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.
