PROVINCE OF PEl^NAMBUCO. 



375 



however, are met with portions of ground more or less fertile, which would 

 produce mandioca, Indian corn, feijao, hortulans, cottons, fruits, and the 

 su^ar cane. Cattle are generally bred in this vast district, and game abounds 

 in great variety. It was included in the jurisdiction of the ouvidor of Jacobina 

 until 1810, when it became a comarca, receiving the interior portion of that of 

 Recife. It is at present called the ouvidorship of the certam of Pernambuco, the 

 magistrate not having chosen the town for its head, by which it ought to be desig- 

 nated. Cattle, hides, cotton, salt, and gold, are the articles of its exportation. 



Rivers. — The Rio Grande and the Correntes are the only considerable rivers. 



The river St. Francisco, whose description we left off at the confluence of 

 the Carinhenha, only receives from thence to its entrance into the ocean, 

 five streams of any importance, namely, the Rans, the Parimirim, the 

 Verde, on the right, the Correntes, one hundred miles below the first, and the 

 Rio Grande, one hundred and forty lower on the left, continuing from thence 

 northward, with many small windings, being of considerable width, and having 

 many islands and some currents which do not impede navigation. Its margins 

 are flat, and in some parts so low, that at the inundations, they are submerged 

 for more than seven miles. Below the confluence of Rio Grande, its course bends 

 towards the east, and then to the east-south-east, preserving the same width for a 

 long way, to the aldeia of Vargem Redonda, where the navigation terminates 

 from above, and the lateral lands begin to rise. Its channel gradually becomes 

 narrower, and the current is rapidly impelled between blue and black rocks, 

 to the small aldeia of Caninde, (the boundary of the navigation from the ocean,) 

 which is seventy miles below the other. In this interval there are various large 

 falls, of which the most interesting and famous is that of Paulo Affonso. Be- 

 tween these falls canoes navigate during the summer season. Through Caninde 

 it continues to run between stony banks, thinly covered with soil and an 

 impoverished vegetation, being one hundred fathoms in height, the width of 

 the river not exceeding a sling's throw for the distance of ten miles, to the 

 mouth of the Jacare, where its elevated and rugged banks terminate. Its bed 

 in this part is overspread with cleft reefs, appearing like the relics of a majestic 

 sluice or dock. 



Three leagues below is the small island of Ferro, where the margins begin to 

 diminish in elevation, and the river to augment in width, exhibiting crowns of 

 white sand, the resort of the ash-coloured and white heron, and where myriads 

 of black diving birds assemble ; forming themselves like a net, they encircle 

 the fish in shoal places, not infested by the dreaded piranha fish. Here the 



