Although the course of the _Tocantins_ was well known in _Goyaz_ and _Pará_, it was not until the year 1798 that an attempt was made to trace its connection to _Maranham_, for the purpose of opening up a communication by water between the two provinces in which it respectively rises and ends. But although the effort of the Government failed, the communication was established by means of a runaway Indian, who had made his way in a canoe bound for _Goyaz_. A settler named Barros, into whose territory the Indian penetrated, then built a canoe on which he embarked with the Indian and three slaves upon the river _Manoel Alves Grande_; this stream in a day and a half carried them into the _Tocantins_, on which in due time they met a vessel from _Pará_. After this successful expedition, Barros was employed in opening up a communication along this important route. Throughout _Maranham_ the cultivation of cotton had, for the most part, superseded that of the sugar-cane. The captaincy produces an abundance of fruit of the finest quality. The navigation of the coast of _Brazil_ is so difficult, on account of both wind and current setting in at certain seasons from the south, that it was easier for _Pará_ and _Maranham_ to communicate with Portugal than with _Bahia_ or _Rio de Janeiro_; for which reason the bishops of _Pará_ and _S. Luiz_ were suffragans of the Patriarch of Lisbon. _Maranham_, _Pernambuco_, _Bahia_, and _Minas Geraes_ all looked chiefly to _Piauhy_ for their cattle. That country was explored and conquered, not for the sake of its mines and slaves, but on account of its pastures, on which cattle increased to an enormous extent, the mode of life being similar to that on the _Pampas_ of the _Plata_. The difficulty of utilizing these herds lay in transporting them to the market over the waterless tracts that intervened. By means, however, of tanks this difficulty was overcome. It is unnecessary to go over the whole extent of _Brazil_, but one or two instances may be given, showing the progress which it had already made at the beginning of this century. When the Dutch possessed _Paraïba_, that captaincy contained seven hundred families and twenty _engenhos_; in the year 1775 its population was estimated at fifty-two thousand--a population which was more than doubled in the course of another quarter of a century.