The regular residence of the imperial family may be said to be the Palace of Christovao, about half an hour’s walk from the town.  It is there that the emperor spends most of the year, and where also all political councils are held, and state business transacted.

The palace is small, and is distinguished neither for taste nor architectural beauty:  its sole charm is its situation.  It is placed upon a hill, and commands a view of the Organ mountain, and one of the bays.  The palace garden itself is small, and is laid out in terraces right down into the valley below:  a larger garden, that serves as a nursery for plants and trees, joins it.  Both these gardens are highly interesting for Europeans, since they contain a great number of plants, which either do not exist at all in Europe, or are only known from dwarf specimens in hot-houses.  Herr Riedl, who has the management of both gardens, was kind enough to conduct us over them himself, and to draw my attention more especially to the tea and bamboo plantations.

Ponte de Cascher(four miles from the town) is another imperial garden.  There are three mango trees here, which are very remarkable, from their age and size.  Their branches describe a circle of more than eighty feet in circumference, but they no longer bear fruit.  Among the most agreeable walks in the immediate vicinity of the town, I may mention the Telegraph mountain, the public garden (Jardin publico), the Praya do Flamingo, and the Cloisters of St. Gloria and St. Theresia, etc.

I had heard so much in Rio Janeiro of the rapid rise of Petropolis, a colony founded by Germans in the neighbourhood of Rio Janeiro, of the beauty of the country where it was situated, and of the virgin forests through which a part of the road ran—­that I could not resist the temptation of making an excursion thither.  My travelling companion, Count Berchthold, accompanied me; and, on the 26th September, we took two places on board one of the numerous barks which sail regularly every day for the Porto d’Estrella, (a distance of twenty or twenty-two nautical miles), from which place the journey is continued by land.  We sailed through a bay remarkable for its extremely picturesque views, and which often reminded me vividly of the peculiar character of the lakes in Sweden.  It is surrounded by ranges of lovely hills, and is dotted over with small islands, both separate and in groups, some of which are so completely overgrown with palms, as well as other trees and shrubs, that it seems impossible to land upon them, while others either rear their solitary heads like huge rocks from the waves, or are loosely piled one upon the other.  The round form of many of the latter is especially remarkable:  they almost seem to have been cut out with a chisel.