78 TRAVELS IN BRAZIL. 



unite with them, till the occupation of their 

 country by the Portuguese ; and have hitherto 

 proved tlie implacable enemies of the latter, me- 

 nacing them sometimes with open hostility, some- 

 times by well-contrived surprises and robberies, in 

 which they never spared the vanquished. When 

 they separated in the year I778, from their allies, 

 the Guaycurus, they disdained to remain in a 

 country, which they could no longer dispute with 

 foreio"ners, and withdrew to the Low^er Para- 

 guay, near Assumcao, w^hen they submitted to 

 the Spaniards. Unsettled and fugitive, faithless, 

 cowardly, and cruel, despised by the powerful 

 Indian tribes, and; feared by the weaker, they act 

 exactly the same part in the waters of the Paraguay, 

 as the Muras in the Madeira and the river of the 

 Amazons, in describing whom we shall return to 

 them. Besides the Cayapos and the Guaycurus, 

 travellers by those rivers hear also of the Icquatos 

 Indians as inhabitants of Matto-grosso. 



Our experienced host at Porto Feliz, had just 

 received orders from the government at S. Paulo, 

 to prepare several large canoes, to convey ammu- 

 nition down the Tiete to Cujaba. As for a long 

 period, all military stores had been sent to Matto- 

 grosso by way of Minas and Goyaz, this method 

 surprised the inhabitants, who puzzled themselves 

 with conjectures, respecting the object of these 

 consignments. Some imagined that they were 

 destined for Paraguay, to be sent to the Portu- 

 cruese, who were at war with Buenos Ayres ; others 



