200 



PROVINCE OF MATTO GROSSO. 



new navigation of Gram Para, that of Camapuan began to be less frequented. 

 The miners who were interested in proceeding to St. Paulo by this fatal 

 way never accomplished it, except with a considerable number of canoes, 

 equipped with chosen men, and armed with the best instruments of defence ; 

 and occasionally accompanied by canoes of war to a certain situation in the 

 river Tocoary, where they waited for the Paulista fleet to protect them through 

 the passage of the Pantanos. 



Subsequent to the separation, already mentioned, of the two nations, one of 

 the most disastrous hostilities which the Portuguese experienced from the 

 Guaycurus was in May, 1775, when they proceeded up the Paraguay, in twenty 

 canoes, nearly to Villa Maria, where they assassinated sixteen persons, and 

 carried off many others prisoners. 



The foundation of the prezidio, or garrison, of Nova Coimbra, in the same 

 year, upon the western margin of the Paraguay, ought to have been, according 

 to the order of General L. d' Alburquerque, forty leagues further to the south, at 

 the place called Fecho dos Morros, where it would have contributed to the 

 protection of the navigators of St. Paulo. The author of the Guaycurus, 

 (written in this prezidio by one of its governors,) says, that he could but partially 

 embarrass the passage of the Indians, or prevent the flight of deserters ; and 

 that its founder had committed an error, from whence resulted the entrance of 

 the Spaniards into the dominions of his faithful Majesty, where they founded 

 Villa Real, St. Carlos, and St. Joze. 



The last hostility which the Portuguese sustained from the Guaycurus, was 

 the atrocious assassination of fifty soldiers in a plain fronting Nova Coimbra, 

 in January, 1781, at the time they were bartering some articles with the barba- 

 rians who had been there twice before with demonstrations of friendship. 



The prezidio of Nova Coimbra was besieged in September, 1801, by the 

 Spaniards, who proceeded from the city of Assumption with four escunas and 

 twenty canoes. It was the first time that the thunder of contending artillery 

 had been heard in the centre of South America, and from which the Guaycuru 

 and Payagoa warriors formed an idea of the European mode of warfare. The 

 commencement of hostilities produced the following correspondence between 

 the Spanish and Portuguese commandants : — 



" I had the honour, last evening, to contest the fire of the fort under the 

 " command of your Honour ; and having ascertained that the force with which 

 " I am about to attack it is much superior to that of your Honour, which can- 



not fail to reduce it to the ultimate state of misfortune ; and as the vassals of 



