64 



TRAVELS IN BRAZIL. 



as the end of the seventeenth century, to follow 

 the course of the Tiete. After they had happily 

 passed its numerous falls they came into the Parana, 

 and from that into the Rio Pardo, up which they 

 then sailed. The crystal water of the Rio Sangue- 

 xuga, one of the principal sources of the Rio Pardo, 

 seemed to promise them ample success in their 

 search for gold. They explored the country ; 

 washed the earth, in hopes of finding that precious 

 metal ; and passing the limit of the waters of the 

 Serra de Camapuao, reached the sources of the 

 Embotatay, which they descended till they at last 

 entered the broad stream of the Paraguay. In the 

 marshy and unhealthy tracts they at first, indeed, 

 found no gold ; but the report of the riches of the 

 neighbourhood, particularly towards the west, the 

 exaggerated accounts of the treasures which the 

 expeditions of the Spaniards — among others that 

 of Cabeza de Vaca, and that of the enterprising 

 Portuguese, Aleyxo Garcia — had met with in these 

 countries ; lastly, their usual inclination to attack 

 the less powerful and scattered Indian tribes, and 

 to carry away the prisoners as slaves, were sufficient 

 reasons to induce several Paulistas to undertake 

 this tedious and dangerous voyage. Antonio Pires 

 de Campos took, in the year I7I8, the same route, 

 and discovered the gold mines of Cujaba, while he 

 was endeavouring to procure prisoners of the 

 Indian tribe of the Cuchipos. In a few years so 

 great a number of gold- washers flocked to this new 



