262 AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. 



is accessible for half tlie year to large vessels, which do a brisk trade in cattle, 

 salt, and lime. In the district are some extremely rich iron ores stored up for 



future use. 



In 1876, when the Brazilian garrison evacuated the city of Asuncion to fall 

 back on Corumba, the Paraguayan sutlers and menials migrated with the troops, 

 and thus suddenly doubled the population of the town. Since then, many young 

 Paraguayan women have moved in the same direction. They lose no favourable 

 opportunity of removing to Corumba, where the chances of marriage are much 

 greater than in Paraguay itself, the female sex being here greatly in excess of the 

 men. The European immigrants have also begun to find their way to Corumba, 

 to which place the Bolivians of Santa Cruz de la Sierra forward supplies across 

 the wilderness. 



The Taquary and the Miranda, which join the Paraguay, the former above, 

 the latter below, the Albuquerque, have some small settlements, destined one day 

 to become flourishing centres of population. Herculanco, ci\i:)itd\ of the Taquary 

 district, is better known by the name of Coxim, from the Rio Coxim. On the 

 Miranda the chief places are Nioac or Levergera and Mircuuia, the latter dating 

 from the year 1778. Near Colmhra, on the right bank of the Paraguay, below 

 the Miranda confluence, visitors are shown a group of vast underground chambers, 

 connected by narrow galleries. Of the Fort OUmpo (Borbou), still figuring on the 

 maps, nothing remains except a crumbling ruin. All the other military posts 

 in the same unhealthy district have been abandoned since the war with Paraguay. 



Such were the stations established on the Few de Assiicar and the Fecho dos 

 Morros, two little bluffs facing each other east and west on the banks of the river. 

 The plans prepared by the engineers for the fortifications of these places have, for 

 the present, been suspended, but Brazil has not withdrawn her claim from Fecho 

 dos Morros, although, according to the indications of the map, it lies within the 

 Bolivian frontier. The Brazilian diplomatists being reluctant to leave such an 

 important strategical post to the conterminous state, argued that those hills on 

 the left side of the river really belonged to Brazil, because during the periodical 

 inundations the Paraguay overflowing its banks transforms them to an island, 

 and thus transfers them to the opposite side. 



