PROVINCE OF PAULO. 



167 



fathoms in width. This latter cataract is two hundred feet in perpendicular 

 height; the margins of the river at this place are rocky, and the current 

 furious. A certanista, (a commandant of a troop proceeding into the certam or 

 interior,) who descended by this river, says, that it is navigable, without embar- 

 rassment, from Cayacanga to the fall of Victoria ; but he does not declare the 

 extent of this interval, nor the names and situations of seven large falls, which 

 he encountered to the confluence of this river with the Paranna. At the angle 

 of its confluence, for some years existed the aldeia of St. Maria de Iguassu, 

 which disappeared in consequence of a famine. 



What may be deemed the most remarkable object in this river, besides the 

 large fall alluded to, is that part of its course known by the appellation of the 

 Funil, in the centre of the country, where it runs rapidly, contracted between 

 high and pointed rocks, in the form of a street of medium width. In its vicinity 

 dwell a horde of Puri and of Guayanha Indians. The principal confluents of 

 the Iguassu, which unite themselves with it on the left, are the Negro, Varge, 

 Bannanal, and St. Antonio, which joins it seventy miles above the last fall. 

 Fifty miles above the river St. Antonio, the Jordao discharges itself, and 

 about the same distance above the latter, the St. Joao, both by the right 

 margin. 



The river Parannapanema has its origin in the cordillera of the sea, to the 

 west of the river Itanhaen. Its first considerable tributaries are the Itapitininga, 

 which joins it on the right, and the Apiahy on the left, with the waters of which 

 it becomes considerable and wide. Its margins are generally flat, and covered 

 with large trees ; in some parts plains or campinhas are seen, where are encoun- 

 tered, amongst other wild creatures, the emu ostrich and deer. The current is 

 principally quick, in consequence of numerous falls. Malevolent Indians 

 occupy the adjacent lands. Near the southern margin, in the vicinity of the 

 mouth of the Tibagy, some years ago was found the remains of a dwelling, 

 which renders it probable that the ancient Spaniards of the province of Guayra 

 extended their establishments to this river. 



Thirty miles above the embouchure of the Parannapanema, it is joined on tl;e 

 southern bank by the small river Pirapo, near the mouth of which, for many 

 years, existed the redugao or mission of the Lady of Loreto, one of thirteen 

 which formed the reputed provinces of Taiaoba and Taiaty, so inaptly described 

 by the Jesuit Montoya, one of their founders;^ and which affords room to suspect 

 that they existed in the vast territory which extends itself from the said Paran- 

 napanema northwards. 



