shelters for animals and small houses for the farmers. A unique case in a different genre is the Carioca Aqueduct, a large civil work for conducting water, erected between the 17th and 18th centuries, located in Rio de Janeiro, 270 m long and 17 m high. Few of the official buildings have survived without alterations. One of the most significant is the former City Council and Jail House in Ouro Preto, today the Inconfidência Museum, with a rich façade where there is a portico with columns, an access staircase, a tower, ornamental statues and a stonework structure. Also important is the Imperial Palace in Rio, former residence of the royal family. One of the most compelling and unpassionate accounts of the civil architecture of colonial Brazil is that of the English writer Maria Graham, who was in the three main Brazilian economic centers at the time (Recife, Salvador and Rio de Janeiro). In her work "Diário de uma viagem ao Brasil e de uma estada nesse país durante parte dos anos de 1821, 1822 e 1823", are her impressions when visiting Recife, Salvador and Rio de Janeiro - fresh out of the colonial period. She also wrote about the architecture of the three main Brazilian economic centers at the time (Recife, Salvador and Rio de Janeiro). In Recife, the first city visited by Maria Graham in Brazil, the tall colonial sobrados caught her attention: "The streets are paved partly with blue pebbles from the beach and partly with red or gray granite. The houses are three or four stories high (four or five floors), made of light stone and are all whitewashed, with the door and window frames of brownstone. The first floor consists of stores or lodgings for blacks or stables, the upper floor is generally suitable for offices and warehouses. The apartments for residence are higher up, with the kitchen generally at the top. This way the lower part of the house stays cool. I was surprised to see how much it was possible to leave the house without suffering the ravages of heat being so close to the equator, but the constant sea breeze that is felt here daily at 10 am maintains a temperature under which it is always possible to exercise. (...) There can be nothing more beautiful in the genre than the vivid green panorama, with the wide river winding through it, and which