TO THE RIO GRANDE DE BELMONTE. 



253 



our arrival ; the negroes, who were just then assembled to dance 

 to the music of their drum, immediately flocked round to look 

 at the strangers. The whole room was soon filled with these slaves, 

 who were young, well made, and many of them tall and robust ; but 

 the steward had not authority sufficient to relieve us travellers, weary 

 as we were, from these troublesome visitors. I stopped here a few 

 days, and found an opportunity of visiting in the forest the huts of 

 the Patachos, which had been but lately abandoned by their inhabit- 

 ants : some Indians from Comechatiba conducted me thither. 



The sea forms at this part a good harbour, which is protected, not 

 indeed from the winds, but against the sea, by a reef of rocks, has 

 good anchorage, and the advantage that its entrance is pointed out to 

 mariners by a mark. The surf casts up on the sandy beach number- 

 less varieties of fucus, corallines, and other zoophytes, but only a 

 few species of conchylia. In the evening twilight, the great vampyre, 

 OY guandira, ( phyllostomm spectrum^) flew about in great numbers, 

 and maybe easily mistaken, when on the wing, for a small owl. Our 

 mules were wounded by some of them, and bled profusely. This pro- 

 pensity of the larger species of bats in the torrid zone, to suck the 

 blood of animals, is thought by the people of Brazil to be common 

 to all the smaller species; but I met with no confirmation of the 

 assertion that they also attack man in the same manner. The In- 

 dians residing here subsist on the produce of their plantations, by 

 hunting, and especially by fishing ; hence they are frequently seen in 

 calm weather at sea in their canoes. They bring back large quantities 

 offish; and the shells, skulls and bones of the great turtles, (tarta- 

 rugasj lie scattered about their habitations. 



To the north of Comechatiba the sea is again bordered by high 

 steep cliffs and rocks, which at one place project so far into the water, 

 that it is necessary to make a considerable circuit over the heights, on 

 the top of which is a flat that bears the name of Imbassuaba. It is a 



