ON BOARD THE AORANGI.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVI, Issue 12, 13 July 1888, Page 11

ON BOARD THE AORANGI.

The following extracts are taken from a letter received from Mr. Patrick Barrett, of Chrishchurch, and began on board the s.s. Aorangi at Tenenle on March 11 :— We got to Rio on the evening of Good Friday, and left next day about 4 p.m. I went ashore with Mr. Warnor. We went to Carson Hotel. Everything in Rio ia very dear- We had to pay 8i each for bed, 8s for dinner, ard 49 for breakfast ; in all £1 each for our stay there. Rio is a very pretty city, unlike anything 1 ever saw before. There are several large open squares like Cathedral Square in different parts. The Botanical Gardens are very pretty, chteiy on account of the different kinds of flowers and ferns and trees, but they are not as large as the gardens of Christchurch. The cathedral is %i immense building. All round the interior are carvings and itatuea of the Blessed Virgin and different faints. There are no seats, everybody stands, or brings a cushion and sits on it; or else sits on the floor or round the edges of the pillars. . . . The ttreeta of Rio are paved with rousjh stone. They are very busy and full of life. I thonght Sydney was a wonderful place for trams, but it is just like Christchurch compared with Rio. All the trams are drawn by mules ; in fact, all the horse work i 9 done by mules. There are double lines of trams always passing up and down to almost all parts of the city. They are nearly always full. I only saw two horses there, except the six horses the Governor had in his carriage. It is wonderful how these little mules manage to pull a load up a steep hill that we would have a draught horse to do. ... The harbour at Rio is one of the largest in the world, but I do not think it is nearly as pretty as the Sydney harbour. There is a great deal of shipping done here, chiefly with Buenos Ayres and New York. It is a wonderful place for fruit, but as this is the beginning of the winter season it is not so plentiful as. it has been. The weather was not very cold before we Dassed the Hern, or very warm since. I have felt the days very much colder and hotter at home. We crowed the line six days ago. We have bad a slow passage, as except for the first few days we have had head winds all the way. The biggest run yet has been 328 miles, the second day out ; the lowest 258 miles, yesterday. I expected to be able to post this at Teneriffe, and send it by the Tongariro, but we saw the Tongariro the night before we feOt to Teneriffe on its way to New Zealand. We got to Teneriflj on the 12tb, about 4 o'clock in the morning. The boat was quarantined on account of not being twenty-one days from Rio, and we were not allowed to land. They were finished coaling about 12.30 and we left at one o'clock in the afternoon. We took about twelve saloon passengers from Teneriffe, and are now so crowded out that the captain had to give up one of his berths, and two of the passengers had to sleep in t ha smoking-room. We had a fancy-dress ball two days after we left Rio, and were to have had another after we left Teneriffe but the captain decided it would be better to have a concert so we had a concert instead. We are now in the Bay of Biscay, and are expecting to land tbe mails at Plymouth about daybreak tomorrow (Monday, April 18). The weather is still beautiful, thcugh rather fog?y, bat not nearly so rough as I thought it would be. We saw several thoals of flying fish and porpoises, but only four whales, some of the officers do not think we will land at London until Thursday night. We expect the Arawa will be leaving Plymouth en Thursday so we will just be in time to catch her mails.