previously been made in this chapter. "The Rio Grande (Rio Parana,
Paraguay), one of the most celebrated in Brazil," proceeds the Carmelite
Father, "is born already swollen by plentiful waters (_sic_) in the
interior of terra firma! Near its sources it forms a lagoon 20 leagues in
circumference." All this is, of course, geographically wrong. The Rio S.
Francisco has its birth far to the south-east in Minas Geraes, some
hundreds of kilometres distant from that lagoon and several thousand from
the real source of the Amazon.

Also the friar must have mistaken--evidently from information
received--the sources of the Arinos for the sources of the Amazon, which
are really located some 15 deg. of longitude west. It is nevertheless curious
that so far back as 1698 the existence of the lagoon should be known at
all--perhaps they had heard of it from the adventurous Paulista
Bandeirantes--and that they should have placed it nearly in its proper
latitude and longitude on their maps. Apparently Father John Joseph was
not aware of the existence of the Great Araguaya and Xingu Rivers. Having
compiled his map from information, he confused those rivers into the S.
Francisco River.

Upon descending from the Serra into the valley we soon came to a large
forest with a luxuriant edge of _peroba_ (a word originating, I believe,
from the words _ipe_ and _roba_ in the _Tupi_ language), which was known
in four different varieties: viz. the _peroba amarella_ (yellow), _parda_
(brown), _revessa_ (knotty), and _rosa_ (rose-coloured), technically
named: _Aspidosperma polyneuron_ M. Arg., _Aspidosperma leucomelum_
Warmg, _Aspidosperma sp._, _Aspidosperma dasycarpon_ A.

Then there were also plentiful _garabu_ and other tall trees. Before
getting to the edge of the forest I noticed among the rocks some
beautiful specimens of the _apita_ cactus, 10 ft. and more in height, in
appearance not unlike giant artichokes.

Near its beginning, where it was 3 metres wide and 6 in. deep, we crossed
the Estivado River, which with a group of other streamlets may share the
honour of being one of the sources of the Arinos. It flowed in a
north-westerly direction.

We were pushing on for all we were worth, for we had come to the end of
our food. Up and down we went over a troublesome series of great
elongated ridges--like parallel dunes--the highest elevation on them
being 2,050 ft., the depressions 1,950 ft. We came to a sweetly pretty
streamlet, the Mollah,