TRAVELS IN BRAZIL. 249 



ignes fatui, and the blood-sucking bats * hover 

 like phantoms in the profound darkness of the 

 night. 



Inanimate nature too presents a beautiful and 

 sublime picture in its long-extending mountain 

 ridges, thickly wooded to the summits. The Serra 

 dos Orgaos, and all the parts of the same range, 

 which, branching out in different directions, runs 

 along the sea-coast northwards through the district 

 of Canta-Gallo to Porto-Seguro and Bahia, and 

 southwards to Santos, &c., consists of granite. In 

 the forest of Mandiocca, towards the mountain, 

 there are uncommonly large blocks of this kind of 

 rock, which have rolled down from the summits 

 of the mountains ; their clefts afford shelter to 

 numbers of coatis and black weasels t ; and a great 

 variety of begonia, heliconia, and drostenia grow 

 under their shady projections. At the first sight 

 we fancied both here and in the neighbourhood of 

 Rio that we saw the granite, which in our own 

 country forms the mountain chain from Passau 

 along the frontiers of Bohemia, so extraordinary is 

 the resemblance between that in the new world 

 and that in the old. Among the few varieties 

 which we had occasion to observe, one consists of 

 much reddish or light smoke-coloured felspar, a 

 little smoky quartz, and pretty much black small 



* Vespertilio brasiliensis Geof. ; Glossophaga amplexicauda 

 Geof. 

 f Muetela barbara. 



