EIVEES OF MATTO GEOSSO. 



255 



horizon, and continued on the rising grounds by the so-called banhados, or 

 "drowned lands." Above these rise thickets of tall herbs and shrubs, and in 

 some places artificial mounds, where the natives formerly took refuge during the 

 inundations. 



Lake Xarayes, as this expanse was called by the first Spanish explorers, 

 stretches for a length of about 3tJ0 miles north and south between the mouths of 

 the Jauru and the Fecho dos Morros hills, and in some places has a width of 250 

 or 260 miles. Although it is not permanent, as was formerly supposed, certain 

 stretches locally called bahias, the " bays " or inlets of the old inland sea, are 

 flooded throughout the year. Most of these basins communicate at all seasons 



Fig. 111. — SOUECES OF THE AlEGEE AND A GTJAPAHY. 

 Scale 1 : 2,500,000. 



60 Miles. 



With the Paraguay, either through lateral creeks or broad passages. Such are 

 lakes Uberaba, Gaiba, Mandiore, and Caceres, which swarm with " hundreds of 

 thousands " of the Jacare crocodile. Some are freshwater basins fed exclusively by 

 the river ; but others are old depressions formerly filled by the marine waters, 

 and still preserving saline incrustations which give them a brackish taste. 



Towards the centre of the great depression the Paraguay is joined by the 

 Cuyaba, with its S. Lourenco tributary, called also the Rio dos Porrudos from the 

 Indians of that name, who protected themselves with a kind of sack from the bite 

 of the voracious piranha fish. Below the confluence these waters still wander 

 over the level plains in a labyrinth of creeks, channels, false rivers, and lateral 

 branches all the way to the junction of the Taquary and Miranda, descending 



