The regular liners to Montevideo, and the several local and coasting
steamers, come to off Buenos Ayres, 100 miles to the southeastward. The
extensive harbor works, for the purpose of making the city a deep-water
port, at once excite admiration. Both Montevideo and Buenos Ayres
are attractive cities of regular streets, many substantial houses,
public buildings with Italian marble façades, Spanish cathedrals,
and extensive suburbs of handsome residences surrounded by beautiful
gardens. The mean temperature of the two places, 63°, corresponds with
that of Palermo and Rome. The business of Montevideo is good, the
imports of merchandise, machinery, and manufactured articles exceeding
$22,000,000, and the exports of hides, horns, wool, and beef being
valued at $15,000,000. The trade of Buenos Ayres is much larger, the
imports being valued at $88,000,000, the exports at $65,000,000.
The traveller for Rio Janeiro can take a coasting line if he desires
to visit southern Brazil; otherwise, any one of the big mail ships
will make the run of 1,150 miles in 6 days. The port of Rio, large,
deep, and the most beautiful in the world, is entered by a channel a
mile and a half wide, defended by forts. Inside the bay is 17 miles
long by 10 miles broad. The town is most attractive from the water.
It is especially picturesque at night, when the arrangement of the
innumerable gas-lights distinctly outlines the entire city, built on
a gentle incline toward the bay. The streets are narrow, badly paved,
and not over-clean. The traveller will find that he can get on well
enough if he talk French, for there is a certain French air about
the community. Many of the stores have French signs, nearly all the
shopkeepers speak French, it is the language of the hotel clerks, the
opera bouffe sings it, and the black-eyed señoritas murmur it.
Rio is connected with Europe by 12 regular lines of steamships, and
with the United States by 3. New York being the traveller’s objective
port, he should take passage on board one of the vessels of the United
States & Brazil Mail Steamship Company, flying the American flag. Since
leaving Panama, 40 odd days ago, the tourist has steamed over 7,000
miles of ocean highway, yet throughout all this time and distance, he
has never once seen the stars-and-stripes. The ships of the United
States & Brazil Mail Steamship Company are despatched monthly from Rio,
making stops at Bahia, Pernambuco, Maranham, and Para in Brazil. At
Para a most interesting route is offered by regular steamers running
up the Amazon to Manaos, 1,000 miles away; thence, irregular vessels
go 2,000 miles farther. From Para the United States & Brazil Company
makes Barbadoes, of the Windward Isles, in 5 days—a healthy, delightful
winter resort, where a mean daily temperature of 80° is tempered by the
steady northeast trade-winds.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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