472 



PROVINCE OF PARA. 



da Concei^ao, and raany liouses of one story. The fort, which first defended 

 it against the Indians, is now occupied by a detachment for registering the 

 canoes that ascend and descend both rivers. The inhabitants, principally 

 whites, do not yet breed many cattle. 



Alter do Cham, originally Hybirarybe, is yet a small town, but advantage- 

 ously situated upon a lake, near the Tapajos, (with which it communicates,) 

 almost in the skirts of a rock, rising pyramidically to a considerable height, and 

 ten miles south of Santaram. Its inhabitants are principally Indians, and, be- 

 sides the usual necessaries, cultivate some excellent cocoa ; but hunting and 

 fishing are their favourite pursuits. 



Aveyro, situated upon the margin of the Tapajos, has the title of a town, but 

 is only an inferior village, its houses being thatched with straw, and disposed 

 without regularity, in a beautiful situation. The inhabitants are Indians, and 

 incapable of improving it ; consequently the advantages of being upon a naviga- 

 ble river, and in the midst of a rich and fertile soil, will not be available until 

 it obtains a supply of white people. It is about sixty miles distant from Alter- 

 do Cham. 



District of Mundrucania. 



This district, limited on the south by that of Juruenna, has on the north the 

 river Amazons, on the west the river Madeira, and on the east the river Tapajos. 

 Its length from north to south, on the eastern side, is near three hundred miles, 

 and its medium width two hundred. Along the banks of the rivers which limit 

 it, the country is mainly swampy, with extensive morasses, inhabited by a pro- 

 fusion of birds, drawn thither by the shell fish. The intervals and the interior 

 are covered with widely-extending woods, possessing trees of every magnitude. 

 The banks of the rivers and lakes afford a species of cane, upon which the ox- 

 fish and tortoise feed. In some parts the granite-stone is common ; but there 

 are no accounts of ore having been discovered any where in this district. 



Amongst other small rivers which run into the Madeira, are the Anhangating, 

 the mouth of which is in 5° 30' ; the Mataura, which empties itself twenty miles 

 lower down, and communicates with the Canoma in the interior of the district ; 

 and the Marmellos, originally Araxia, whose mouth is seven miles above the 

 entrance to the lake Marucutuba. 



The interior of the district is watered by the rivers Canoma, Abacachy, Apiu- 

 quiribo, Mauhe-Guassu, Mauhe-Mirim, Massary, Andira, Tuppynambarana, all 

 of which run into a branch of the Madeira, which, under the name of Canoma, 



