THE TOCANTINS. 



335 



city of Goyaz, by one of its tributaries, called the Crixas, the To-canting 

 forks, at about three hundred and forty miles from its mouth, into two great 

 branches, called the Tocantins proper and the Araguay, which latter 

 branch he considers the principal stream. " For," he says, " when we 

 consider that the Tocantins presents an almost continued succession of 

 cascades and rapids, whilst the Araguay (as we have before said) is free 

 for the greater part of its course, it will be seen how this latter offers 

 greater advantages for navigation ; particularly when it is recollected that 

 one may embark upon it at all seasons at fifty leagues from the capital, 

 (Goyaz,) and in the rainy seasons at only a very few leagues from it. 

 The Tocantins, on the other hand, cannot be considered navigable farther 

 up than Porto Imperial, which is nearly three hundred leagues below 

 Goyaz, by the windings of the route." 



Again, he says : " The rivers of which we have been treating, 

 although they are secondary on a continent watered by the Amazon 

 and Mississippi, would elsewhere be considered as of the first order; for 

 the Tocantins has nearly four hundred and forty leagues of course, and 

 the Araguay, properly so called, has not less than four hundred and 

 twenty. But this last, after uniting itself to the Tocantins, runs in the 

 bed of the latter a new distance of one hundred and thirteen leagues; 

 considering, then, the Araguay, on account of its being the larger 

 branch, and the most direct in its course, as the main river, it has a 

 total length of nearly five hundred and thirty-three leagues," (1,599 

 miles.) 



It is necessary, however, in ascending these rivers, to unload the boats 

 at many places, and drag them over the rocks with cords. The voyage 

 from Porto Imperial to Para occupies from twenty-five to thirty days; 

 but upwards it takes from four to five months. 



M. Castelnau descended the Araguay from Salinas (fifty leagues by 

 land from Goyaz) to its junction with the Tocantins in thirty-four days. 

 Just below Salinas he found the Araguay upwards of five hundred yards 

 wide. At the junction of the rivers, the Tocantins has a width of two 

 thousand yards, with a current of three-fourths of a mile per hour. 

 The height of this point above the level of the sea is one hundred and 

 ninety-seven feet, and its distance from Para, in a straight line, is about 

 one hundred and sixty-one miles; thus giving the river in this distance 

 a fall of about eight-tenths of a foot per mile. 



We crossed the other arm of the bay (about five miles wide) with the 

 ebb-tide, and anchored at the mouth of a small river called Anapui, 

 which empties into the bay near its opening into the main river of Para. 



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