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land should be found troublesome to drag canoes, the goods may be 

 forwarded immediately on mules. This navigation to Matto Grosso 

 is at least two hundred leagues shorter than that performed through 

 the Madeira and Guapore ; it is consequently less tedious and ex- 

 pensive, and equally advantageous to the mines of Cuiaba. The na- 

 vigation of the river Tapajos might lead also to new discoveries in 

 the vast unexplored parts of this river, up to its entrance into the 

 plains of the Parexis, and their products might add to those of the 

 extensive regions on the Amazons. Besides this, the river is known 

 to be auriferous for a great part of its course : it is known also, that, 

 passing from the Juruena into its western arm, the river Camarare, 

 and the heads of the river Jamary or Das Candeas, which, running 

 in broad streams down the eastern side of the Parexis mountains, 

 enters the Madeira, there are mines which have inspired great hopes, 

 though but lately seen, after a fruitless search of twenty years. 



The River Paraguay 

 has its remote springs to the west of the heads of the Arinos in 

 latitude 13°, and, after a southern course of six hundred leagues, 

 enters the ocean under the appellation of the Rio de la Plata. 

 The heads of the Paraguay are seventy leagues north-east from 

 Villa Bella, and forty leagues north from Cuiaba, and divided 

 into many branches, and already forming complete rivers, which, as 

 they run south, successively unite, and form the channel of this im- 

 mense river, which is immediately navigable. To the west, a short dis- 

 tance from the main source of the Paraguay ,is that of the Sypotuba, 

 which disembogues on its west bank in lat. 15* 50', after a course of 

 sixty leagues. In the upper part of this river, and near its western 

 branch, called the Jurubauba, was formerly a gold-mine, which was 

 worked with considerable profit ; but the superior advantages de- 

 rived from others subsequently explored in Matto Grosso and Cuiaba, 

 caused it to be abandoned, and its site is not now known with cer- 

 tainty. The little river Cabaral, also auriferous, enters the Paraguay 



