A history of the Brazil

by James Henderson

District of Arinos.

This comarca, which receives its name from the river that waters it and divides it into two unequal portions, is confined on the north by Tapajonia, on the west by Juruenna, on the south by Cuiaba, and on the east by Tappiraquia. Its length is equal to that of the preceding district, and its width, from east to west, is nearly three hundred miles. A portion of the most southern part of it is commonly called Varges, or Vargeria, where, many years ago, a colony of adventurers settled, but soon afterwards abandoned it, in consequence of the annoyance they experienced from the Indians, and the want of success attending their partial operations in mining.

It is a district very little known, although ascertained to be auriferous. Those who have navigated by the Arinos and Tapajos, state, that it is washed by numerous rivers, almost the whole of which contribute their waters to the enlargement of the two preceding. Its aspect is varied by mountains, and, as far as the eye of the explorer has extended, contains luxuriant and noble woods.

Amongst the nations under whose dominion it hitherto has remained, the Baccuris are well known, who possess the first territory irrigated by the Arinos; also the Manbares, who are wanderers in the land traversed by the river Taburuhina, the first remarkable confluent of the Juruenna on the eastern bank. The Appiacas occupy the centre of the comarca, and have an aldeia with high houses upon the right border of the river Arinos. They are a ferocious people, live by hunting and fishing, and with axes of stone they prepare the timber for the construction of their houses and their canoes. Northward of the last dwell the Cabahibas, who speak the same idiom. It is to be hoped that these tribes, when they begin to experience the advantage of iron instruments and clothing, which they can derive alone from the navigators of this river, will become more civilized, and contribute to the cultivation of those neglected districts.

The river Arinos, which took the name of a nation at present unknown, rises near the origins of the Paraguay, and falls into the sublime Amazon under the name of the Tapajos. In 1805, Joam Vieges accomplished on this river almost the same voyage as its first discoverer, Captain Joam de Souza e Azevedo; and in 1812, Antonio Thomé de Franca also descended by it, and in the following year proceeded up with his fleet of canoes, laden in the city of Para, being the first individual who performed this voyage, unquestionably less laborious and much shorter than that by the river Madeira.

The first considerable river united with the Arinos by the right border is the Rio Preto, which rises between the Paraguay and the Cuiaba, and, by the left, the Sumidor, which originates a little to the north of the Sipotuba. This name is given to it in consequence of disappearing, (after a course of many leagues,) beneath a rock, from whence it issues at no great distance below. A canoe confided to the current at the upper side soon appears at the other. Captain Joam de Souza descended by the Sumidor, and others by the Rio Preto embarking upon it at a situation about ten miles distant from the arraial of Diamantino.

It appears singular that none of these navigators descended by the Arinos from its upper part, which, when it receives the Rio Petro, is larger than that river. All the canoes with which those rivers have been navigated were constructed of the trunks of trees produced upon their margins, demonstrating sufficiently the substantial nature of the soil, and its adaptation to all the purposes of agriculture.

In twenty-eight hours of navigation, (performed in the course of four days,) from the bar of Rio Preto to that of the Sumidor, Viegas met with nineteen rivers, yet nameless, and almost the whole entered the Arinos by the right. The largest is a few leagues above the mouth of the Sumidor, which latter is little inferior to the Arinos.

After an extensive course, the Arinos loses the name, upon incorporating with the Juruenna, the united waters forming the Tapajos, properly Tapayo, from a nation of this name, who inhabited its margins further to the northward. The first considerable river united with it by the right is the Azevedo, so denominated after its discoverer. At a great distance lower down is the embouchure of another river on the right, thirty fathoms in width. A little further two morros approximate, and contract its bed, and an elevated island divides it into two channels, through which its waters flow with equal rapidity.

From hence about three hours’ voyage is a cascade of considerable altitude, the murmuring noise and evaporation arising from which announce another of the wonders of nature long before it becomes visible.