Expeditions of Castelnau and De Souza-Matto Grosso. 457

of the Rio de la Plata. From one end of this ridge to the other, from the Atlantic to the Andes, gold, diamonds, and precious stones are dug from its sides or

washed from its streams.

On the northern slopes of it, the Tocantins, the Chingu, the Tapajos and the Madeira, tributaries to the Amazon, and larger than any of the rivers of Europe, take their rise. Also the Paranahiba, which empties directly into the Atlantic, has its sources among the northern ravines of this auriferous slope. On its southern declivities the fountain heads of the Parana and Paraguay are found sending forth bright sparkling streams, which, like threads of silver, are seen winding their way through the most luxuriant vegetation and over sands of gold and pebbles interspersed with brilliants, to unite and swell out into the mighty River of Silver," as the La Plata is called.

Let us therefore leave the country of old Francia for that of Matto Grosso and Brazil.

The traveler leaving the republic, and ascending the Paraguay to the celebrated gold and diamond region of Matto Grosso, finds on either hand, as he goes up, a charming country, diversified with pampas and groves of great beauty and

extent.

Turning up the Mendingo, which comes in from the east, and ascending the same for seventy or eighty miles, he comes to the village of Miranda.

The people in the neighborhood are industrious. They raise large herds of cattle and great numbers of horses. They cultivate, in great abundance, the sugar-cane, Indian corn, pulse, manioc, and cotton. The climate is salubrious and delightful-many of the inhabitants reaching the age of one hundred years. It was here that Dr. Weddell, the botanist, saw the "nicaya" with its elegant foliage, the fruit of which was described by the Indians to be of an oblong form, and to contain a natural confection of which they are very fond. Throughout this region they have immense quantities of the beautiful violet and other ornamental woods, which are used for firewood; for, though of great value in cabinet-shops, the people here have no other way, notwithstanding their fine navigable streams, of getting these woods to the seaboard except on the backs of mules.

Returning to the Paraguay, the scene is enlivened by the immense herds that are feeding upon the now evergreen pastures of the plains. The value of these herds consists chiefly in their horns and hides.

The village of Poconé, at the mouth of the Cuyabá, is one of the most flourishing places in the interior of Brazil. Castelnau says (and until otherwise stated, he is my chief authority for what follows) that as many as 8,000 or 10,000 head of cattle are owned by single individuals in that village.

Passing Poconé on the right, and taking the left fork of the river, which retains the name of Paraguay, we reach, at the distance of about 150 miles above it, the frontier Brazilian fort of Villa Maria.

The guns that are mounted in this fort were brought up the Amazon to the Tapajos, thence by that river up the Arinas, thence by portage across the diamond regions to the head-waters of the Cuyabá into the Paraguay, and so up stream to Villa Maria.

On the west there are several fine rivers, which, rising in Bolivia and Brazil, fall into the Paraguay above the mouth of the Cuyabá. Several of these streams interlock with the head-waters of the Madeira, which is to the Amazon what the Missouri is to the Mississippi. I shall have occasion again to speak of these tributaries, of the splendid country watered by them, and of the portage between them.

Villa Maria is in the midst of the great ipecacuanha region of Matto Grosso. In 1814 Francisco Real was sent to explore the diamond region of this province. But it turned out with him as I apprehend it would turn out with the pioneers of commerce now: as rich in diamonds as are the streams and gravel beds of this province, the riches of the vegetable were found greatly to exceed those of the mineral kingdom.

This immense natural plantation includes within one field an area of 3,000 square miles. The crop is perennial, and may be gathered the year round. One expert hand may collect fifteen pounds of this root in a day, which brought in Rio $1 the pound. The work of an ordinary hand is five pounds the day, and the cost of laborers from $3 40 to $4 per month.

Castelnau estimates that from 1830 to

1837 not less than 800,000 pounds of this thrown wide open to navigation and drug were exported from this province commerce, will, in after times, be reto Rio. This abundant supply brought down its price. But here is the singular feature of this trade: this produce is taken from the very banks of one of the noblest rivers in the world, and transported by mules for the distance of 1,200 miles to the sea-coast, in spite of Nature's great highway.

That this state of things should, in the This stone is found in the bottom of middle of the 19th century, be found to the streams; and the most celebrated exist in the middle of South America, for it are the Ouro, the Diamantino, and upon one of the finest of steamboat the Santa Anna, in their whole length; water-courses in the world, whose navi- the Arinas, the San Franciscos, of which gable tributaries are owned by no less than five separate and independent nations, and which the "policy of commerce" has not yet demanded to be

The Gold and Diamond Districts-Policy of Brazil.

zonian side of this ridge, is said also to be exceedingly rich in diamonds.

A Spaniard, one Don Simon, with his slaves, washing on the Santa Anna, during the dry season only, got in four years 7,000 carats of diamonds.

Castelnau estimates the whole yield of diamonds from Brazil to the end of 1849 at near $80,000,000.

It is the mineral wealth of this watershed between the La Plata and the Amazon, operating with its gold and its diamonds upon the cupidity of her councilors, that has been the curse of Brazil.

At first the diamonds belonged to the crown, and no person was allowed to visit the diamond district unless under the strictest surveillance. Military posts were established throughout the whole region to prevent people from gathering its mineral wealth.

Suppose the United States had established military posts in California to prevent the people from going there and digging for gold, what would have been the condition of that state now in comparison to what it is? It would have been as the interior of Brazil now is.

The policy of Brazil has been not only to shut out commerce, but to shut up from observation the wonderful resources, capabilities, and capacities of the finest country in the world; and among the immense treasures which lie dormant and undeveloped there, I class the precious stones and metals as among the least of the truly valuable.

There is now in Rio the original of an order issued when Humboldt was traveling in South America, ordering that great man to be made prisoner and sent out of the country, should he once set foot on Brazilian territory.

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cers, in pursuit of science and of knowledge for the benefit of the human family, were, by this dog-in-the-manger policy, compelled to undergo all sorts of exposure, and, living on monkeys and seacows, to descend that mighty river, from its sources to its mouth, on rafts, in dugouts, and upon such floating things as they could find. The report of these two officers will no doubt open the eyes of the country to the importance of this region.

On the ridge to the north of Diamantino, Castelnau saw the waters of the La Plata and the Amazon flowing from the same farm:

"We found (says he) one of the very sources of the Amola, (a tributary of the Cuyabá,) which rises in a ravine of the plateau, and flows towards the south; it is N.N.W from the fork of it, which they say is a little more elevated. These two sources unite almost immediately in the valley to form the Amola, which crosses the road of Kebo. The farm of Estivado, where we were, is situated on one of the most interesting points which the continent presents. There, in fact, and at a few steps one from the other, arise the sources of two of the greatest rivers in the world-the Amazon and the La Plata. It may one day be very easy to establish a communication between these gigantic streams, for the master of the house, as he told us himself, had attempted, simply for the purpose of irrigating his garden, to turn the waters of one river into the bed of the other. The source of the River Estivado, the true branch of the Arinas, is found in a hollow in the plateau, whose shed is turned towards the north about 650 feet east of the house of the same name; and 275 feet west of this appears, in a little grove, the source of an affluent of the Tombador, which is known to be one of the tributaries of the Cuyabá.

And it has been but two or three years ago that application was made by this government to that of Brazil for permission to send a steamer up the Ama- The farm of Estivado is therefore zon to explore it, not for the benefit of on a dividing line of the waters which the United States alone, but for the good flow north and those which flow south. of commerce, science, and the world. The same phenomenon is observed in Permission was refused, The conse. Macu; in the times of great floods there quence was, two officers of the navy is a torrent whose waters at a certain were ordered to cross over the Andes from Lima, and descend the Amazon as they might. One of these officers (Lieut. Herndon, U. S. N.) has just returned and is now engaged with his report; the other (Lieut. Gibbon) is still on his way down. Thus, in consequence of this Japanese spirit that still lingers in Brazil, our offi

point separate in such a manner, that, on the one hand, they flow to the Cuyabá, and, on the other, to the Tapajos.

"All this great plateau is on the dividing line of the waters. The superintendent of Estivado told us that once a canoe had been carried from Cuyabá in the Arinas by means of a portage of only

four leagues across the Chapola, and the proprietor of Macu had proposed to establish this communication."

Diamantino carries on a direct trade with Para, by the Arinas, the Tapajos, and Amazon. The place of embarkation is ten leagues from the village, and a voyage up and down thence to Para occupies eight months. The Tapajos is said to be sickly.

The foreign merchandise that reaches Diamantino by this route is sold at an advance, on the average, of eight hundred and fifty per cent. on its price in Para, which is some fifty or one hundred per cent. on New-York prices.

Were this trade large, as at present it is not-and without steamboat navigation can never be-Pennsylvania, no doubt, would rejoice in it; for iron in Diamantino and the province of Matto Grosso generally sells at $25 the 100 lbs.-five hundred and fifty dollars a ton! -a price which ought surely to satisfy the fron men of any country. Salt sells at $18 the 100 lbs.: flour at $40 per barrel.

Castelnau quotes the Para and Diamantino prices of thirty-four of the principal foreign articles of trade between the two places, and the average advance in Diamantino upon these Para prices is, as I have stated, 850 per cent.

Passing from this benighted country over into Bolivia, Castlenau came to an entirely different sort of people. Industrious and thriving, the Bolivians, as they contemplate their lovely rivers, the Pilcomayo and the Madeira, sigh for the steamboat and the free navigation of the La Plata and the Amazon.

Chuquisaca stands on a spur of a mountain which juts out from the Andes, and constitutes the "divide" between the head-waters of the Pilcomayo and the Madeira. This latter, taking its rise under the north wall of this city, and joining a tributary which comes down from the city of Chochabamba, takes a sweep of some three hundred miles to the southward and eastward; then recovering itself, and swollen by the numerous tributaries received by the way, it turns north towards the Amazon, and flows by Santa Cruz de la Sierra, (the present capital of the republic,) a magnificent sheet of water.

From the two first-named cities, by the windings of the Madeira to the ocean, the distance is upwards of two thousand miles, more than half of which is in Bolivian territory. Well may that republic, therefore, sigh for river steamers and the right of way up and down the Amazon.

The climate of Bolivia is one of the finest tropical climates in the world. Indeed, its climates and productions may be considered to include those of all the habitable portions of the globe.

Here, one seated at the foot of a mountain, and surrounded with the luscious fruits of the tropics, may, casting his eye up towards the snow-capped peak above him, take in at one view the whole range of the vegetable gamut. Beginning with the chirimoya, the pineapple, the orange, and the vanilla, as they cast their fragrance around, he passes through, as he ascends, groves of the olive and the vine, the peach and the pear, until finally, having completed the vegetable notation The Pilcomayo takes its rise under in the order of production through the the south wall of their beautiful "Silver torrid and temperate zones, he reaches City," as Chuquisaca is called. The the frigid, and with its cap of snow he Vermejo, another large Bolivian tribu- finds the summit crowned with the tary of the La Plata, has its sources fur- mosses and the lichens of the polar rether south. After a course of a thousand gions. miles to the southward and eastward, these streams empty into the Paraguay; ley of the Amazon; one-fourth in the valand so anxious is Bolivia for the steam ley of the La Plata; and the rest, which navigation of these rivers, that she has, is not desert or mountain, is in the val I am told, offered a bonus of $20,000 to ley of Lake Titicaca, that inland basin the first steamboat that will ascend the in which the Incas and civilization of Pilcomayo to the head of navigation. Peru had their origin.

About one-half of Bolivia is in the val

Mementoes of Ancient Greatness-Asiatic Commerce.

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ART. VI.-PROGRESS-THE PAST AND THE PRESENT.

In referring to these mementoes of prosperity and intelligence, it may be asked, Who were their founders? Who were their denizens? What was their literature?-the elements of their enlightenment?

Who were their teachers? Who laid the foundations and raised the unique tumuli of our own land? The tescallis of Anahuac, of Otumba and Cholula-the dilapidated palaces of Oxmutal, of Mitla, Palenque, &c.? They, too, evince in silent veracity the existence of an enlightened era in America.

THE chronology of creation is written to witness an exhibition, a solitary recluse in immutable characters in the great or bandit may be observed skulking volume of nature, and the surface of the among its dark recesses; yet, it eluciearth is rich in historical data in con- dates the splendor of the times and the nection with the promotion of human taste for public amusement. But what The experience of nearly is Rome now, with all her ecclesiastical progress. sixty centuries is recorded in these an- dignitaries? In the march of progress nals of animated action; exhibiting, as she lingers in the rear, as if loth to it were, a journal of the progressive and leave the beaten paths of eighteen cenretrogressive changes of mind in its turies, bearing all the accumulated efforts to explore the hidden secrets of decrepitude of age. It would be folly to follow the destroyer's footsteps the universe. The civilized world of the present throughout Europe, where every valley day may well boast of the flattering as- is a witness, and every headland expect of human improvement and ex- hibits a ruined trophy of a brighter panding genius, while a retrospective day. view calls up a host of strange, gloomy, yet interesting images that float upon the waves of the past. The wrecks of ancient grandeur meet our gaze at every turn; the ruins of enlightened periods are found in every land. Look into the dim vista of antiquity, among the dilapidated masses of mural rubbish strewn throughout the once gorgeous East. There are the foot-prints of Desolation, clear and defined. Overstepping the terrene temples of Salsette and Elephanta, he crushes under his tread the Who will assert that this magnificent Temple of the Sun at Persepolis; Shushan, Nineveh, Babylon, Continent is not the lost island of AtaBaalbec, with all their storied great- lanta, of which the elder Pliny vaguely ness, are almost lost to human ken. The speaks, or that the line of Asiatic comcolumnar fragments of Palmyra only merce did not cross the Isthmus of mark the location of the solitude of Chiapa? The late discovery of an exor tensive city on the Island of Tinian, on ruins, and green stagnant tanks oasian pools, where the prowling jackal, the direct route to the Indian Archipeand Bedouin bandit, slake their parch- lago, is the initiatory development of such ing thirst. Jerusalem, "the city of our a supposition; and similar discoveries God," is trod by the feet of the infidel; on the same line of navigation would the Turk and the Arab pitch their tents give it plausibility. Following the diurnal course of light on Mount Zion. Where are the ancient emporiums of the eastern commerce, to that quarter of the globe where it is Tyre, Sidon, Tarshish, and Carthage? supposed the human race commenced Heliopolis, and Thebes, with its hun- its course of improvement, and from the dred gates, from each of which a thou- remains of science that was anciently sand chariots went forth to battle; and cultivated, as well as the arts that were where is the oracle of Jupiter Ammon, exercised there, it is concluded to have of the Lybian desert? We still look up been the first in which man made any to the mouldering battlements of the considerable progress in that career. Acropolis, frowning grimly from the The wisdom of the East was early celerocky hold upon degenerate Athens. brated in Scripture history; and its p The arcades of the grand Colosseum ductions were in request amon still stand a gloomy monument of archi- Egyptians at least four hundre tectural genius at the period of Vespa- before Moses wrote the Per Instead of There is reason to infer from t sian's triumphant reign.

eighty thousand gay auditors assembled source that Damascus had