PROVINCE OF MATTO GROSSO. 



193 



acquired the denomination of Cavalleiros. The Payagoas, from time immemo- 

 rial, were always masters of the navigation of the Paraguay and its confluents, 

 as far as nature offered no impediments. The Guaycurus had also always pos- 

 sessed the adjacencies of the same river, for the space of three hundred and 

 fifty miles at least. 



As it is an indubitable fact, that there were no horses in South America pre- 

 vious to its discovery by Pinson, in 1500, and that they were first introduced 

 into this country by its two conquering nations, Spain and Portugal, it cannot 

 be difficult to define, with tolerable certainty, the epoch when the Guaycurus 

 first obtained these animals, which they used at all times, even in their shortest 

 excursions, and with which they rendered themselves so formidable to all the 

 circumjacent nations, not excepting the conquerors of the country. It would 

 appear probable that they first derived the horse from the colonists of Assump- 

 tion, rather than from those of Peru, If they were in former times powerful 

 in war canoes, they only retained a sufficient number for passing from one to 

 the other side of rivers, on discovering that the horse was more useful and ad- 

 vantageous for war, or for depredations upon the distant tribes. Such was the 

 state of those two nations about the year 1720, when their reciprocal aversion 

 was converted into a firm alliance, the Guaycurus soon becoming equally for- 

 midable upon both elements, with an establishment of war canoes little inferior 

 to that of the Payagoas. 



They continued to annoy the rising province from the year 1725 to the year 

 1768, at which period a disunion occurred, and the Payagoas descended to 

 the low Paraguay, formed an alUance, or, more properly speaking, subjected 

 themselves to the Spaniards of the province of Paranna, where they fixed 

 their habitations, and have lived since 1774, a little below Assumption. 

 Two causes are said to have influenced the Payagoas in this separation ; 

 the great diminution of numbers which they had sustained in repeated conflicts 

 with the Spaniards and Portuguese, and their jealousy of the Guaycurus, w ho 

 they now found were not less powerful upon the waters than in the field. 



The Guaycurus persevered in the same hostility, although less frequent and 

 less destructive, as will presently be detailed, till the year 1791, when the 

 principal captains of this nation, Emavidi Channe, who assumed the name of 

 Paulo Joaquim Ferreira, and Queyma, who took the name of Joam Queyma 

 d' Albuquerque, accompanied by seventeen of their warriors, with a Brazilian 

 Creole, their slave or prisoner, for an interpreter, spontaneously came to soli- 

 cit peace at Villa Bella, where, in the palace of the governor, and in the pre- 



c c 



