PROVINCE OF URUGUAY. 



149 



waters a considerable portion of this province, and falls into the Ibicui four 

 or five leagues below the Forquilha. The Hibipita enters the Ibicui also 

 twenty leagues below the preceding. 



The Piratini forms itself in the vicinity of the said serra, passes a short 

 distance from St. Miguel, and runs into the Uruguay a little below St. Nicolau. 



Phytology, — The Brazilian pine and the cedar are not numerous. The 

 cotton tree, the matte, and mandioca, also Indian corn, wheat, potatoes, 

 with other edible roots, are cultivated ; likewise, gourds, water-melons, pine- 

 apples, and divers hortulans and, among fruit trees, the orange, pitangua, 

 and peach. 



Zoology. — The animals, both domestic and wild, are the same as those 

 of the adjoining provinces. 



The Tappes are a horde of Guaranis, which separated from the latter in former 

 times, and lived for a long period upon the banks of the higher Paranna, where 

 they were at times invaded by the others. It is, however, certain that they 

 occupied the southern part of this province when the Jesuits began to have a 

 knowledge of them. They were esteemed a people, not only less vicious than 

 all other tribes in South America, but the best disposed to receive the evan- 

 gelical law, most constant after having embraced it, and the best adapted to 

 honour Christianity. These people lived divided into various villages, of which 

 the most populous had the name of the nation. It is not known what were 

 the number of those villages, which the Jesuits reduced to seven; and on this 

 account were denominated redugbes, or reductions, also missions. The names 

 of these seven celebrated missions, are the following, with the number of 

 inhabitants in each at the period of their conquest by the Portuguese in 

 1801:— 



St. Francisco de Borja, which is the most southern, is two miles distant 

 from the Uruguay, and five leagues from the confluence of Ibicui. It suffered 



INHABITANTS. 



St. Francisco de Borja 

 St. Miguel 



1,300 

 1,900 

 1,600 

 1,960 

 3,940 

 960 

 2,350 



St. Joam . 

 St. Angelo 

 St. Nicolau 

 St. Louren^o 

 St. Luiz. . 



