We ordered for them a bucket or two of fresh water, and after resting a few moments, directed the postillion to drive on; but not a step would he budge. Here was a poser, a sort of crisis in our affairs, as political leaders say when they wish to rally the strength of their party. We gave our postillion one minute in which to decide whether he would drive us to the Garden, or be ousted from his seat to make room for another who would drive us there. He waited till the last second, and then started off sulkily, as one in doubt whether to fight or yield. At last we reached the little hotel near the Garden, where we alighted, and directed the keeper to take the best care of the horses. In the mean time, we pushed into a neighboring grove, where we indulged in the luxuries of a lunch, which our provident purser had brought from the ship, and for which our ride had given us a keen appetite. This finished, and a few segars whiffed off, we directed a dinner, and proceeded to the Garden.
This refreshing retreat from the heat and dust of the city, derives its leading attractions from its location. Beyond rolls the sea, and over it towers the lofty Corcovada. It occupies some fifty acres, and is intersected by winding walks, which are overhung with forest shade. Several of the plats are devoted to the cultivation of the tea-plant, which had been introduced by the father of the present emperor. Although the plant has never succeeded to perfection, it has approached it sufficiently to have satisfied the good ladies of Boston, whose husbands had thrown their Chinese dreams into the sea. What a scene such an interference with the phlegathontic weed would create around our hearths! Think you our ladies would so quietly have taken to spearmint and sage? But let that pass.
In other plats we met with the cinnamon, the red pepper, and the clove, all in fruit. But aromatics are the last plants that will consent to carry their fragrance with them into foreign climes. The walks are overhung with the mango, the orange, the marmosa, and dark olive, while the croton and plantain cast in every coppice the deep umbrage of their forest gloom.
On one side of the garden a silver-footed streamlet dashes down the steeps of the Corcovada, like a girl escaping from a crabbed aunt for Gretna Green. Near this rises an elliptical mound, crowned with a beautiful bower of the arbor vitæ. This vivacious shrub allows itself to be twisted into a thousand fantastic shapes, without a thought of dying. In this bower, which is so thickly interlaced as to exclude the sun, I sought a wicker couch, and, lulled by the lapse of the waters, and the melody of a mourning bird, fell asleep, and dreamed of
“Groves, whose rich trees wept odorous gums and balm,
Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose.”
We returned to the hotel, discussed a very indifferent dinner, ordered up our carriage, and started on our return to the city. The evening came in with a soft beautiful twilight. We passed many family groups seated in the front yards of their houses enjoying the hour. Here and there was one who had deeper thoughts than her younger sisters, and whose large black eyes were often turned to the climbing moon.
We called on our return upon Mr. Furgeson, our naval store-keeper at Rio, a situation which he fills with a fidelity and business tact, which have the merited confidence of the department.
The evening had well advanced when we reached the city. We discharged our postillion in the same sulky humor in which he had been all day. He had the look and air of an old pirate, thrown by some freak of fortune into livery, and upon the box of a coach instead of the scaffold. All his ill temper arose from the fact that we had not promised him a gratuity. We had engaged to give his employer twelve dollars for the carriage, and we should not have forgotten him had he been civil and obliging. His conduct, like that of most people when they get out of temper, worked him only evil.
Ill fortune rides ill will where’er it leads.