148 



PROVINCE OF URUGUAY. 



■who first entered the plain. The assailants, together with thirty Spaniards, who 

 came to their succour, were put to flight, but immediately returned in larger 

 numbers, with three field pieces, with which they laboured to open out both their 

 wings. However, the Portuguese did not give them time for a second dis- 

 charge, but falling intrepidly upon them, they put them to the rout, taking their 

 cannon, nine prisoners, and leaving fifteen dead upon the field. 



On the 23d of the same month, almost at midnight, a cannon was discharged 

 in the Passo dos Barros, which is about three leagues below St. Borja, where it 

 was heard; and from whence afterwards arrived an Indian, living in that neigh- 

 bourhood, with information to the Portuguese, that the Spaniards were stationed 

 in the woods, near the same pass. They remained the rest of the night under 

 arms. The following morning Captain Joze Borges do Canto put himself 

 in march for this point, with his company and some others, amounting to one 

 hundred and ten men; and finding the Spaniards entrenched in the woods 

 on the banks of the river, and not discovering any advantageous mode of 

 attacking them, sent his lieutenant with thirty men dressed in white according 

 to the Indian fashion, which marching at a great distance from the Spaniards, 

 and having gained their rear, began firing upon them. The first discharges 

 were the signal for the captain to invest the fortification, which was abandoned 

 without any resistance, the Spaniards leaving seventy-four prisoners. 



Such was the success of the campaign, on the part of the Portuguese, in 

 this district, and the mode by which the Portuguese crown possessed itself of 

 the province of the Seven Missions, which made a part of that of Rio Grande 

 de St. Pedro, until a governor was named to it. It is confined on the north 

 by that of St. Paulo ; on the w^est by that of Paranna ; and on the south and 

 east by the province of Rio Grande de St. Pedro. 



Mountains. — St. Martinho, the most elevated portion of the serra, which 

 serves for its eastern limits, and the mountain of St. Luiz, in the vicinity of the 

 town of its name, are the most remarkable mountains. 



Rivers. — Besides the Uruguay and Ibicui, already mentioned, is to be re- 

 marked the Hyjuhy, which originates at the base of the mountain of St. Mar- 

 tinho, traverses the province from east to west, empties itself into the Uruguay 

 in front of Assumption, and a few leagues to the north of St. Nicolau, having 

 passed near St. Angelo, a little below which the Hyjiihy-mirim enters it on the 

 left side. 



The Toropy rises in the same cordillera and falls into the Ibicui. The Jaquari 



