And then, up near the business section again, there is the Paseio Publico, with its park and lakes and broad waterside terrace overlooking the whole southern part of the harbor, and the naval barracks and fortifications on historic Villegagnon, quite close at this point. It was here that the adventurer for whom it is named made the first attempt at colonizing the neighborhood: with a party of Huguenots sent over by Admiral Coligny to escape religious persecutions in France and to found a place of refuge for those of the Protestant faith. The Paseio Publico is regarded by many as the most charming of the parks, but there are lots of these beautiful spots. One of them, the Botanical Garden, which is larger and more complete than the one in Belém, is known the world over from the thousands of pictures that have been published of its magnificent avenue of royal palms. Few visit Rio without going there; and now that a good cog-wheel railroad has been built from one of the trolley lines up to the summit of Corcovado, the whole mountain side has become a wildwood park. With reference to the view from the summit, I cannot resist quoting from Arthur Ruhl, who describes it so delightfully. “The Corcovado is a rock jutting over the trees,” he says, “so sheer that you look down on Rio and the blue harbor as from a balloon—down two thousand feet of velvet green descents to the terra cotta roofs and sun-washed walls and the wheel-spoke streets like lines on a map. Not one of our smoke hives, but a city of villas and palms and showering vines and flowers, meandering about over the foothills, immersed in the blazing sun. The cool, laughing sea envelops it—blue, and bluer yet in the sun; and, all about in it, islands—agate in turquoise—jut out as though the gods had tossed a handful in the water. It is, as I heard an American say of the backward look toward Rio as the train climbs to Petropolis, as though one had been taken up into the mountains to see the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them.” Petropolis, though, is not simply another viewpoint, but one of the loveliest of the suburban mountain cities, where the late Emperor lived, surrounded by the ambassadors and ministers of the foreign countries and the nobility and aristocracy of the old régime. It is still the home of the diplomatic corps, and the most fashionable of the suburbs.