PROVINCE OF MINAS GERAES. 



26» 



a species of hieroglyphic, a natural curiosity, which is observed in the interior 

 of a vast and curious cave, formed of divers eruptions or projections of a sandy 

 stone, some of considerable elasticity with various kinds of plants which 

 grow there. The pretended letters, owing their origin to ferruginous particles, 

 are rude and illegible, and no more than a superstitious hierography, arising in 

 the ignorance of the people, who attribute them to the hand of the apostle 

 St. Thomas. Near it there is a hermitage dedicated to the same apostle. The 

 serra of Vigia, so called from having served for a long time as a watch-tower 

 to the sentinels of a band of runaway negroes, who had established themselves in 

 that district, is twenty miles distant from St. Joao d' el Rey. The serra Ca- 

 chambu is between the river Jacare and the Rio Grande. 



Rivers. — The Rio Grande, the largest of the comarca, dividing it into 

 southern and northern, and having its origin upon the serra Juruoca, after 

 gathering many small streams, flows at first northward, then north-west for a 

 considerable space, and receives the large river Das Mortes, which rises in the 

 serra of Giro Branco, from whence it runs west, becoming large with the cur- 

 rents that join it by both margins. From this confluence, which is about seventy 

 miles west of the town of St. Joao d' el Rey, the Rio Grande continues its 

 course westward, increasing much to the boundary of the province, where it 

 begins to serve as a limit between the provinces of Goyaz and St. Paulo ; it is 

 stored with a variety of fish. 



The Sapucahy flows from the serra Mantiqueira, has numerous windings, and 

 is enlarged by many other rivers, the largest of which is the Verde, that rises 

 near the source of the Rio Grande, and, after having watered an extensive ter- 

 ritory, pastured by large herds of cattle, runs north-west, and irrigates a simi- 

 larly stocked and larger country in the province of St. Paulo, where it has its 

 junction with the preceding. 



Near the margin, and not far from the origin of the Mozambo, a branch of 

 the Sapucahy, there are several wells of sulphureous water, some warmer than 

 others, which have been found beneficial in certain diseases ; and between the 

 plains of the river Verde and Baepondy, near a rivulet which falls into the 

 Verde, there are various mineral and vitriolic waters. 



In this comarca originate the Pardo and Jaguary, which wash the northern 

 part of the province of St. Paulo, the Paraupeba, Para, Lambary, Bambuhy, 

 and the St. Francisco, which receives them : these are the principal rivers in the 

 northern part. 



The Camanducaya is a branch of the Sapucahy. The Jacuhy, Jacare, and 



