194 



PROVINCE OF MATTO GROSSO. 



sence of the senate, they made a treaty of perpetual friendship and alliance, 

 agreeing to become the vassals of his faithful Majesty. Letters-patent, secu- 

 ring to them the necessary privileges, were granted, which shall be transcribed 

 when we conclude the history of this important nation. We will now return to 

 the proceedings of the Paulistas, in reference to the early colonization of this 

 province. 



In the year 1727, the governor Menezes arrived at the new arraial, and gave 

 it the title of Villa Real (royal town) of Cuiaba. The following year he left this 

 town, and proceeded up the river Tocoary, to which was transferred, in 1729^ 

 the navigation from the Embotatiu, with the intention of avoiding, at least in 

 part, the attacks of the Indians. From this change, however, no advantage 

 resulted, in consequence of the trifling distance between these two rivers. The 

 first division which left Cuiaba in the year 1730, with upwards of sixty 

 arrobas (thirty-two pounds each) of gold, accompanied by Doctor Antonio 

 Alvez Peixoto, who had accomplished the period of his ouvidorship, was 

 attacked in the Pantanos,* by an armada of eighty war canoes, manned by 

 more than eight hundred Indians. The pillage lasted for a considerable time, 

 and only seventeen Christians escaped by swimming to land. It was computed 

 that these warlike Indians lost more than four hundred combatants on this occa- 

 sion. Some gold, which they carried off, with many prisoners, the Payagoas 

 parted with at such a low price in the city of Assumption, that an Indian ex- 

 changed, with one Donna Quiteria de Banhos, six pounds weight for a pewter 

 plate. At this period, a singular branch of commerce flourished in this city, 

 which was in the disposal of cats, at exorbitant prices ; the first pair of those 

 animals that were brought to Assumption were sold for one pound of gold, 

 and their progeny at thirty oitavas, and so on, till the augmentation of this 

 race proportionably reduced their value. The extraordinary value of cats in 

 this place, was occasioned by the houses and stores of Indian corn, &c. being 

 infested with prodigious swarms of rats. 



In 1730, the Brigadier Antonio de Almeida sent various persons, in two 

 canoes of war, to procure a quantity of the sugar cane, which had been observed 

 two years previously, by some certanistas, growing upon the borders of the 

 river St. Louren^o. This party returned, at the expiration of two months, with 

 a -considerable supply of the cane, of which a plantation was formed, and it 



* Pantanos signifies marshy, and is the name given to the swampy islands at the mouth of the 

 Tocoary, which are submerged at the floods. 



