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VIEWS FROM A TRIP AROUND THE WORLD
#31 - RIO JANEIRO, BRAZIL
Size: 3" x 5"
Copyrighted: 1891
Lithographer: Joseph P. Knapp
  
Illustrations: Avenue in Rio Janeiro; A Missionary; A Cook
| Reverse - Text |
Left section:
GRIND
YOUR COFFEE AT HOME
Right section: |
| RIO de JANEIRO, BRAZIL. |
| Rio de Janeiro
(colloquially shortened to
"Rio"), is the Capital
of Brazil and one of the
principal seaports of South
America. Its location is on the
western side of one of the finest
natural harbors in the world--the
Bay of Naples, the Golden Horn of
Constantinople, and the Bay of
Rio de Janeiro being mentioned by
the traveled tourist, as equally
remarkable for their extent and
the beauty and sublimity of their
scenery; but the other two must
yield the palm to this
magnificent sheet of water,
which, in a climate of perpetual
summer, is enclosed by ranges of
picturesque mountains and dotted
over with verdure-covered islands
of the tropics. It has been
called the very gate to a
tropical paradise. |
| Rio,
with its environs, constitutes an
independent municipality, with an
area of about 540 square miles,
divided into nineteen frequezias
or parishes. The bay, called by
the natives Nitherohi or
"hidden water," was
discovered in January, its name
resulting from the supposition
that it was the mouth of a large
river. The city became the
Capital of the Vice-Royalty of
Portugal in 1763, after many
harsh vicissitudes of attack and
defeat from the Spanish and
Portugese powers. |
| From
the centre of the city the
suburbs extend about four miles
in each of three directions. A
bird's-eye view from a point
midway between the convent
turrets on the hill of San Bento
and the Signal-staff of Morro do
Castello (which overlooks the
mouth of the harbor), would
reveal the city spread beneath,
with its steeples and towers,
public buildings, parks, and
vermilion chimneyless roofs, and
its aqueducts spanning the spaces
between the seven green
hills--making a gigantic mosaic,
bordered on one side by the
mountains, on the other by the
blue waters of the bay. |
| Rio
de Janeiro is the market through
which the bulk of the Brazilian
coffee crop passes, and from
there it is shipped by water to
the various countries of the
world. |
| As
high as 4,700,000 bags of coffee
have been received there in one
year from the surrounding
plantations, the bulk of which is
exported to the United States. |
| Population 1885, 357,332. |
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