work before the sun’s rays gain their full strength. The sound of voices and the faint echoes of hundreds of busy hammers in the sheds upon the neighbouring island blend with the music of the birds. Nature, art, and industry are brought into closest contact upon the twin islets of Vianna and Santa Cruz. Order, taste, and industry have transformed one of them from an overgrown, chaotic, mangrove fringed wilderness into an Eden. A Chinese writer who, centuries ago, in answer to the question “What is it we seek in the possession of a pleasure garden?” said, “The art of laying out gardens consists in an endeavour to combine cheerfulness of aspect, luxuriance of growth, shade, solitude, and repose, in such a manner that the senses may be deluded by an imitation of nature. Diversity, which is the main advantage in a judicious choice of soil, an alternation of chains of hills and valleys, gorges, brooks, and lakes covered with aquatic plants. Symmetry is wearying, and ennui and disgust will soon be excited in a garden where every part betrays contrival art.” Had the writer of these lines seen Santa Cruz as it is to-day he would have been satisfied that it fulfilled all the requirements necessary to a perfect garden. [Illustration: SANTA CRUZ.] CHAPTER XXV _Some Excursions from Rio_ The vast territories which amalgamated to form the United States of Brazil suffer more than anything else from the lack of that railway communication which has opened up the beauties and resources of the country immediately surrounding the Federal capital.