of parks and beautiful public squares, and in particular with the
wonderful Beiramar, which is a combination of promenades,
driveways and park effects that stretches for miles along the
shore of the bay. What a thing of beauty this last-named park is!
There is nothing comparable to it anywhere. When Rio wishes to go
on a grand "passeio" (promenade) nothing but the grand Beiramar
will suffice.

One cannot help being impressed also by the prevalence of coffee-
drinking stands and stores--especially if he meets many friends.
These friends will insist upon taking him into a coffee stand and
engaging him in conversation while they sip coffee. On many
corners are little round or octagonal pagoda-like structures in
which coffee and cakes are sold. The coffee-drinking places are
everywhere and most of them are usually filled. The practice of
taking coffee with one's friends must lessen materially the amount
of strong drink consumed by the Brazilian. Nevertheless, that
amount of strong drink is, alas, altogether too great.

The greatest nuisance on the streets of Rio, or any other city of
Brazil, is the lottery ticket seller. These venders are more
numerous and more insistent than are the newsboys in the United
States. There are all sorts of superstitions about lotteries.
Certain images in one's dreams at night are said to correspond to
certain lucky numbers. Dogs, cats, horses, cows and many other
animals have certain numbers corresponding to them. For instance,
if one should dream tonight about a dog, he would try tomorrow to
find a lottery ticket to correspond in number with a dog. Say the
dog number was thirty-seven. This man would try to find a ticket
whose number ends in thirty-seven. Such a ticket would be