The Oreodoxa regia, one of the cabbage-palms, has a huge trunk, perfectly symmetrical, and growing absolutely straight. This perspective of giant boles recalls the columns of an immense Gothic cathedral, whilst the fronds uniting in a green arch two hundred feet overhead complete the illusion. The Botanic Gardens have some most attractive ponds of pink and sky-blue water lilies, and the view of the bay from the gardens is usually considered the finest in Rio.
Owing to the unhealthiness of Rio, most of the Foreign Legations had established themselves permanently at Petropolis, in the Organ Mountains, Petropolis being well above the yellow fever zone. On my third visit to Rio, such a terrible epidemic of yellow fever was raging in the capital that the British Minister very kindly invited me to go up straight to the Legation at Petropolis. The latter is three hours' distance from Rio by mountain railway. People with business in the city leave for Rio by the 7 a.m. train, and reach Petropolis again at 7 p.m. The old Emperor, Dom Pedro, made a point of attending the departure and arrival of the train every single day, and a military band played regularly in the station, morning and evening. This struck me as a very unusual form of amusement. The Emperor (who ten months later was quietly deposed) was a tall, handsome old gentleman, of very distinguished appearance, and with charming manners. He had also encyclopædic knowledge on most points. That a sovereign should take pleasure in seeing the daily train depart and arrive seemed to point to a certain lack of resources in Petropolis, and to hint at moments of deadly dulness in the Imperial villa there. Dom Pedro never appeared in public except in evening dress, and it was a novelty to see the head of a State in full evening dress and high hat at half-past six in the morning, listening to an extremely indifferent brass band braying in the waiting-room of a shabby railway station.
Nature seems to have lavished all the most brilliant hues of her palette on Brazil; the plumage of the birds, the flowers, and foliage all glow with vivid colour. Even a Brazilian toad has bright emerald-green spots all over him. The gorgeous butterflies of this highly-coloured land are well known in Europe, especially those lovely creatures of shimmering, iridescent blue.
These butterflies were the cause of a considerable variation in the hours of meals at the British Legation.
The Minister had recently brought out to Brazil an English boy to act as young footman. Henry was a most willing, obliging lad, but these great Brazilian butterflies exercised a quite irresistible fascination over him, and small blame to him. He kept a butterfly-net in the pantry, and the instant one of the brilliant, glittering creatures appeared in the garden, Henry forgot everything. Clang the front-door bell so loudly, he paid no heed to it; the cook might be yelling for him to carry the luncheon into the dining-room, Henry turned a deaf ear to her entreaties. Snatching up his butterfly-net, he would dart through the window in hot pursuit. As these great butterflies fly like Handley Pages, he had his work cut out for him, and running is exhausting in a temperature of 90 degrees. The usual hour for luncheon would be long past, and the table would still exhibit a virgin expanse of white cloth. Somewhere in the dim distance we could descry a slim young figure bounding along hot-foot, with butterfly-net poised aloft, so we possessed our souls in patience. Eventually Henry would reappear, moist but triumphant, or dripping and despondent, according to his success or failure with his shimmering quarry. After such violent exercise, Henry had to have a plunge in the swimming-bath and a complete change of clothing before he could resume his duties, all of which occasioned some little further delay. And this would happen every day, so our repasts may be legitimately described as "movable feasts." It was no use speaking to Henry. He would promise to be less forgetful, but the next butterfly that came flitting along drove all good resolves out of this ardent young entomologist's head, and off he would go on flying feet in eager pursuit. I recommended Henry when he returned to England to take up cross-country running seriously. He seemed to have unmistakable aptitudes for it.
The streets of Petropolis were planted with avenues of a flowering tree imported from the Southern Pacific. When in bloom, this tree was so covered with vivid pink blossoms that all its leaves were hidden. These rows of bright pink trees gave the dull little town a curious resemblance to a Japanese fan.
There are some lovely little nooks and corners in the Organ Mountains. One ravine in particular was most beautiful, with a cascade dashing down the cliff, and the clear brook below it fringed with eucharis lilies, and the tropical begonias which we laboriously cultivate in stove-houses. Unfortunately, these beauty spots seemed as attractive to snakes as they were to human beings. This entailed keeping a watchful eye on the ground, for Brazilian snakes are very venomous.
No greater contrast can be imagined than that between the forests and mountains of steamy Brazil and the endless, treeless, dead-flat levels of the Argentine Republic, twelve hundred miles south of them.
When I first knew Buenos Ayres in the early "'eighties," it still retained an old-world air of distinction. The narrow streets were lined with sombre, dignified old buildings of a markedly Spanish type, and the modern riot of over-ornate ginger-bread architecture had not yet transformed the city into a glittering, garish trans-Atlantic pseudo-Paris. In the same way newly-acquired wealth had not begun to assert itself as blatantly as it has since done.
I confess that I was astonished to find two daily English newspapers in Buenos Ayres, for I had not realised the size and importance of the British commercial colony there.