The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

2G0 AMAZONIA AKD LA PLATA.
Like that of Goyaz and Minas Geraes, this Brazilian population of Matte
Grosso consists in great measure of Paulistas, who, thanks to their almost complete
isolation, have better preserved the old Portuguese usages than elsewhere. The
womeukind are still carefully secluded, and the host seldom introduces his wife
and daughters to visitors, who on their part discreetly avoid all mention of them
in conversation.
Topography.
The old capital, which still bears the name of the State, was called Villa Bella
in the flourishing days of the mining industry. In 1737 the first settlers had
formed an encampment at Porto Alogre some distance off, and the river which
joins the Guapore two miles above Maito Grosso has preserved this name of Alegre.
But the city properly so-called dates only from 1752. At one time it had a
Fi"-. 112.
—
Matto Geosso and the Uppee Gtjapoee.
Scale 1 : 350,000.
West oF Greenwich
, 60 Miles.
population of 7,000, but it was ruined by the abandonment of the mines, and is
now one of the most wretched villages in Brazil ; it is also one of the worst
situated, and travellers speak of it as a hotbed of fever. Were it not maintained
by the Government as a military station, it would soon be forsaken by its few
remaining white residents.
S. Lidz do Caceres, formerly Vilht Maria, is better situated on the left bank of
the Paraguay above the Jauru confluence, at the converging point of several
natural routes, and in a .splendid grazing district. The neighbourhood contains
inexhaustible stores of iron ores, which have not yet been worked. An islet in
the Uberaba lagoon is so charged with sulphuret of iron that if a fire is kindled
on the ground the heat causes the pyrites to explode, and sets them flying in all
directions.
Cuyaha, the present capital, stands on a plain encircled by an amphitheatre
of hills, opening in the direction of the west. Its first inhabitants, the Cuyaba
Indians, were dispersed by the gold-hunters at the beginning of the eighteenth