CONNEXION OF THE AMAZON AND LA PLATA. 301 



The decrease in the consumption of farinha is significant, and shows 

 an increased consumption of flour from the United States. 



I had from Capt. Hislop, an old Scotchman, resident of Santarem, 

 and who had traded much with Cuiaba, in the province of Matto Grosso, 

 the following notices of the river Tapajos, and its connexion with the 

 Atlantic, by means of the rivers Paraguay and La Plata. 



Hence to the port of Itaituba, the river is navigable for large vessels, 

 against a strong current, for fifteen days. The distance is about two 

 hundred miles. From Itaituba the river is navigable for boats of six or 

 eight tons, propelled by paddling, poling, or warping. There are some 

 fifteen or twenty caxoieras, or rapids, to pass, where the boat has to be 

 unloaded and the cargoes carried round on the backs of the crew. At 

 one or two the boat itself has to be hauled over the land. 



The voyage to the head of navigation on the Rio Preto, a confluent 

 of the Tapajos, occupies about two months. At this place mules are 

 found to carry the cargo fifteen miles, to the village of Diamantino, 

 situated on the high lands that divide the headwaters of the streams 

 flowing south from those of the streams flowing north, which approach 

 each other at this point very closely. 



These high lands are rich in diamonds and minerals. I saw some in 

 possession of Capt. Hislop. The gold dust is apparently equal in quality 

 to that I had seen from California. 



From Diamantino to Cuiaba the distance is ninety miles, the road 

 crossing the Paraguay river, which there, at some seasons, is nearly dry 

 and muddy, and at others a rapid and deep stream, dangerous for the 

 mules to pass. 



Some years ago a shorter land-carriage was discovered between the 

 headwaters of the northern and southern streams. 



By ascending the Arinos, a river which empties into the Tapajos, 

 below the mouth of the Preto, a point was reached within eighteen 

 miles by land-carriage of a navigable point on the Cuiaba river above 

 the city. The boat was hauled over these eighteen miles by oxen, 

 (showing that the passage can be neither very high nor rugged,) and 

 launched upon the Cuiaba, which is navigable thence to the city. 



This was about three years ago ; but the trade, for some reason, is 

 still carried on by the old route of the Preto, and the land-carriage of 

 one hundred and five miles to Cuiaba. 



A person once attempted to descend by the San Manoel, a river that 

 rises in the same high lands as the Preto and Arinos, and empties into 

 the Tapajos, far below them ; but he encountered so many obstructions 

 to navigation that he lost all but life. 



