Horizonte, the new one, planned, laid out, and built within the last few years. The new capital is about a six-hours’ railway journey from Rio, and is laid out on an ambitious scale on a beautiful site surrounded by gently rising hills with broad avenues and streets, parks and gardens, Senate Houses, Government buildings, a splendid presidential palace, a fine theatre, hospitals, schools, and every possible requirement for a prosperous and flourishing city. Rows of trees line the broad avenues. Houses, mostly of one story, await the population that has not yet arrived to occupy all the vast accommodation that has been provided. Such is Bello Horizonte, the new capital of Minas-Geraes, a State which occupies an area of over 220,000 square miles without a seaboard, but which is perhaps greater in natural wealth than any other State in the Brazilian Federation. Its development has been marked by all those characteristics that pertain to the history of countries where the discovery of the precious metals has attracted adventurous spirits upon fortune bent. From the earliest days of Portuguese exploration exaggerated rumours of the fabulous wealth of the interior of the South American continent have been in circulation, and have stimulated the organisation of expeditions for the purpose of exploring and prospecting the high tableland which lies beyond the Serra do Mar. In one respect the early history of Minas-Geraes resembles that of the State of São Paulo, inasmuch as it is connected with the story of a marooned sailor who penetrated to the interior, mated with the daughter of an Indian chief, and reached high position and power in the tribe. [Illustration: ABOVE THE FALLS AT TOMBOS. The Carangola River about 4300 miles from Rio.] The Indians themselves set little store upon the gold and precious stones, but finding they were so much prized by their white masters, did not hesitate to please these latter by painting in most glowing terms the richness of the country in these treasures. Further, their own internal feuds prompted them to encourage the expeditions of the new-comers, the native tribes thinking thereby to regain possession of territories from which they [Illustration: WATERFALL NEAR MATILDE, ON THE LINE TO VICTORIA ESPIRITO SANTO.]