Not only are the streets narrow and dirty, but they are also badly lighted and worse paved, notwithstanding the city is immediately surrounded by mountains of the most beautiful granite. The houses are very substantially built, for the most part of granite, consisting principally of only two or three stories. It contains several fine churches, but few of them are so situated as to be seen to advantage. That of Nossa Senhora da Gloria is one of the most conspicuous, being placed on a rounded hill of the same name, that juts into the sea between the city and the Praia de Flamengo. Besides the churches there are many other public buildings, among which may be mentioned the Monastery of San Bento, near the harbour, the Convent of Santa Thereza on the brow of a hill, beside the noble aqueduct by which the water for the supply of the city is conveyed from the mountains, a Mint, an Opera House, a Theatre, a public Library, which is said to contain about one hundred thousand volumes, a Museum of Natural History, a Medical School, two Hospitals, and, what the inhabitants boast very much of, the Camara dos Senadores, which is equivalent to our House of Lords. It is a very handsome building, which was erected a few years ago on the north side of the Campo de Santa Anna. Scattered through the city there are some fine fountains, to which water is conveyed by an aqueduct. One of them is in the palace square, for the supply of the ships in the harbour. The aqueduct itself is upwards of six miles in length, and is terminated city-wards by a magnificent row of double arches. From an eminence within the city, called the Castle Hill, a fine view both of the city and bay is obtained. It also commands a delightful prospect of the country on the opposite side of the bay, with the city of Nitherohy, or Praia Grande, in the foreground, and the lofty Organ mountains towering in the distance to the left. There are many parts of the country in the immediate neighbourhood of Rio, which remind a Scotchman of some of the highland scenery of his native country, but with this difference, that, whilst there the mountains are bleak and barren, here they are covered to their summits with a luxuriant tropical vegetation.