306 



CUIABA. 



The passage from Diamantino to Santarem occupies about twenty- 

 six clays. 



Cuiaba is a flourishing town of about ten thousand inhabitants, situ- 

 ated on the river of the same name, which is thence navigable for large 

 vessels to its junction with the Paraguay, which river is free from im- 

 pediments to the ocean. It is the chief town of the rich province of 

 Matto Grosso. It receives its supplies — the lighter articles of merchan- 

 dise and luxury — by land, from Rio Janeiro, and its heavier articles — 

 such as cannot be transported on mules for a great distance — by this 

 route of the Tapajos. These are principally salt, iron, iron implements, 

 wines, liquors, arms, crockeries, and guarana, of which the people there 

 are passionately fond. 



St. Ubes or Portuguese salt is worth in Cuiaba thirteen and a half 

 dollars the panero, of one hundred and eight pounds. Lately, however, 

 salt has been discovered on the bottom and shores of a lake in Bolivia, 

 near the Paraguay river. It undergoes some process to get rid of its 

 impurities, and then is sold at four dollars the panero. 



Cuiaba pays for these things in diamonds, gold dust, and hides. The 

 diamond region is, as I have before said, in the neighborhood of the 

 village of Diamantino, situated on the high lands that divide the head 

 waters of the tributaries of the Amazon and La Plata. M. Castelnau 

 visited this country, and I give the following extracts from his account 

 of it. He says : 



"The mines of gold, and especially those of diamonds, to which the 

 city of Diamantino owes its foundation and its importance, appear to 

 have been known from the time the Paulistas made their first settle- 

 ments in the province of Matto Grosso; but, under the Portuguese 

 government, the working of the diamond mines was prohibited to indi- 

 viduals under the severest penalties. 



" A military force occupied the diamond districts, and watched the 

 Crown slaves who labored in the search of this precious mineral. Every 

 person finding one of these stones was obliged to remit it to the super- 

 intendency of diamonds at Cuyaba, for which he received a moderate 

 recompense, whilst he would have been severely punished if detected in 

 appropriating it. 



" At this period, throughout Brazil, the commerce in diamonds was 

 prohibited, as strictly as their extraction, to all except the special agents 

 named by the government for this purpose. 



" Subsequently to the government of Joao Carlos, of whom we have 

 already spoken, this commerce became more or less tolerated, then alto- 

 gether free. 



