MARANHAM follows Pernambuco, to the north-west, end includes the district of Pianhy. Taken in its most extended limits, this province stretches from the estu ary of the Turuiassu river, S. lat. 1° 10', to the northern boundary of Minas Geraes, S. lat. le 25', or through upwards of thirteen degrees of latitude; having the At lantic Ocean north ; Pernambuco east ; the river St. Francisco, or Bahia, south-cast ; Goias south-west, and Para north-west. Length from north to south above nine hundred miles, with a mean width of at least two hundred and eighty miles, and an area, at the lowest estimate, of two hundred and fifty thousand square miles. In regard to actual settlement by a civilized people, the extended region under the general name of Maranham, is nominal in great part. The contarca, or district particularly called by the title of Maranham, from the name of the capital, is small, but important from its staple productions, which to many more, may be named annuli, capsicum, ginger, and pepper. The city of Maranham, with a population of thirty thousand souls, stands on an island at the mouth of the Pinare river, S. lat. 2° 28', long. Washington City, 32° 56' E.
The seven provinces, or captain generalships we have surveyed, stretching from the vicinity of the equator to S. lat. 32°, and containing an aggregate supedicies of nine hundred and ninety thousand square miles, do not contain, when thus taken together, the one-third part of the Brazillian territory, and we now proceed to notice the still more extended, but less known tracts of South America.
Coins, as delineated on Tanner's map of South Ame rica, stretches from the confluence of the Tocantin and Araguay rivers, S. lat. 6°, to the junction of a small river named Pardo, with the Parana, S. lat. 21° 40' ; having Matto Grosso west ; Para north-west and north ; Maranham north-east; Minas Geraes south-east; and St. Paul's south. Length one thousand and eighty miles, and mean width exceeding two hundred miles, with an area of at least two hundred and twenty thou sand square miles. This very extensive province is bounded on the west by the Araguay in the entire length of that river, and contains nearly the whole valley of the Tocantin. The southern part is drained by the extreme northern tributary of the Parana, the Paranaiba, which has interlocking sources with those of the Tocantin and Araguay. The province of Goias, is ob
viously from the courses of its rivers, composed of two unequal inclined planes, sloping north and south from a table land between and 18° S. lat. This plateau must be of considerable elevation, as a chain of mountains called the Cordillera Grande, is drawn from it on Tan ner's map, and extends to the junction of the Araguay and Tocantin, through eleven degrees of latitude.
Goias is as yet thinly peopled, and but very imperfectly explored. The settlements are principally on the higher branches of the Tocantin and Paranaiba. Villa Boa, the capital, stands in a mountain valley on the source of a branch of the Vermelho river, at S. lat. 16° 12', long. 28° 56' E. from Washington City, about 700 miles N.W. and directly inland from Rio Janeiro. The population of Goias is too much scattered, to be sufficiently well as certained in regard to number, to admit even an approxi mate enumeration.
MArro Grosso, still more extensive and still worse explored, lies west and south-west from Goias, and ex tends from S. lat. 9°, to the tropic of Capricorn, S. lat. 23° 30'. On the southern boundary, this province fills the space, about 250 miles, between the Parana and Pa raguay; and on the northern limit sweeps upwards of one thousand miles from the Araguay to the Madeira. At the broadest part, S. lat. 10°, this province extends about 1100 miles from east to west ; its greatest length from the angle on the Paraguay, to that on the Madeira, above twelve hundred miles. The area falls little, if any short of 600,000 square miles, or between nine and ten times the extent of Virginia. With our imperfect knowledge of its local features, it would be mere idle presumption to give a general character of Matto Grosso. It may be sufficient to observe, that the central part is decidedly a table land of considerable elevation, as from it flow, north-westward, the eastern sources of the Madeira ; to the north are discharged the higher branches of the Tapa jos and Xingu ; the waters of the Rio das Mortes, a branch of the Araguay, flow eastward, whilst the nume rous and most northerly confluents of the Paraguay fall to the south down the higher rim of the basin of Rio de la Plata. The table land of Matto Grosso is, in fact, a continuation of that of Goias.