Most of its streets are narrow and tortuous and until recently were considered unhealthy.  A few years ago the magnificent Avenida Central was cut through the heart of the city and one of the most beautiful avenues in the world was built.  Twelve million dollars’ worth of property was condemned to make way for this splendid street.  It cuts across a peninsula through the heart of the city from shore to shore, and is magnificent, indeed, with its sidewalks wrought in beautiful geometrical designs, with its ornate street lamps, with its generous width appearing broader by contrast with other narrow streets, with its modern buildings.

There is another street, however, which is dearer to the Brazilian than the Avenida.  He takes great pride in the Avenida, but he has peculiar affection for the Rua d’Ouvidor.  Down the Ouvidor flows a human tide such as is found nowhere else in Brazil.  No one attempts to keep on the pavement.  The street is given over entirely to pedestrians.  No vehicle ever passes down it until after midnight.  In this narrow street, with its attractive shops filled with the highest-priced goods in the world, you can soon find anyone you wish to meet, because before long everyone who can reach it will pass through.  In this street the happy, jesting, jostling crowd is in one continuous “festa”.

In passing through the city one is greatly impressed by the number of parks and beautiful public squares, and in particular with the wonderful Beiramar, which is a combination of promenades, driveways and park effects that stretches for miles along the shore of the bay.  What a thing of beauty this last-named park is!  There is nothing comparable to it anywhere.  When Rio wishes to go on a grand “passeio” (promenade) nothing but the grand Beiramar will suffice.

One cannot help being impressed also by the prevalence of coffee-drinking stands and stores—­especially if he meets many friends.  These friends will insist upon taking him into a coffee stand and engaging him in conversation while they sip coffee.  On many corners are little round or octagonal pagoda-like structures in which coffee and cakes are sold.  The coffee-drinking places are everywhere and most of them are usually filled.  The practice of taking coffee with one’s friends must lessen materially the amount of strong drink consumed by the Brazilian.  Nevertheless, that amount of strong drink is, alas, altogether too great.

The greatest nuisance on the streets of Rio, or any other city of Brazil, is the lottery ticket seller.  These venders are more numerous and more insistent than are the newsboys in the United States.  There are all sorts of superstitions about lotteries.  Certain images in one’s dreams at night are said to correspond to certain lucky numbers.  Dogs, cats, horses, cows and many other animals have certain numbers corresponding to them.  For instance, if one should dream tonight about a dog, he would try tomorrow to find a lottery ticket to correspond in