nds of people who had no legal right whatever to it.

The existing laws on mining were equally unsatisfactory, and the
Presidente rightly remarked that "without facilities and guarantees,
capitalists will never venture upon so risky and problematic an
enterprise as mining in a State so distant and so difficult of access."
He also exhorted the people to re-establish steam navigation on the
Araguaya River, such as existed in the days of the Empire.

I was told that a launch had actually been purchased in the United
States, but was either waiting at Para for want of an engineer or else
had again been sold owing to the impossibility--due to lack of money--of
its being transported in sections over the rapids above Conceicao.

The question of boundaries with neighbouring States was an amusing one.
According to some rule for which no one can account, the Government of
Goyaz claimed from the State of Matto Grosso enormous stretches of land
on the opposite side of its natural, indisputable geographical western
boundary, the main stream Araguaya, as well as the isolated settlement of
Conceicao, on the opposite side of the Araguaya River, which was
undoubtedly in the State of Para. One only had to glance at a map--bad as
maps were--to see that in both cases the claim was an absurd one. In the
case of Conceicao it was perfectly ridiculous. The Para Government held
the place with a military force and occupied the territory with complete
jurisdiction. In a more peaceful manner the State of Matto Grosso was in
possession of the entire territory west of the Rio Grande do Araguaya,
which the people of Goyaz said belonged to them. On the west the Araguaya
formed a perfect geographical boundary from the Southern Goyaz
boundary--where the Araguaya had its birth--as far as the most northern
point of the State; whereas, were one to accept the supposed Goyaz
boundary formed by the Rio das Mortes--a tributary of lesser volume than
the main stream--it would involve an imaginary compound boundary line up
the Paredao stream, then up the Rio Barreiros, then an imaginary straight
line from north to south across mountainous country, winding its way east
until it met the Serra dos Bahus, then again north-east over undetermined
country, then along the Rio Apore and eventually joining the Paranahyba
River.

Curiously enough, nearly all the Brazilian Government maps--and all the
foreign ones copied, of course, from the Brazilian, all remarkable for
t