TOPOGRAPHY OF MINAS GERAES. 



219 



Itahoaté of the Guayanas, takes the first place from the historic standpoint. 

 The natives who inhabited the district on the arrival of the Portuguese in the 

 sixteenth century were at war with the people of Piratininga, the colony which 

 gave birth to S. Paulo, and the rivalries of these Indian tribes were perpetuated 

 by their half-caste descendants. Conflicts frequently took place between the 

 miners of S. Paulo and those of Taubate, and at the beginning of the eighteenth 

 century the very children fought on both sides during the sanguinary war of the 

 Emboabas, which dyed red the waters of the Rio das Mortes. 



At present Taubate has been greatly distanced by S. Paulo, although it is still 



Fig. 92.— Region of the Minas G-eeaes Theemal Waters. 

 Scale 1 : 2,000,000. 



22 





7 \' ■" V^ "K, 7" 



X ''^V^ 







rCa>3mb> 5 





4S° • West oF ureenwich 



=^ 30 Miles. 



a thriving place, with factories, plantations, and bituminous springs, yielding a 

 mineral oil and gas for the local consumption. On the completion of a branch 

 from the trunk line Taubate will become a depot for the coffees grown in the 

 eastern parts of the State of S. Paulo. This branch, which has a station at 

 Paralujhuna, near the source of the Parahyba, crosses the coast range and 

 descends by steep gradients down to the port of Ubatiiha. Although now little 

 frequented, this deep harbour, sheltered on the east by the headland of Ponta 

 Grossa, cannot fail to become a flourishing seaport as soon as the coffee- growing 

 districts are tapped by the Taubate railway now in progress. 



West of the upper Parahyba basin the Rio and S. Paulo trunk line crosses 



