Brazil is a land of great water-courses. It not only has within its borders the greatest river in the world, but it also possesses several rivers which form the chief tributaries of the Rio de la Plata, another of the most extensive fluvial systems in the world. Because of the coast range of mountains nearly all of the water, even from within a few miles of the Atlantic coast, runs hundreds and even thousands of miles north to the Amazon, or south to the La Plata, before finally reaching the ocean. The great amount of the rainfall has made these streams numerous, as well as very broad, as they near their outlet. Between the sources of the two great systems there intervene but two short leagues of swampy ground, which are the common source of the Amazon and the La Plata, the “river of silver,” as it is named. The basin of the Amazon is larger than the basin of the Mississippi, the Missouri and many others together. It is as large as two-thirds of our own great land. The amount of water discharged is almost incredible. For hundreds of miles from its mouth the depth sometimes reaches one hundred and fifty feet, and in no place in the channel is it less than sixty feet. Its mouth is wider than the entire length of the lordly Hudson. Ocean steamers run between Iquitos, two thousand five hundred miles from its mouth, and European ports, as well as New York; and many of its tributaries, such as the Madeira and Negro, are mighty rivers in themselves. The Paraná, with its wonderful cascades, and the Uruguay, have their origin in Brazil, and the Paraguay drains many thousands of square miles of her territory. These three rivers form the principal sources of the Rio de la Plata, which carries to the Atlantic Ocean a volume of water exceeded by few rivers in the world. On the western side of the Atlantic ridge the country forms a series of ridges, or plateaus, making, as some one has characterized it, a colossal stairway. These sudden drops make many fine waterfalls as the waters rush onward toward the Paraná River. The states of São Paulo and Paraná are especially rich in these cascades and rapids, and thus furnish unlimited water power awaiting development. They are no less interesting to the tourist, for nothing in nature is more interesting or fascinating than a fine waterfall, where the waters rush headlong in their precipitous course. The Tieté River alone furnishes many of those cascades, one of them, the Itapura, having a height of forty-four feet. Another is the Urubuhunga, near the former, the water passing over the two being of great volume.