Being a fine evening, they proceeded on foot.  In about an hour after setting out they approached the village, which lay in a beautiful valley below them.  Sounds of mirth and music rose like a distant murmur on the air, and mingled with the songs of birds and insects.  Then the sun went down, and in a few minutes it grew dark, while the brilliant fire-flies began their nocturnal gambols.  Suddenly a bright flame burst over the village, and a flight of magnificent rockets shot up into the sky, and burst in a hundred bright and variously-coloured stars, which paled for a few seconds the lights of nature.  But they vanished in a moment, and the clear stars shed abroad their undying lustre,—­seeming, in their quiet, unfading beauty, a gentle satire on the short-lived and gairish productions of man.

“Mighty purty, no doubt,” exclaimed Barney.  “Is this the Imperor’s birth-day?”

“No,” replied the hermit, shaking his head; “that is the way in which the false priests amuse the people.  The poor Indian and the Negro, and, indeed, the ignorant Brazilian, thinks it very grand; and the priests let them think it is pleasing to the God of heaven.  Ah! here comes an old Negro; we will ask him.”

Several country people, in varied and picturesque costumes, hurried past the travellers towards the village; and as they came to a foot-path that joined the road, an old Negro approached them.  Saluting him in the Portuguese language, the hermit said, “Friend, why do they let off rockets to-night?”

“For Dios” (for God), answered the old man, looking and pointing upwards with grave solemnity.  Without vouchsafing another word, he hurried away.

“So they think,” said the hermit, “and so they are taught by the priests.  Music, noise, and fire-works please these ignorant people; and so the priests, who are mostly as ignorant as the people, tell them it is a good part of religious ceremony.”

Presently a band of young girls came laughing and singing along the road.  They were dressed in pure white, their rich black tresses being uncovered and ornamented with flowers, and what appeared to be bright jewels.

“Hallo!” exclaimed Martin, gazing after them; “what splendid jewels! surely these must be the daughters of very rich people.”

“Och, but they’ve been at the di’mond mines for certain!  Did iver ye sae the like?”

The girls did indeed seem to blaze with jewels, which not only sparkled in their hair, but fringed their white robes, and were worked round the edges of their slippers; so that a positive light shone around their persons, and fell upon the path like a halo, giving them more the appearance of lovely supernatural beings than the daughters of earth.

“These jewels,” said the hermit, “were never polished by the hands of men.  They are fire-flies.”

“Fire-flies!” exclaimed Martin and Barney simultaneously.

“Yes, they are living fire-flies.  The girls very often catch them and tie them up in little bits of gauze, and put them, as you see, on their dresses and in their hair.  To my mind they seem more beautiful far than diamonds.  Sometimes the Indians, when they travel at night, fix fire-flies to their feet, and so have good lamps to their path.”