Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/549

Rh ARGENTINE REPUBLIC 489 between Maklonado and Monte Video, where, according to Southey, they were treacherously killed, and then cooked and eaten by the Charrua Indians in sight of their com panions on board the vessels. The survivors at once abandoned the country and returned to Spain, reporting the discovery of a fresh- water sea. In 1519 Magalhaens, in the service of the king of Portugal, entered this fresh water sea, or Mar Dulce, as it was then called, but finding no passage to the west, he left it without landing, and then achieved his famous voyage to tho East Indies, passing through the strait which bears his name in 1520. After this Sebastian Cabot, already a renowned navigator, who, in the service of Henry VII. of England, had attempted to find a north-west passage to the East Indies, entered the service of Charles I. of Spain, and sailed in command of an expedition fitted out for the purpose of colonising the discoveries of Magalhaens in the East Indies. He, how ever, entered the Kiver Plate in 1527, and anchored off the present site of the city of Buenos Ayres. He then ascended the Parana, and established a settlement, named San Espiritu, among the Timbu Indians in Santa Fe; and he succeeded in bringing that tribe of Indians to friendly terms with the colony. He continued the ascent of the Parana as far as the cataracts in Missiones, and after wards explored the Paraguay, from which he entered the Vermejo, where his party suffered severely in a savage fight with the Agaces, or Payagua Indians. Of this tribe a subdued remnant now lives on the delta of the Pilco- mayo, opposite Asuncion, amalgamating neither with the Spaniards nor with the wild Guaycurus of the surround ing parts of the Chaco. The profusion of silver ornaments worn by these Indians, as well as by the Timbus aad Guaranis, led him to give the name of Kio de la Plata, or Silver lliver, to the splendid stream which he had thus far explored. This name, rendered in English River Plate, is now applied only to the estuary below the junction of the Parana and Uruguay. One of Cabot s lieutenants, detached on a separate exploring expedition up the Uruguay, was killed, together with a great part of his crew, by the Charrua Indians. And subsequently at San Espiritu, an attempt of the chief of the Timbus to obtain possession of one of the Spanish ladies in the settlement led to a treacherous massacre of the garrison. Before this latter occurrence Diego Garcia arrived in the river with an expedition fitted out in Spain, for the purpose of continu ing the explorations commenced by De Solis ; and Cabot returned to Spain, where he applied to Charles I. for the means of opening communications with Peru by way of the Vermejo. But the resources of the king were absorbed in his struggle as emperor (under the name of Charles V.) with Francis I. of France, so that he was obliged to leave the enterprise- of South American discoveries to his wealthy nobles. In August 1534 Mendoza left Cadiz for the River Plate at the head of the largest and wealthiest expe dition that had ever left Europe for the New World. In January 1535 he entered the River Plate, where he followed the northern shore to San Gabriel, and then crossing the river, he landed on the Pampas. The name of Buenos Ayres was given to the country by Del Campo, who first stepped ashore where the city of that name now stands, and where, on the 2d February, the settlement of Santa Maria de Buenos Ayres was founded ; the smaller vessels having been safely harboured in the Riachuelo, half a league south of the settlement. Mendoza s captains then explored the country between Paraguay and Peru, in which latter country Pizarro had, in 1535, founded the city of Lima. Of one of these expeditions consisting of 200 men, who left Paraguay in February 1537, and are said to have reached the south-east districts of Peru, under Ayolas, every man was killed by the Payagua Indians in the northern part of the Chaco whilst the expedition was returning laden with plunder. Ayolas had, 011 his way up the river, built and garrisoned a fort named Corpus Christi among the Timbus in Santa Fe, near the deserted settlement of San Espiritu ; and in Paraguay, after three days fighting with the Guarani Indians, as narrated by Du Graty, he had, on the 15th August 153G, established a settlement where the city of Asuncion now stands. In the meantime the settlement of Buenos Ayres was attacked and burnt by the Indians ; and after terrible sufferings from famine as well as attacks of the Indians, jaguars, and pumas, the Spaniards abandoned the place oil the arrival of a fresh expedition from Spain, in company with which they ascended the river, first to Corpus Christi, and then to Asuncion, where, in 1538, Irala was elected captain-general. In 1542 Buenos Ayres was re-established by an expedition sent out from Spain for the purpose under Cabesa de Vaca. This able leader landed at Santa Cathe- rina, in Brazil, and marched overland to Asuncion, from which he sent vessels to join the new expedition at Buenos Ayres, reaching that place, according to Southey, just in time to save the new comers from extermination by the Indians. Here the Spaniards again found themselves unable to withstand the incessant attacks of the savages, and the place was a second time abandoned on the 3d February 1543. At Asuncion the Spaniards were more successful in establishing themselves among the Guarani Indians, who, after much severe fighting, finding themselves unable to vanquish the Spaniards, made alliance with them both offensive and defensive, and also intermarried with them. The events which transpired at Asuncion belong, however, to the histoiy of Paraguay. In 1573 Garay, at the head of an expedition despatched from Asuncion, founded the city of Santa Fe near the abandoned settle ments of San Espiritu and Corpus Christi. The expulsion of the Spaniards from the latter place had, according to the Historia Argentina, resulted from a wanton attack made by them on the Caracara Indians, slaughtering the men, and taking the women captive, a mode of procedure which all Pampa Indians adopted, and have ever since acted on. It is unfortunate, both for the Indians and for the Spaniards, that the bold conquistadores were not always under the guidance of such high principled men as Cabot and Cabesa de Vaca. In 1580, when the new colony had been firmly established, Garay proceeded southwards and made the third attempt to establish Buenos Ayres, under the name &quot; Cuidad de la Santissima Trinidad, Puerto de Santa Maria de Buenos Ayres;&quot; and notwithstanding the determined hostility of the Querandi Indians, who were encouraged by the success of their two preceding wars, the Spaniards succeeded in holding the place. The settlement prospered, and the cattle and horses brought from Europe multiplied and spread over the plains of the Pampas. Whilst the Spaniards of the River Plate were thus engaged, Pizarro had effected the conquest of Peru ; and his lieutenant, Almagro, had extended the conquest to the south of Chili, from which, in 1559, Hurtado de Mendoza crossed the Andes, and, having defeated the Araucanian Indians, founded the city of Mendoza. It is interesting to observe, that up to the present day the giant chain of the Andes has been a less effective barrier to trade than the rich plains of the Pampas. This state of affairs will, however, now soon be altered by the railway, for which Mr Clark has just obtained a concession, direct from Buenos Ayres to Mendoza. In 1550 the Spaniards from Peru entered the north-western provinces by way of Catamarca, and founded the city of Tucuman in 15G5, and that of Cordova in 1573. It was only in 1873, just three hundred years after the cities were founded, that the boundary between the jurisdiction of Cordova and that of II. 62