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Updated: June 5, 2025
The colony of Petropolis is situated in the midst of a virgin forest, at an elevation of 2,500 feet above the level of the sea, and, at the time of our visit, it had been founded about fourteen months, with the especial purpose of furnishing the capital with certain kinds of fruit and vegetables, which, in tropical climates, will thrive only in very high situations.
At last we came to an opening in the wood, whence we had a splendid view seawards, and where it was decided to turn round and retrace our steps through the forest. After walking some distance we found our horses waiting, and after a hot but pleasant ride reached Petropolis by twelve o'clock, in time for breakfast.
Tuesday, August 22nd. We were called at half-past five, and, after a hasty breakfast, started on horseback by seven o'clock for the Virgin Forest, about six miles from Petropolis. After leaving the town and its suburbs, we pursued our way by rough winding paths, across which huge moths and butterflies flitted, and humming-birds buzzed in the almond-trees.
I had heard so much in Rio Janeiro of the rapid rise of Petropolis, a colony founded by Germans in the neighbourhood of Rio Janeiro, of the beauty of the country where it was situated, and of the virgin forests through which a part of the road ran that I could not resist the temptation of making an excursion thither.
The car came within twenty feet of us, for the track had been quite hidden by some rising ground; we hailed it, and returned to Petropolis prosaically seated on the front bench of a tramcar. We afterwards found that the untrodden wilds of our virgin forest were traversed by a regular hourly service of tramcars; alas for vanished illusions!
At eleven o'clock we started for the Petropolis steamer, which took us alongside a wooden pier, from the end of which the train started, and we were soon wending our way through sugar and coffee plantations, formed in the midst of the forest of palms and other tropical trees.
Letter-writing and butterfly-catching occupied the afternoon until four o'clock, when I was taken out for a drive in a comfortable little phaeton, with a pretty pair of horses, while the rest of the party walked out to see a little more of Petropolis and its environs.
The descent towards Petropolis then commenced; it lies in the hollow of the hills, with a river flowing through the centre of its broad streets, on either side of which are villas and avenues of noble trees. Altogether it reminded me of Bagnères-de-Luchon, in the Pyrenees, though the general effect is unfortunately marred by the gay and rather too fantastic painting of some of the houses.
In another epigram he derides the city itself, calling it contemptuously "Urbicula"; and he suggests, with a humour that to modern ideas savours of irreverence, that this little city of S. Peter's, "Petropolis," unless S. Peter had the keys, would run away through its own gates.
Every one, both in Petropolis and the capital, was so astonished at the manner in which our lives had been attempted, that if we had not been able to show our wounds we should never have been believed. The fellow was at first thought to have been drunk or insane, and it was not till later that we learned the real motives of his conduct.
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