36 



PROVINCE OF RIO DE JANEIRO. 



are numbered; and above this fall they are still more numerous. Its waters 

 are precipitated by a great many falls, which run principally through a stony 

 bed, and are discharged into the Atlantic, on the eastern coast of the province. 

 This river does not bring with it to the ocean so large a volume of water as 

 might be imagined from its vast extent, which may be accounted for by its 

 running principally betwixt two cordilleras, (the Organ Mountains and the 

 Mantiqueira with their branches,) the greatest interval of which does not exceed 

 twenty leagues, and almost all its tributary streams are poor and inconsiderable. 

 Eight leagues below Lorena, where it has already assumed the appearance of 

 a large river, its course is contracted by a long wall of rock, of more than sixty 

 feet high and six hundred yards in extent, reducing its channel to the width of 

 about ten yards. It abounds in a great variety of fish. The adjacent territory, 

 on both banks, from its source to its mouth, is considered to be well adapted 

 for the growth of the sugar cane, and the very small part of it which is culti- 

 vated, is appropriated to that purpose ; but the far greatest proportion yet re- 

 mains in a state of wild nature, and although perhaps granted to different do- 

 natories, its impenetrable woods form the native retreat of the Indian and the 

 ounce, each still asserting the claim of possession. The river Maccahe, 

 which has a course of fifteen leagues, affording ten leagues of navigation to a 

 fall, rises in the Organ range, and winds amongst mountains and woods, till 

 it encounters the St. Pedro, formed by various small streams in the vicinity of 

 Serra Frade. Three leagues may be computed from this confluence to its em- 

 boucheur, which is in front of the islands of St. Anna, thirty miles north of 

 Cape Frio, dividing that district from Goytacazes. The river St. Joam rises 

 in the skirts of the rock of Canudos, with the name of Aguas Claras, (Clear 

 Waters,) more considerable, and affording navigation for a greater space than 

 the Maccahe, runs like it amongst woods and mountains, and disembogues 

 about seven leagues to the south-west of it, bathing the southern skirts of the 

 mountain of its name. Large quantities of timber are exported by it. The 

 rivers Curubichas and Bannanal join it by the left bank, the Bacaxa, which 

 issues from the Serra St. Anna with the appellation of Rio do Oiro, (the Gold 

 River,) unites it on the right by two mouths, having formed, a little higher, a 

 large lake, into which the Capivari, coming from the same serra, empties itself. 

 Below this confluence, little more than three leagues, the Ipuca disembogues, 

 rises near the Maccahe, and forms a considerable island. After it the Lontra, 

 and ultimately the Doirado, near which there is a remarkable production, called 

 the jiquitiba tree, its trunk being fifty-six spans in circumference. All three 



