TEOPICAT, 8CENEBY. ■‘Oft 
and tlieir bare trunks, like columns of _ a hundred or a 
hundred and twenty feet high, shoot up into the air, and 
when seen in distinct relief against the azure vault of the 
sky, they resemble a forest planted upon another forest. 
When, as the moon was going down behind the mountains 
of TJniana, her reddish disc was hidden behind the pinnated 
foliage of the palm-trees, and again appeared in the aerial 
zone that separates the two forests, 1. thought myself trans- 
ported for a few moments to the hermitage which Bernardin 
de Saint-Pierre has described as one cf the most delicious 
scenes of the Isle of Bourbon, and 1 felt how much the 
aspect of the plants and their groupings resembled each 
other in the two worlds. In describing a small spot of land 
in an island of the Indian Ocean, the inimitable author of 
Paul and Virginia has sketched the vast picture ot the land- 
scape of the tropics. He knew how to paint nature, not 
because he had studied it scientifically, hut because he felt 
it in all its harmonious analogies of forms, colours, and 
interior powers. 
East of the Atures, near these rounded mountains crowned, 
as it were, by two superimposed forests ot laurels and 
pahns, other mountains of a very different aspect arise. 
Their ridge is bristled with pointed rocks, towering like 
Pillars above the summits of the trees and shrubs, lliese 
effects are common to all granitic table-lands, at the Ilarz, 
in the metalliferous mountains of Bohemia, in Galicia, on 
^e limit of the two Castiles, or wherever a granite oi new 
formation appears above the ground. The rocks, which are 
at distances from each other, are composed of blocks piled 
together, or divided into regular and horizontal beds. On 
tile summits of those situated near the Orinoco, flamingos. 
s °ldados* and other fishing-birds perch, and look like men 
Posted as sentinels. This resemblance is so striking, that 
tjie inhabitants of Angostura, soon after the foundation ot 
their city, were one day alarmed by the sudden appearance 
soldaclos and rjarzas , on a mountain towards the south, 
-tiiey believed they were menaced with an attack oi Indios 
°nteros (wild Indians called mountaineers ) ; and the people 
'' ere not perfectly tranquillized, till they saw the birds soar- 
* The soldado (soldier) is a *arge species of heron. 
