NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



151 



wealth, comforts, and beauties, which a fine climate, fertile soil, and 

 plenteous streams, can bestow. It comprehends nearly the whole of the 

 district first civilized by the Jesuits, who, perhaps, have done more good 

 and more harm than any other corporate body, which ever existed. It 

 is rather a level than a mountainous country, although there are in it 

 some considerable ridges, and almost every part of it is sufficiently undu- 

 lated to be dry and healthy. There are, indeed, portions of swampy 

 ground near the great rivers, but these, if ever stocked with inhabitants, 

 will form meadows of the richest description. The Court of Brazil has 

 also obtained, by this cession, the most suitable boundary of its Trans- 

 atlantic dominions. But if the territory, previously under its sway, was 

 much too large, as I am inclined to think, — there cannot be wisdom in 

 this extension ; more especially, if a long and expensive contest is to be 

 maintained, in order to secure it, "into which others, besides Spain, may 

 be drawn, and in the midst of which it is not unlikely that some portions 

 of Brazil itself may become discontented and refractory. However this 

 may be, the die is cast ; and these acquisitions are already divided into two 

 Capitanias or Provinces, taking their names from the great rivers, by 

 which they are bounded. 



One of these rivers, the Parand, rises in the heart of Brazil, flows 

 through the country to receive the Paraguay, and becomes the Western 

 boundary of thd province to which it communicates its name. The 

 latter river had been, previously, the limit of Brazil on that side, from 

 its remotest source, and of the province of Parana, from the lake of 

 Xarays. Their united streams flow with a sea-like majesty, until they 

 contribute to form the immense estuary, familiarly known as the Rio 

 de la Plata. 



Different persons, who have written of these rivers, have confounded 

 the names of the principal and the tributary streams, in a way, which an 

 acquaintance with the native language might have prevented. Para 

 always describes a large body of water ; na or nha signifies sufficiency ; 

 hence the term Parana, besides being technically given to one particular 

 river, is applied, also, to the ocean, as well as any great expanse of fresh 



