THE MOST BEAUTIFUL SEAPORT. A Picturesque City Whose People Are Mostly Millionaires.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 404, 21 September 1889, Page 6

THE MOST BEAUTIFUL SEAPORT. A Picturesque City Whose People Are Mostly Millionaires.

Tjie harbour of llio is worthy all the praises that have been sung of it. It is by iar the most beautiful port that I have ever seen, superior in picturesqueness even to the bays of Naples, Sydney or Auckland, which, in my opinion, are its only rhals. Every foot of it presents new and'wonderful pictures, and the peculiar shapes of the mountains that surround it give it a weird and quaint sotting. The lively eiiect of the town itself with its Spanish architecture and red, green, bluo and yellow houses add to the brilliancy of the tcene, which is further enlivened by swarms of shipping and the movements of countless,, fiigate birds, gulls and terns, llio must Be an intensely interesting place to anyqno who could spend some timo in it. It is as pic tuiesque as any town in Spain, and in its mongrel population presents most curous and interesting type? of huirianity. Lifo seems to be easy in Rio. Everybody looks comfortable, fat and happy, and the general indifference of traders ol all classes to transact commercial operations with the visitor seemed to indicate that nobody was short of cash. The prices charged for fruit, curiosities, etc., were something alarming. A shilling for a single mango or fig, sixpenc3 for an orange and Wo shillings for a pineapple — these wero the quotations unblushingly made in the market place where hundreds ot bushels ot fruit were rotting without a purchaser. Naturally, nobody bought anything, but no matter; the dealers shrugged their shoulders and declined to abate. The prices seemed worse when stated in the absurd Portuguese currency which is standard in Brazil. Our party of eight expended the lordly sum ot 17,000 reis (pronounced ' rays ') for breakfast, and felt somewhat as Lucullus or Heliogabalus might after a repast- on nightingale's tonguos and peacocks' brains. Reduced to a Christian system of coinage, the above sum. represents a little less than ten dollars. V\'e each paid 800 reis in tram car fare to the Botanical Gardens and back, and in other directions squandered money as if it had been mere dusb of the earth. I exchanged two sovereigns for coin of tho realm, and for them got 17,800 reis in stamped silver, njpkel, brass, and copper, all of which. 1 managed -to expend befoye noon. I never felt so wealthy in'the whole course of my life. The Government issue? bills, also,, of which e&me thafi I saw were for only 100 reis. Imagine a full-fledged bank note for the value of less than five cents and a half.. Millionaires are naturally plentiful in Rio; the sum of tf54Q: #iH purchase reis enough to give a person that comfortable distinction. We expanded most of our spare change in buying examples' of the famous feather work of Rio, Brazilian fireflies and gorgoous beetles, humming birds and other ! curiosities. Some of the examples of featherwork were amazingly ingenious and beautiful, and imitated sprays of flowers and garlands of leaves in a manner worthy of the cleverest Parisian manufacturers of millinery goods. Altogether, we had a fine time ashore in Rio and never gave the yellow fever a thought. — Corr. Boston Journal.