NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



157 



any chalk in the country, Arroio da China stands on the Uruguay, is 

 inhabited chiefly by white people, and exports Cattle, Wheat, and Fruit. 

 Corpus is the most Northerly, and perhaps the pleasantest civilized 

 station in the province of Parana. 



The Capitania, or Province of Uruguay, or the Red River, com- 

 prises the other portion of the newly acquired territory. It is somewhat 

 of a triangular form, bounded on the West by the river from whicli 

 it takes its name, on the South by the Plata ; Eastward its boundaries 

 have long been a subject of keen contention between Portugal and 

 Spain. It is allowed by both that the line of demarcation commences 

 on the coast, a little North of the Plata, at those remarkable rocks 

 known by the name of Castelhos Grandes. From thence it is said, by 

 the Brazilians, to run along the ridge which divides the waters flowing 

 Eastward into the lakes Mirim and Patos, from those which run West- 

 ward, and fall into the Uruguay. The Spaniards, who, in this case, 

 seem to be the most correct, claim as their boundary a line running up 

 the Western shore of the lake Mirim to its Northern bay, there joining 

 the ridge before mentioned, and proceeding upward until it strike the 

 heads of the Ibicuy, whose stream then becomes the limit until it enters 

 the Uruguay. The contest is not likely to terminate but by the perma- 

 nent annexation of the province to Brazil, according to the cession 

 lately made. 



The rocks, called the Great Castellios, consist chiefly of three large 

 masses of naked granite, about a hundred feet high from the water, 

 with perpendicular sides and roundish tops. They appear close to the 

 shore, and, at a distance, are thought to resemble castles built on the 

 beach ; but if there be such a resemblance, at any point of view, it 

 vanishes on a nearer approach. They are backed by low woody hiUs, 

 and the beach to the Northward of them, as far as the Castelhos 

 Pequenos, is flat and sandy. There seems an expanse of water towards 

 the West, which ought to be surveyed, as probably a harbour might 

 be found, useful for small vessels, when the wind blows hard from the 



