MAD   METROPOLIS	-         205
stage ? Tremendous avenues of palms stalk through its
streets, like one of Mr. Gladstone's perorations, to a not far-
distant goal; a vast hotel looks comfortably out to. sea
across a road where happy citizens in bathing-suits thread
in and out among the traffic en route for the Copacabana
surf, I retain an unusual tenderness for that hotel, since it
came upon me after a fortnight at sea, and its soft-footed
service of a joyously protracted lunch lives in a grateful
memory. What wine so cool, what cigars half so long, what
cocktails so reviving to a drooping spirit as those absorbed
upon its terrace in full view of the crowding bathers on the
beach in front and a big liner nosing cautiously round the
Sugarloaf into Rio harbour ? Political exile from other
states in South America must be considerably alleviated
by a sojourn at Copacabana. One exile, at any rate, from
a neighbouring republic appeared to find it so, as he hung
enviably absorbed, head down and elbows working happily,
above his salad. And one could find it in one's heart to
pity politicians in Brazil, because when they go into exile,
it cannot be to that incomparable hotel at Copacabana.
Generously refreshed and with that happy consciousness
that the entrance-hall was slightly larger than it had
appeared on our arrival, which indicates that one has
lunched, we left the hospitable building. Some functionary
summoned a car, his efforts supplemented by our large,
imperial gestures ; and we prepared to face the massed sur-
prises of Rio once again. Our nerves were nicely toned to
resist shocks. It was becoming usual with us to switchback
on a coastwise road between the deep Atlantic blue and the
green of jungles, where the waterfalls dripped endlessly
between trees that towered out of sight. Bronze negresses
arrayed in every colour of the spectrum were commonplace
wayfarers now. Nothing was more obvious than that stray
hawkers should hail taxis on quiet country roads with a
view to selling monkeys to their fares. And when our
automobile in a post-prandial mood that answered to our
own proceeded to invade a public park and frisk along its