254 AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. 



Rivers : — The Paraguay System. 



The Upper Guapore, the Itenez of the Bolivians, although compcised within 

 the Amazons basin, as an affluent of the Mamore, belongs sjjecially to Matto Grosso, 

 for the town of this name has been founded on its banks, and nearly the whole of 

 the settled population of the State is centred in the depression, the western 

 section of which is traversed by this river. The Guapore, so named from a long 

 extinct Indian tribe, has its chief source in a corixa or grotto on the edge of the 

 Araxa escarpment, and flows at first in the direction of the south parallel with the 

 other streams descending to the Paraguay. But after escaping from the last 

 hills the ferruginous torrent trends round to the west and north-west, and after 

 receiving numerous affluents, traverses the plain in which is situated the town of 

 Matto Grosso, 160 miles from its source. Six miles lower down a bridge spans 

 the stream, which presents great difficulties to the navigation, being much 

 obstructed with snags and shifting sandbanks. 



The Paraguay, either the " Parrakeet Piver," or more probably the " River 

 of the Payaguay Indians," is one of the most remarkable navigable water- 

 courses in the world. Few streams have a more gentle incline in propor- 

 tion to the length of their course. Leaving out of consideration the headwaters 

 which escape through numerous rapids, and even cascades from the hilly districts, 

 the point where the Paraguay begins to flow in a tranquil stream stands at an 

 elevation of not more than 660 feet above the sea, from which it is still distant 

 2,500 miles. Hence the mean incline cannot be more than about three or four 

 inches per mile. Steamers of light draught are thus able to penetrate from the 

 ocean up the mainstream and its numerous affluents — Jauru, Sepotuba, Cuyaba, 

 S. Lourenço, Taquary — far beyond the Argentine and Paraguay republics into the 

 very heart of Brazil. 



Another remarkable phenomenon is the intermingling of its farthest head- 

 streams with those of the Amazons affluents. The Jauru, former frontier stream 

 between the Spanish and Portuguese possessions, approaches so near to the 

 Guapore that it was found easy to connect the two systems by an artificial canal. 

 The Aguapehy affluent of the Jauru is separated from the Alegre, which joins 

 the Guapore near Matto Grosso, only by a narrow isthmus of slight elevation, 

 and not more half a mile wide. In 1772 a canal was cut through the divide, 

 large enough to admit a six-oared boat, and other attempts to establish a permanent 

 communication between the two waterways have failed only through the lack of 

 sufficient traffic to support such works. 



Below its headstreams, the Paraguay flows through a marshy district at the 

 foot of the plateau, where its limpid waters expand into a series of lagoons overgrown 

 with aquatic plants. Here and there its course is confined between hills, but it 

 soon enters the vast plain which was formerly a flooded depression, and still 

 partly retains its lacustrine character. During the floods, when the Paraguay 

 and its tributaries rise 3-3 or 36 feet, the overflow with its islands and archipela- 

 goes of floating vegetation, expands to a temporary sea stretching beyond the 



