MOUNTAINS.--The principal are the serra of Lenheiro, in the vicinity of the town of St. Joao d’el Rey; of St. Joze, near the town of that name; of Lopo, not far from Cabo Verde; of Assumpçao, on the western part, between the Rio Grande and the Pardo; of Parida, which serves as a limit on the same side from the Rio Grande northward. In the southern part there is the extensive Mantiqueira, in parts bare and rocky, in others covered with wood. It contains the _Cachineze_ Indians, who are inconsiderable in number, stinted in growth, and timorous, and confine their hostility to robbing the neighbouring parishes of some cattle. The serra of Juruoca, which is a branch of the preceding, takes the name of a stone called _ayuru_, “parrot,” and _oca_, “stone,” and which stands upon it where there is a cataract seventy yards in height. The serra of Carrancas is situated between the Rio Grande and Verde. The serra of Letras, (or Letters,) a branch of the preceding, derives its name from a species of hieroglyphic, a natural curiosity, which is observed in the interior of a vast and curious cave, formed of divers eruptions or projections of a sandy stone, some of considerable elasticity with various kinds of plants which grow there. The pretended letters, owing their origin to ferruginous particles, are rude and illegible, and no more than a superstitious hierography, arising in the ignorance of the people, who attribute them to the hand of the apostle St. Thomas. Near it there is a hermitage dedicated to the same apostle. The serra of Vigia, so called from having served for a long time as a watch-tower to the sentinels of a band of runaway negroes, who had established themselves in that district, is twenty miles distant from St. Joao d’el Rey. The serra Cachambu is between the river Jacare and the Rio Grande. RIVERS.--The Rio Grande, the largest of the comarca, dividing it into southern and northern, and having its origin upon the serra Juruoca, after gathering many small streams, flows at first northward, then north-west for a considerable space, and receives the large river Das Mortes, which rises in the serra of Oiro Branco, from whence it runs west, becoming large with the currents that join it by both margins. From this confluence, which is about seventy miles west of the town of St. Joao d’el Rey, the Rio Grande continues its course westward, increasing much to the boundary of the province, where it begins to serve as a limit between the provinces of Goyaz and St. Paulo; it is stored with a variety of fish. The Sapucahy flows from the serra Mantiqueira, has numerous windings, and is enlarged by many other rivers, the largest of which is the Verde, that rises near the source of the Rio Grande, and, after having watered an extensive territory, pastured by large herds of cattle, runs north-west, and irrigates a similarly stocked and larger country in the province of St. Paulo, where it has its junction with the preceding.