is the third which derives its copious sources, flowing through numerous large branches, from the capitania of Matto Grosso. It runs north between the Madeira and the Chingu for three hundred leagues, flowing into the Amazons in lat. 2° 24′ 50″, and long. 55°, which is the geographical position of the town of Santarem, situated at its mouth one hundred and eighteen leagues from the city of Pará, and one hundred and sixty-two by the shortest navigation. The river Tapajos rises in the plains of the Parexis, so called from an Indian nation which inhabits them. These plains occupy a vast space, not level, but formed by undulating heaps of sand and light earth, resembling large waves. The spectator who is in the midst of them ever sees before him a distant and extended mount; he advances towards it by a gentle and long declivity, traverses the plain, and advances by an ascent equally gentle until he gains imperceptibly the heights he saw; another eminence then presents itself, and he proceeds with the same recurring circumstances. The soil of these wide plains is sandy, and so light that loaded beasts in passing sink into it so much as to impede their progress. The pasturage is poor, consisting of a grass composed of wiry stalks a foot high, and small rough lancet-shaped leaves; the animals in grazing pluck them up with the roots covered with sand; on this account the passage by land is difficult and tedious; though, on finding any of the streams, which abound in these plains, there is grass and other mild herbage, which afford tolerable pasturage. The plains of Parexis form, to a large extent and breadth, the summit of those high mountains of the same name, and are situated on some of the most elevated land in all Brazil; for from them descend the two greatest rivers of South America,—the Paraguay, as well in its own numerous heads, as in its great and higher branches, the Jauru, the Sypotuba, and the Cuiaba,—and the Madeira, which is the largest river that flows into the Amazons on the south.

The Tapajos, flowing in a direction contrary to that of the above-named river, rises in these mountains. Its westermost branch is the river Arinos, which intwines its sources with those of the Cuiaba at a short distance from those of the Paraguay. The river Arinos has a western branch, called Rio Negro, from which, to the point where it is navigable, there is a passage of eight leagues over land to the river Cuiaba, below its upper and greatest falls; and, in like manner, from the Arinos itself the passage to the same part of the river Cuiaba is twelve leagues.

The Arinos is auriferous at its springs, and in 1747 the mines of Santa Isabel were discovered in it, but immediately abandoned, as not answering the expectations created in those fortunate times by the great quantities of gold drawn from the mines of Cuiaba and Matto Grosso. The lands were infested by dangerous tribes of warlike Indians.

The river Sumidouro empties itself on the south side into the Arinos, and its source being a short distance from that of the Sypotuba, a large western branch of the Paraguay, there is an easy communication from one river to the other. The famous discoverer, João de Souza Echevedo, in 1746, made this passage: he descended the river Cuiaba, and sailing up the Sypotuba to its very sources, he there passed his canoes over land into the Sumidouro, which he navigated, following the current, notwithstanding that the river runs for some distance under ground, and thence derives its appellation. After this, he passed into the Arinos, and thence into the Tapajos, where he surmounted the falls, though more difficult than those of the Madeira, and discovered many symptoms of gold in the river of Tres Barras, a western arm of the Tapajos, a hundred leagues below the springs of the Arinos. West of the Sumidouro, and in the plains of Parexis, the river Xacurutina has its origin to the north of the river Jauru: it is famous for a lake, situated in one of its branches, where every year is produced a great quantity of salt, which is a constant cause of war among the Indians. Some navigators make the Xacurutina an arm of the Arinos, and others of the Sumidouro. In these plains of Parexis, terminating to the west in the high mountains so denominated, which, extending two hundred leagues in a north-north-west direction, front the Guapore at a distance of fifteen or twenty leagues, springs the river Juruena, between the heads of the Sarare and the Guapore, a league east of the former and two west of the latter. This river, the largest and westermost branch of the Tapajos, rises in lat. 14° 42′, twenty leagues north-north-east of Villa Bella, and, running north one hundred and twenty leagues, flows into the Arinos, and with it forms the bed of the Tapajos.

The Juruena receives on both sides many small rivers, those from the west affording many practicable communications by short passages over-land with the Guapore and its confluent streams. The uppermost of these, which is nearest to Villa Bella, is the Securiu, navigable even there, and almost to its source. This is a league north of the principal source of the river Sarare, which, a quarter of a league from its head, is three yards deep and five broad. Thus sailing up the Juruena, into the Securiu, and making from its source the short land-passage of a league to the Sarare, the navigator may reach Villa Bella in less than eight days, without any other obstacle than that of the fall formed by the Sarare, three leagues below its source, where it precipitates itself from the Parexis mountains on the western slope: this difficulty may be surmounted in detail, or by at once passing the four leagues, for the Sarare from its fall becomes immediately navigable to the capital of Matto Grosso. A league north of the source of the Sarare is the first head of the river Galera, the second confluent of the Guapore below Villa Bella; and a league east of the same head rises the Ema, a western branch of the Securiu, affording equal facility of communication. The Galera has three other sources north of the first in the plains of the Parexis, all ample streams; the last and most northerly, called Sabará, is distant little more than a league from the source of the river Juina, a large western branch of the Juruena. Thus by the Juina and the Securiu, with a crossing of five or six leagues, so as to pass the falls of the Galera on the western scarp of the mountain, the Juruena may be connected with the Guapore.

Lastly, the Juruena may be navigated to its upper fall, which is within two leagues of its own source. The fall is formed by two small leaps, the river being, even in this part, thirty yards broad and of great depth; from hence downwards it flows with great rapidity, yet its falls are not greater, and are more passable, than those of the Arinos. With the same circumstances, and by similar short land-passages, a communication is practicable from the Juruena with the rivers Guapore and Jauru, which are to the eastward of it, although these two rivers precipitate themselves from the south side of the Parexis mountains, where they rise, and immediately form numerous and extensive falls.

From the geographical position of the Tapajos, it is evident that this river facilitates navigation and commerce from the maritime city of Pará to the mines of Matto Grosso and Cuiaba, by means of its large branches, the Juruena and Arinos; if the short passages over-land should be found troublesome to drag canoes, the goods may be forwarded immediately on mules. This navigation to Matto Grosso is at least two hundred leagues shorter than that performed through the Madeira and Guapore; it is consequently less tedious and expensive, and equally advantageous to the mines of Cuiaba. The navigation of the river Tapajos might lead also to new discoveries in the vast unexplored parts of this river, up to its entrance into the plains of the Parexis, and their products might add to those of the extensive regions on the Amazons. Besides this, the river is known to be auriferous for a great part of its course: it is known also, that, passing from the Juruena into its western arm, the river Camararé, and the heads of the river Jamary or das Candeas, which, running in broad streams down the eastern side of the Parexis mountains, enters the Madeira, there are mines which have inspired great hopes, though but lately seen, after a fruitless search of twenty years.

The River Paraguay

has its remote springs to the west of the heads of the Arinos in latitude 13°, and, after a southern course of six hundred leagues, enters the ocean under the appellation of the Rio de la Plata. The heads of the Paraguay are seventy leagues north-east from Villa Bella, and forty leagues north from Cuiaba, and divided into many branches, and already forming complete rivers, which, as they run south, successively unite, and form the channel of this immense river, which is immediately navigable. To the west, a short distance from the main source of the Paraguay, is that of the Sypotuba, which disembogues on its west bank in lat. 15° 50′, after a course of sixty leagues. In the upper part of this river, and near its western branch called the Jurubauba, was formerly a gold-mine, which was worked with considerable profit; but the superior advantages derived from others subsequently explored in Matto Grosso and Cuiaba, caused it to be abandoned, and its site is not now known with certainty. The little river Cabaral, also auriferous, enters the Paraguay on the west side, three leagues below the mouth of the Sypotuba. On the banks of the latter lives a nation of Indians, called Barbados, from the distinction peculiar to themselves, among all the Indian nations, of having large beards.

The Boriars Araviras inhabit the banks of the Cabaral: they are a mixture of two different nations, who in the year 1797 sent four chiefs of their tribe, accompanied by their mother, to Villa Bella, in order to solicit the friendship of the Portuguese. The nation called Parrarioné lives in their neighbourhood, close by the Sypotuba. A league below the mouth of the Cabaral, on the east bank of the Paraguay, is Villa Maria, a small and useful establishment, founded in 1778. Seven leagues south of Villa Maria, and on the west bank of the Paraguay, the river Jauru disembogues into it in lat. 16° 24′. This river is remarkable for the boundary-mark erected at its mouth in 1754, as well as for being entirely Portuguese, together with the lands on its south bank, and bordering on the Spanish possessions. It rises in the plains of the Parexis in lat. 14° 42′, and long. 58° 30′, and running south to lat. 15° 45′, the situation of the Register of the same name, it there turns to the south-east for thirty-four leagues, till, by an entire course of sixty leagues, it reaches its junction with the Paraguay. There are salt-water-pits, which in part have supplied Matto Grosso, ever since its foundation, with salt: they are in the interior of the country, seven leagues from the Register, and extend to a place called Salina de Almeida, from the name of the person who first employed himself in these works.