Villa do Cuibabu, the capital of Matto Grosso, is situated on a river of the same name, at S. lat. 15° 20', and long. 21° E. from Washington, about 1100 miles north-west by west from Rio Janeiro, and 1200 a little east of north from Buenos Ayres.
If we add the combined extent of Goias and Matto Grosso, 820,000 square miles, to that of the Atlantic provinces previously noticed, 990,000 square miles, we have an area of one million eight hundred and ten thou sand square miles, a superficies exceeding that of the Roman empire under Trajan and the Antonines, and far exceeding China proper, or European Russia, and yet we have not included perhaps one half the Brazilian territories. We have now to launch into the central regions of Amazonia.
PAnA reaches from the sources of the Branco branch of Rio Negro, in the mountains of Guyana, N. lat. 4°, to Fort Principe de Beira, on the Madeira, S. lat. 12°. In longitude this province extends from the mouth of the river Juriassu, 32° E. from Washington City, to the sources of the Javari, 5° E. from the same meridian. Length from east to west, 1830 miles. The mean width must exceed one thousand, with an area of 1,830,000 square miles. The main volume of the Amazon reaches Para at the mouth of the Javari, and separates Lower Peru from the dominions of Brazil to Fort St. Fernando, at the mouth of the Ica. Below the latter point, the already great stream of the Amazon enters and continues its entire course of upwards of one thousand four hundred miles in Para. Immense as is the mass of water already accumulated in the Amazon above Para, it receives in that province, beside innumerable smaller streams, the Jupura and Negro from the north-west, and from the south-west, the Jutay, Jurua, Tefte, Puri's, Madeira, Tapajos, Xingu, and Tocantin. 'We have already waived the attempt to give general characters to regions so im mense—we may here merely observe, that it would be no hazard to pronounce Para, if all its natural advantages of tropical climate, fertility of soil, and abundance and navigable facilities of its rivers are taken into view, as the most favoured tract of comparative continuous extent on the whole habitable earth.
When we turn, however, from the features of nature to the improvements of man, we find Para, with a few detached settlements, a waste. The immense Llanos, Pampas, or grassy plains devoid of timber, so extensive along the eastern slope of the Andes, in the entire length of South America, have but a limited existence on the lower part of the basin of the Amazon. Entangled forests,
with all the variety and luxuriance of a tropical clime aided by a soil exuberantly fertile, spread over Para. The hand of man can be hardly said to have attacked this world of wood. Para, or Grand Para, sometimes called Belem, a city on the right bank of the Tocantin, at its month, and which contains 20,000 inhabitants, is the capital, and gives political name to the province. This city stands at S. lat. 1° 30', and long. 28° 27' E. from Washington City.
The government or district of Rio Negro, is a comarca of Para, but the former, dependent on the military, is free from the civil jurisdiction of the latter. In Rio Negro, there has not yet risen a town deserving the name of city.
We have, as far as our materials admitted, sketched the outlines of the ten captain generalships of Brazil, and by that means given the general extent and relative situa tion of the subdivisions of that empire. But, for civil jurisdiction, that sovereignty is divided into comarcas or districts, in each of which there is an ouvidoror judge. These comarcas, where their position is actually and ac curately laid down, enable us to fix real settlement much more correctly than can be done by the great military provinces. Make Brun names twenty-four comarcas, which, as may be seen, in part follow, and in part are different from the provincial subdivisions: of these, Bahia, Porto Seguro, Sergipe del Rey, and Ilheos, are included in Bahia. The comarca and captain general ship of Rio Janeiro are commensurate, with the excep tion of Espirito Santo, which occupies the north-east part of the province from the river St. John. The comarcas of Ceara, Paraiba, and Pernambuco, are in cluded in the province of the latter name. Piahu and Alaranhao, are comarcas of Maranhao, or Maranham. San Paulo, Santa Catarina, and Paranagna, are comar cas of St. Paul's. Porto Seguro, Sabana, Serro do Frio, and Villa Rica, are comarcas of Minas Geraes. Rio do Frio is a comarca of Matto Grosso, on the head of the Araguay. Some other comarcas are named from the province in which they are placed, but from increase of population these judicial districts must be subject to frequent change.