. The earth and its inhabitants ... Geography. 260 AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. Like that of Goyaz and Minas Geraes, this Brazilian population of Matto Grosso consists in great measure of Paulistas, who, thanks to their almost comiDlete isolation, have better preserved the old Portuguese usages than elsewhere. The womenkind 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. T()POGR\PHY. The old capital, which still bears the name of the State, was called Villa Bella in the flourishin
. The earth and its inhabitants ... Geography. 260 AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. Like that of Goyaz and Minas Geraes, this Brazilian population of Matto Grosso consists in great measure of Paulistas, who, thanks to their almost comiDlete isolation, have better preserved the old Portuguese usages than elsewhere. The womenkind 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. T()POGR\PHY. 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 Alegre some distance off, and the river which joins the Guapore two miles above 3Iatto Grosso has preserved this name of Alegre. But the city properly so-called dates only from 1752. At one time it had a Fig. 112.—Matto Geosso anb the Upper Gttapoeé. Scale 1 ; 350, West oF Greenwicln 59° 00 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. Luiz de Caceres, formerly Villa If<iria, 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 j^lain encircled by an amphitheatre of hills, opening in the direction of the west. Its first inhabitants, the Cuyaba I
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