|
page 71 ---scenery---
According to their accounts, these islands and the banks of the river
are inhabited by innumerable flocks of birds; the shoals of fish in this
river, which come from the Paraguay,
are incredible. Palms of singular forms stand upon the banks, alternating with beautiful vegetation of aromatic
grasses and shrubs.
The scenery is said to be still more remarkable and
pleasing when the traveller have arrived in the canals, between the Pantanaes themselves;  thousands of ducks and water-hens rise in the air on the approach
of the boats; storks of immense size wade the boundless swamps, and divide
the sovereignty over the waters with the terrible crocodiles; sometimes
they sail for leagues together between thick plantations of rice, which
here grows spontaneously; and thus this solitary tract, which is seldom
animated by a canoe of
the Guaycurus engaged in fishing, recalls to mind the plantations
and agriculture of Europe.
The diversity and granduer of the scenery  announce the vicinity of a great
river, and after four or five days journey the navigators reach the Paraguay which at this place is almost a league in breadth even in the dry season,
but during the rains overflows the Pantanaes, and spreads into
a vast lake above a hundred square leagues in extent. The navigation,
though against the stream, is easy here, and the voyage to the mouth of
the rivers S. Lourenzo or Porrudos, is generally made in eight days; from this they
at length reach the river Cuyaba,
and in ten days' sail up that river, come to the Vila
de Cuyaba.
Port of the Vila de Cuyaba
page 72 ---Indian nations---evolution of a trade
route---
The whole voyage occupies from four to five months. While the trade on
the Tiete still
flourished, arms, cloth, cottons and white calicoes, glassware and pottery,
salt and all other European articles, went by this way to Cuyaba and Matto Grosso.
The returns consisted of copaiva oil, pichurim beans,
tamarinds, resinous gums, wax, guarana, gold-dust and skins, particularly
of the Brazilian ounces and otters. The articles imported by so long and
dangerous a route, were at first very expensive; but by degrees the prices
declined, till they bore a due proportion to those on the coast; especially
after the route by land caused the two ways by water, from Porto
Feliz on the Tiete, and from  Para on the Tocantins and the Araguaya, to
be abandoned. The Vila
de Cuyaba, which on account of its more healthy climate, exceeds
in population and prosperity the Vila
Bella, now the Cidade de Matto Grosso, and is chosen
by the governor for his residence during one-half the year, is the principal
place in the province for the trade, by land, as well as on the rivers.
The Indian tribes, who at first attacked travellers on the river, have now retired for the most part into more distant regions, or have adopted
more peaceable dispositions, and come to the river only from time to time,
in order to trade with the boats that sail along it.
 
|
