PROVINCE OF PERNAMBUCO. 



377 



revenues, which disappeared without leaving to the public one signal of its 

 expenditure. Tiie most valuable fish of this river are the soruhin, which grows 

 to the size of a man ; the mandin, four feet in length, and proportionably thick, 

 with large beards ; the pira, two feet long ; and the piranha, which is short 

 and thick, with very sharp teeth, and fatal to all living creatures that come 

 within its reach. None of these fish have scales. The camurin, with a white 

 stripe on both sides ; and the catnurupm, are both thick and scaly. 



The dogs, as if by a natural instinct, do not approach the waters that are 

 muddy, but drink only at those parts where there is a current, from an innate 

 dread of the piranhas, which lurk about w ith destructive intent in the dead 

 waters. 



The Correntes, which has a course of about one hundred and forty miles, 

 issues from a lake, and runs first under the name of Formozo, receiving another 

 river of the same name, and afterwards the Eguas, Guara, and Arrojado. It 

 affords navigation for a considerable space, and disembogues into the St. Fran- 

 cisco ten miles below the chapel of Bom Jesus da Lappa. All the branches 

 mentioned issue from the skirts or proximity of the serraof Paranan. Some run 

 through auriferous countries, where mining has originated only a few years, 

 and which has been the occasion of founding in the vicinity of the river Eguas 

 a chapel of Our Lady of Glory, whose parish contained six hundred and eighty- 

 four families, with one thousand nine hundred and ninety-eight adults, in the 

 year 1809; many being breeders of cattle, others agriculturists. 



The Rio Grande, whose original name is not known, and for which the present 

 one was substituted, in consequence of the ridiculous and prevailing custom in 

 the Brazil of designating many large rivers, of various districts, by the term of 

 Rio Grande, (Large River,) thereby creating a confusion of names, has fifty leagues 

 of course, and originates in the serra of Paranan, near the register of St. Domingos, 

 about five leagues from the source of the Guara, a branch of the Correntes. 

 After flowing a considerable way, the Mosquito joins it, and five leagues lower 

 the Femeas, which rises fifteen miles from Serra Tabatinga; twelve miles fur- 

 ther it is entered by the Ondas, which originates eight miles from the preced- 

 ing, and nearer the Sobrado, an arm of the Tucantines, and runs rapidly through 

 a gold and diamond country. Fifteen miles below, it receives the Branco, 

 navigable to the situation of Tres Barras, so called in consequence of the union 

 with it of the Riachao and the Janeiro, which enter in front of each other ; 

 seventy miles lower also on the left, the Preto joins, which is one of its largest 



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