204 RAG-TIME AND TANGO
the mad outline of the Sugarloaf stands at the gate of Rio
like Phil May's lunatic, inviting visitors to come inside.
And once inside, you are soon past surprise. The hand
of Nature (powerfully aided by the hand of man) stuns new
arrivals into a sort of happy dream where anything may
happen. Suburban streets end suddenly against the grey
flank of a lonely mountain that has somehow got forgotten
in a residential neighbourhood; roads climb out of a
shopping district into the dripping silence of a forest in
the tropics, where the big lianas hang and unimagined
flowers blaze in the shadow of the trees, and drivers of on-
coming traffic are apt to be slightly bewildered by enormous
blue butterflies flapping slowly towards them ; and a road-
tunnel full of trams opens incredibly upon the sudden blue
of unexpected bays that curve between a line of big Atlantic
rollers and a tall plantation, where the palms are full of
enthusiasts watching Association football In such sur-
roundings it should plainly cause no surprise to drive straight
up a mountain (taking train for the last vertical ascent) and
to emerge into the sunshine of the summit in full view of all
the kingdoms of the earth, Speaking for myself, I have
little taste for these vertiginous exploits; but if vertigo is
ever worth enduring, sufferers are richly rewarded at the
top of Corcovado. The ruled streets of Rio, the curving
beaches, and the wild tumult of the mountains are all
spread before them in clear Brazilian light. Rectangular
town-planning offers few attractions to the eye, though it is
fascinating to observe the ingenuity that has contrived to
fit a tiny grid-iron of streets into every interstice between
the mountains, But the blue bays edged with a white
line of breakers and the mounting madness of the hills
that march away into Brazil are a splendour to the eye,
as the morning sunshine looks down quietly upon grey
mountain-sides, the vivid green of tropical tree-tops, and
the blue ocean,
Such, in barest outline, is the background of Rio; arid
what city could fail to give a rare performance on such a