llow stripes, croton-oil plants, spotted and
veined caladiums, and dracaenas, the whole being shaded by
orange-trees.

Along the edge of Botafogo Bay there is a delightful drive, beneath a
splendid avenue of imperial palms, extending to the gates of the
Botanical Gardens. Each specimen rises straight up like the column of
an Egyptian temple, and is crowned with a feathery tuft of large shiny
dark green leaves, some thirty feet in length. The clumps of bamboos,
too, were very fine, and nearly all the trees seemed to be full of
curious orchids and parasites of every sort and kind.

We had an agreeable drive back in the cool evening to dinner at the
Hotel de l'Europe. The food was excellent, and included some delicious
tiny queer-shaped oysters, which are found on the mangrove-trees,
overhanging the water higher up the bay. We afterwards went to a
pleasant little reception, where we enjoyed the splendid singing of
some young Brazilian ladies, and the subsequent row off to the yacht,
in the moonlight, was not the least delightful part of the programme.

_Sunday, August 20th_.--At last a really fine day. We could now, for
the first time, thoroughly appreciate the beauties of the noble bay of
Nictheroy, though the distant Organ mountains were still hidden from
our view. In the morning, we went to church on board H.M.S. 'Volage,'
afterwards rowing across the bay to Icaraky, where we took the tramway
to Santa Rosa. On our way we again passed many charming villas and
gardens, similar to those we had admired yesterday, while the glorious
and ever-attractive tropical vegetation abounded everywhere. In spite
of the great heat, the children seemed untiring in the pursuit of
butterflies, of which they succeeded in catching many beautiful
specimens.

_Monday, August 21st_.--After an early breakfast, we started off to
have a look at the market. The greatest bustle and animation
prevailed, and there were people and things to see and observe in
endless variety. The fish-market was full of finny monsters of the
deep, all new and strange to us, whose odd Brazilian names would
convey to a stranger but little idea of the fish themselves. There was
an enormous rockfish, weighing about 300 pounds, with hideous face and
shiny back and fins; there were large ray, and skate, and
cuttle-fish--the _pieuvre_ of Victor Hugo's 'Travailleurs de la
Mer'--besides baskets full of the large prawns for which the coast is
famous, eight or ten inches lon