PROVINCE OF PARA. 



although the soil is of great fertility, and worthy of a more active and indus- 

 trious population. It has a church of Our Lady of Rozario. 



Gurupy, advantageously situated upon the banks of the bay of the same 

 name, was created a town in 1671, and became for some time rather flourish- 

 ing, whilst the capital of a small Capitania, and visited by the coasting-vessels 

 from Maranham to Para. Its anchorage-place has diminished in depth, and 

 agriculture is declining from the want of whites as well as Africans. 



Bayao, a small Indian town, with some whites on the eastern margin of the 

 Tucantins, and thirty-five miles above Caraeta, is well supplied with fish, and 

 the rendezvous of canoes from Goyaz. It has a church of St. Antonio, and 

 the inhabitants cultivate cocoa, coffee, cotton, rice, mandioca, divers fruits, 

 and hortulans. Its very advantageous situation, and the wide field for agri- 

 cultural improvement, promise it a considerable augmentation. 



Thirty-five miles further, upon the same margin of the Tucantins, and eigh- 

 teen below the fort of Alcobaca, is the aldeia of Pederneira, inhabited by 

 christianized Indians, who cultivate the same articles as the preceding town. 

 Here the river begins to be thickly strewed with islands to the capital. In this 

 district there is yet the small town of Conde upon the margin of the Tucantins, 

 twenty miles to the south-west of Para; also Beja, a place of the same order, 

 and seven miles south of Conde ; and Abayte, an insignificant place, eight 

 miles south of Beja ; all three are upon an island formed by the rivers Tucan- 

 tins, Muju, and Igarape Mirim, whose territory is appropriated to several 

 branches of agriculture. 



Arcos, situated upon the great bay of Turyvassu, is an aboriginal town, and 

 the insufficiency of its inhabitants retards the progress of agriculture, to which 

 its fertile soil is so favourable. Upon this coast, also, are the parishes of St. 

 Joze de Piria, and Vizeu, inhabited by Indians ; and in the adjacent lands of 

 the river Guamma are those of Caraparu, Bujaru, Anhangapy, Irituya, St. 

 Miguel da Cachoeira, and St. Domingos, in the angle of th^jnouth of the river 

 Capim. 



District of Xingutania. 

 This district is of a quadrangular form, and is bounded on the north by the 

 river Amazons, on the west by the river Xingu, which affords it the name, and 

 separates it from Tapajonia; on the south by the district of Tapiraquia, and on 

 the east by the Tucantins. It is a portion of the province yet little known, and 



