NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



155 



Officers into its newly -acquired possessions ; nor, as it seems, would it 

 answer any valuable purpose to do so, the whole country being in a state 

 of insurrection under Artigas, Avho has a strong antipathy to Brazil and 

 its rulers. They are, however, formed into municipal divisions, taking 

 their names from the principal towns ; and are not undeserving of some 

 description. 



Assumption, the largest place in the Province of Parana, and a 

 sort of metropolitan town, is more important on some other accounts 

 than for its comparative size. It is not very well situated for trade, 

 though on the borders of a large river, and surrounded by a fertile and 

 populous country. It has lately been visited by British merchants, who 

 have found that it affords little scope for enterprize, producing no com- 

 modities for export, but such as are of little esteem in European markets, 

 or can be bought on better terms at Buenos Ay res, having little demand 

 for our manufactures, and possessing no circulating medium. The 

 exports consist chiefly of matte, a little tobacco, wood, both in billets 

 and planks, and imbe, which, I think, is the thread made of the 

 fibres of the Aloe, and sold in the shops of Brazil, under the name 

 of Ticum. 



When this part of the American Continent was ceded to the 

 Brazilian Crown, some sanguine people imagined that, should the Plata 

 ever be shut against British shipping, — a circumstance not very likely 

 to occur,— commerce might be carried on to Assumption, through St. 

 Catharine's or St. Paul's. But if the encouragements to trade thither 

 should increase, it appears to me that establishments at Colonia would 

 answer more effectually, for that place must command the commerce of 

 the Parana, and the rivers flowing into it, as soon as the country shall be 

 quietly settled under its new masters. 



Corrientes is a smaller place than Assumption ; but, although its 

 neighbourhood produces neither Wheat nor Matte, its superior situation 

 will probably enable it to outstrip its rival, when the Parana becomes 

 better known to Europeans, and when ecclesiastical influence, the 

 bane of old countries and the curse of new ones, shall have given 



U 2! 



