PROVINCE OF MATTO G ROSSO. 229 



rtver. All the canoes with which those rivers have been navigated were con- 

 structed of the trunks of trees produced upon their margins, demonstrating 

 sufficiently the substantial nature of the soil, and its adaptation to all the pur- 

 poses of agriculture. 



In twenty-eight hours of navigation, (performed in the course of four days,) 

 from the bar of Rio Preto to that of the Sumidor, Viegas met with nineteen 

 rivers, yet nameless, and almost the whole entered the Arinos by the right. The 

 largest is a few leagues above the mouth of the Sumidor, which latter is little 

 inferior to the Arinos. 



After an extensive course, the Arinos loses the name, upon incorporating with 

 the Juruenna, the united waters forming the Tapajos, properly Tapayo, from a 

 nation of this name, who inhabited its margins further to the northward. The 

 first considerable river united with it by the right is the Azevedo, so denomi- 

 nated after its discoverer. At a great distance lower down is the embouchure 

 of another river on the right, thirty fathoms in width. A little further two 

 morros approximate, and contract its bed, and an elevated island divides it into 

 two channels, through which its waters flow with equal rapidity. 



From hence about three hours' voyage is a cascade of considerable altitude, 

 the murmuring noise and evaporation arising from which announce another of 

 the wonders of nature long before it becomes visible. 



Beyond this interesting object is discovered the mouth of another river, ap- 

 parently at least equal to the Tapajos, which is here very wide ; but is however 

 almost immediately reduced by two lateral morros to a little more than one 

 hundred fathoms of width, and after a short space again presents a more than 

 ordinary expansion, and receives also by the right margin another river of thirty 

 fathoms in width. It is about three hours' navigation from the mouth of one 

 river to the other. 



Upon the margin of the Rio Preto, at the place where the canoes commence 

 their voyage, a povoa^oe is now establishing for the accommodation of the navi- 

 gators of the Tapajos. 



District of Tappiraquia. 

 This comarca derives its name from one of its tribes of Indians, and is 

 limited on the north by Xingutania, on the west by the river Xingu, which 

 separates it from the preceding district, on the south by Bororonia, and on 

 the east by the river Araguaya, which divides it from Nova Beira. It com- 



