152 



NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



water. Guay describes a smaller portion of water, and signifies a bay, 

 inlet, or creek. It follows that Parana must be the name of that portion 

 of the river, which has the largest expanse, and Paraguay of the smaller^ 

 tributary stream. With a view to accurate distinctions, it may be useful 

 to observe, also, that yg or yk denotes fresh water, and is the term, which 

 water carriers in Brazil make use of, when they cry their commodity 

 about the streets for sale ; though generally expressed in Portuguese and 

 Spanish writings by y alone, or hy. In this state it forms the termination 

 of several names of rivers, as Uruguay, Tacoary, Acarahy. When 

 placed at the beginning of a name, and connected with some other 

 descriptive word> it is generally written yg or ig ; as Iguasu, the great 

 river, Iguap^, the navigable river, Iguape-mirim, the little navigable stream. 



The interior of the Capitania or Province of Parana is little known, 

 and the accounts of those, who have travelled through it, are very 

 unsatisfactory. The Parana, before it touches this district, is become a 

 mighty stream, having drained an immense tract of country. Arrived 

 at the verge of the great table land, which forms the inner part of Brazil, 

 it tumbles over a precipitous, rocky channel, at a place called Setequedas, 

 or Seven-falls. Some have spoken of a continued rapid and broken 

 advance of the river for several leagues ; but Cazal, who is by far the 

 best writer on Brazilian Geography, represents it as here narrowed from 

 a league in breadth to a hundred yards, by six small rocky islands, 

 between which the water rushes and falls. I suspect that the breadth 

 which he mentions, is not that of the whole stream, but of each of the 

 seven channels. About the same parallel of latitude, and formed by the 

 same mountainous ridge, is a smaller cataract on the Paraguay, called the 

 Estreito or Narrows, where the stream has worn itself a channel with 

 lofty perpendicular sides, through which it flows " as through a nar- 

 row street." 



Among the numerous minor streams of the country, is the Acarahy, 

 or river of Cranes, which joins the Parana, nearly opposite to the South- 

 West point of the province of St. Paul's. The Tibiquary, also, 



