Its location is delightfully picturesque, the upper section built on bluffs several hundred feet above the level of the bay, the lower along the shore. In this lower section, behind the docks, are the warehouses and factories, the arsenal and a great lighthouse, and, aside from defensive works of modern type, the old fortifications which the Dutch had made the most formidable in America in colonial times; and on the upper terraces are the Governor’s palace and public buildings, one of the best public libraries in the country, the cathedral and convents, the municipal theater, and the better class of residences and amusement resorts. In general, the streets are much like those of Belém and Pernambuco: paved with cobblestones and narrow in the shopping and café districts, with long white rows of two and three story houses built closely together, many with balconies above the show windows; and the parks are as beautiful and the residences out along the wide, palm-lined driveways are fully as sumptuous. But, interesting as are all these places, their attractions are fairly dimmed by Rio’s, and especially by her gorgeous bay. From the Guianas to its southernmost boundaries, in fact, Brazil is one grand series of prismatic forests, majestic rivers and cascades, immense rolling plains and mountains—a panorama that is matchless anywhere in the world—but, if I were asked to point out some one feature that was preëminent among them all, I should not hesitate to select that bay. The bay of Naples, the Golden Horn of Constantinople, all those wonderful aspects by the mention of which writers have sought to impress those who have not seen the Rio bay with its grandeur and beauty, can but suffer by the comparison. “Extravagant language must be used in writing of it,” says Burton Holmes, “for there all is extravagance—extravagance of color, extravagance of form.” It is so incomparably sublime, says the Rev. James C. Fletcher, the author of one of the most noted of the descriptions—though no pen or brush could possibly do it justice—that “the first entrance must mark an era in the life of any one. I have seen the rude and ignorant Russian sailor, the immoral and unreflecting Australian adventurer, as well as the refined and cultivated European gentleman, stand silent on the deck, lost in admiration of the gigantic avenue of mountains and palm-covered isles, which, like the granite pillars of the Temple of Luxor, form a fitting colonnade to the portal of the finest bay in the world.”