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1516.

In December 1516 the Jeronimite Fathers and the Protector of the Indians arrived at San Domingo, having performed the voyage in different vessels. No sooner had they arrived than they began to prove themselves not exactly the instruments he would have chosen for the accomplishment of his wishes. As a matter of course they were beset by the colonists, who represented Las Casas as a mere visionary, and in their conversations with him they soon began to make excuses for the inhumanity of the colonists. Nor, although they deprived such persons as were absent of their Indians, did they think it necessary to apply the same rule to the judges and other men in office. After a short time, the lawyer appointed by Ximenes to take a residencia of—in other words, to make an inquiry into the conduct of—all the judges in the Indies, arrived at Hispaniola. Las Casas then took the bold step of impeaching the judges, whom he accused of both bringing Indians from the Lucayan islands and of causing the death of the two Dominicans in Cumana, a measure which was distasteful to the Jeronimites, who preferred to manage things quietly.

The Fathers had not the courage to adopt in their full extent the measures which were within their power; but they nevertheless made considerable efforts to improve the condition of the Indians, publishing the orders in this respect and encouraging the natives to come to them with their complaints. They likewise wrote to Pedrarias, the governor of Darien, ordering him to make no more expeditions, and to send an account of the gold and slaves which he had taken. He was likewise to inquire into the justice of his Indians’ capture, and to restore such as it should turn out had been unlawfully taken. The Fathers also formed some of the Indians into settlements, which were, however, of no long duration, owing partly to the ravages of the small-pox.

The proceedings of the Jeronimite Fathers were, however, too lukewarm in their nature to suit the ardent soul of Las Casas, who now determined to return to Spain in order to complain of them, in which measure he was confirmed by the prior of the Dominicans and likewise by the special judges. The Fathers were much disconcerted at the move, and sent one of their own body to represent them at court. Las Casas reached Castile to find his patron Ximenes at the point of death, but the intrepid Protector of the Indians brought his case before the Grand Chancellor, who spoke of him to the king and received his commands to consult with him as to a remedy for the government of the Indies. One result of this consultation was certainly a singular one. Whilst it was proposed to send out Spanish labourers in considerable numbers, in the pay of the government, to Hispaniola, Las Casas himself suggested that in addition a certain number of negro slaves might be imported. The author of this suggestion lived to acknowledge and to deplore its unjust character.

Before this period, negro slaves had been imported into the Spanish possessions in America, and King Charles had only recently granted licenses to certain persons to import Africans into Hispaniola. The Jeronimite Fathers likewise looked upon the importation of Africans, who could better bear severe labour, as a remedy for the trials of the Indians, and the measure obtained the concurrence of the judge of residencia. The suggestion, when made by Las Casas, was approved of. The number of negroes which it was thought would suffice for the present was four thousand; and accordingly De Dresa, a Fleming, obtained a license from the king for this purpose—a grant which was accompanied by the assurance of a monopoly for eight years. The result of the monopoly was that the price of negroes greatly rose, the suggestion as to Spanish colonists being sent to the Indies not having been acted upon.

The Chancellor at this time dying, the influence of Las Casas was once more shaken. Fonseca, the bishop of Burgos, again returned to power, and, as a consequence, the Jeronimite Fathers were recalled. Las Casas was fortunate enough to obtain the interest on behalf of the Indians of a gentleman immediately attached to the king; and his representations were from time to time fortified by the accounts received of some fresh atrocities committed by the Spaniards in America. The Dominican prior, Pedro de Cordova, had much to tell his colleague of the slave-hunting exploits of the Spaniards in Trinidad, and he suggested that one hundred leagues on the coast of Cumana should be set apart by the king as a territory in which the Franciscans and the Dominicans might preach the gospel undisturbed by the presence of laymen.

Las Casas, failing for the meantime to obtain such a grant, fell back upon his scheme of Spanish emigration, and about two hundred men were actually sent out from Seville, a measure which was not attended by any beneficial result, since the emigrants were left on their arrival to provide for themselves from their own resources. A new Grand Chancellor was now appointed; and in his eyes Las Casas likewise found favour. To Gattinara the Protector of the Indians submitted a new scheme of colonization. The plan was that a sort of religious fraternity should be created, consisting of fifty knights, and that by their aid Las Casas should settle the country for a thousand leagues along the coast from Paria, a distance which was subsequently reduced to two hundred and sixty leagues. By the help of the king’s preachers, this idea of Las Casas was actually put in the way of being realized.

1520.

After the usual Spanish course of juntas and much arguing, it was resolved that the land which Las Casas sought for should be granted to him, although at each step his proposition was opposed by the Bishop of Burgos. Immediately before the departure of Charles from Coruña in May 1520, in order to be crowned Emperor of Germany, the king signed the necessary deed of grant to Las Casas. The land which he thus acquired extended from the province of Paria in the east to that of Santa Martha in the west, and was to go through the continent to the Pacific. Las Casas embarked at San Lucar on the 11th of November 1520, taking with him some humble labourers. After a favourable voyage, he arrived at Porto Rico, where he was destined to meet with some startling news that had considerable influence on the fate of the expedition which he had undertaken.

It has been already stated how two Dominican missionaries met their martyrdom at Cumaná; but their fate did not at all deter their brethren from following in their footsteps. Accordingly, in the year 1518, several Franciscans and Dominicans founded two monasteries on the Pearl Coast, where they were joined by other monks, and where they lived in peaceful intercourse with the Indians. There was thus a fair prospect of some settlements in the New World existing without forced labour or other cruelty towards the natives. But this was not to be. In the neighbouring island of Cubagua there was a certain Ojeda, who occupied himself with pearl-fishing, and who paid a visit to the mainland with the object of picking up some slaves. Coming to the settlement of Maricapána, he proceeded to buy some maize from one of the tribes, and he, naturally enough, requested the service of fifty men to assist in carrying it to his vessel. Once on the shore, the misguided men were attacked by the Spaniards and a number of them carried on board ship. It is some satisfaction to know that when Ojeda next landed he was watched for and slain.

The natural result of the above transactions was that, a few days afterwards, the Dominican monastery was attacked and its inmates put to death. The Franciscan monastery at Chiribichi was likewise attacked. In all eighty Spaniards were killed, and the island of Cubagua was evacuated. These events had taken place at the close of the year 1519, and the “Audience” at San Domingo prepared an expedition to punish and enslave the Indians of the Pearl Coast, which expedition, under Ocampo, met Las Casas at Porto Rico. In vain he endeavoured, by showing his “powers” to the commander, to divert him from his purpose. All that Las Casas could do was to hasten to San Domingo, leaving his labourers at Porto Rico.

The Protector of the Indians was now very generally detested by the colonists, who seemed leagued together to defeat his plans. He caused a proclamation to be made of the royal order of which he was the bearer, that no one should injure any of the natives of the provinces granted to him; and, in accordance with this order, he demanded the recall of the fleet and the discontinuance of the war. The authorities could not openly refuse compliance; but they required time for consideration, and meanwhile Ocampo was doing his work. The vessel in which Las Casas sailed was likewise declared unseaworthy and was condemned, thereby causing its owner much loss and debarring him from the means of transit.

Las Casas was soon made aware of the success of Ocampo by the number of slaves which were sent by him to Hispaniola to be sold. The sight made him so indignant that the “Audience” proposed to make terms with him, offering to place Ocampo’s expedition under his command, and to share with him the profits of the territory which he was to govern. It is to be remarked that, in agreeing to this arrangement, Las Casas a second time compromised himself on the subject of slavery, one of the means of profit in the undertaking being slave-dealing. The Protector of the Indians was to ascertain which of them were cannibals, or which should decline to have any dealings with the Spaniards or the gospel. Such men were to be attacked and enslaved; but, in agreeing to this arrangement, Las Casas merely consented to accept a power which he had no intention of exercising. Without this clause the agreement would not have been accepted by the others who were parties to it.

1521.

His vessels being ready and well stored with provisions, Las Casas set sail in July 1521, and proceeded to Porto Rico, where a fresh disappointment awaited him. The followers whom he had left there had all dispersed, and he had to proceed to the Terra Firma, where he soon found himself left with a few servants and labourers, since Ocampo and his men availed themselves of the arrival of the vessels to return to San Domingo. In this condition Las Casas had at least the comfort of finding that the Franciscan monastery had been re-established. He joined the community, and by means of the wife of a cacique, who was acquainted with Spanish, he established friendly relations with the Indians. There was, however, a stumbling-block in his way in the vicinity of the island of Cubagua. As this island possessed no fresh water, the Spaniards who were engaged in pearl-fishing on its coast constantly visited the Terra Firma to take in a supply.

All the preaching of the missionary colonist was once more of no avail with the natives in the presence of the frequent visits of his man-stealing countrymen; and at last Las Casas was persuaded against his own inclination to return to San Domingo to complain to the “Audience” of the mischief done by the Spaniards from Cubagua. His deputy, in disobedience to the written instructions he had left, sent away the only two boats which the colony possessed to traffic for pearls and gold. In their absence the monastery was attacked by the Indians, and, being in a defenceless condition, was set on fire. The inmates, however, with the exception of two or three, succeeded in making their escape in a canoe, in which they were fortunate enough to reach a Spanish vessel. Thus ended the attempt at forming a moral Spanish colony on the mainland, which had cost Las Casas so many years of labour in the face of ridicule and opposition. The unfortunate philanthropist now abandoned his scheme as hopeless and took refuge in a Dominican monastery.

Cumana was now no longer the scene of missionary efforts. The last outrage of the Indians was of course avenged, and the slave marts of Cubagua and San Domingo were once more filled. But as the Indians found themselves safer in the interior, the whole coast was left desolate, and the provinces which Columbus had found so beautiful and populous, now merely afforded a forest for slave-hunting expeditions, which set out from Aricapana. The last-named place became the headquarters of a piratical Spanish band numbering several hundreds, who lived entirely by predatory expeditions, the extent of which may be judged from the fact that the Italian traveller Benzoni witnessed the return of one with four thousand slaves—the survivors of a far greater number—who were sent to Cubagua for disposal.

Note.—Chapters I. to IV. of vol. I. are, for the most part, founded upon the following works, namely:—

Navarrete (Don M. F. de); Viages y Descubrimientos de los Españoles desde fines del Siglo XV., 5 vol. sm. 4to.

Amerigo (Vespucci), Viaggi.

Vesputius (A.) Navigationum Epit.—Grynæi; Canovai; Ramusio, i.; Brosses.

Martyris (Petri ab Angleria);—De Insulis nuper repertis—Grynæi Orbis. Eight Decades of the Ocean.—Hakluyt, V.

The Spanish Conquest in America; by Arthur Helps. John W. Parker & Son, 1855.

Las Casas, Hist. Ind.

Hist. del Almirante.

Oviedo, Cronica de las Indias.

Muñoz, Hist. Nuevo Mundo, lib. ii.

Benzoni, History of the New World, translated: Hakluyt Society.

The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus; together with the Voyages of his Companions. By Washington Irving. London: John Murray, 1849.

CHAPTER V.
BRAZIL; THE PLATE; AND PARAGUAY

1499-1557

1500.

In the year 1499, Vicente Yañez Pinzon, of Palos, one of the three brothers who had sailed with Columbus in his first voyage seven years previously, obtained from the king of Castile the necessary permission to embark on an expedition of discovery on the Atlantic. Pinzon, who was accompanied by two nephews, as well as by several sailors who had sailed with Columbus, set out with four caravels from the port of Palos, putting to sea in the beginning of December. After passing the Canary and the Cape de Verde Islands, the expedition proceeded to the south-west. Having sailed about seven hundred leagues, they crossed the equator and lost sight of the north star. On crossing the equinoctial line they encountered a terrible tempest; but the confused mariners looked in vain for a guide whereby to steer. Pinzon pursued his course resolutely to the west, and after sailing for about two hundred and forty leagues further, being then in the eighth degree of southern latitude, he beheld, on the 20th of January, a point of land, which he called Consolation, but which is now known as Cape St. Augustine, in the province of Pernambuco. The sea was discoloured, and on sounding, they found sixteen fathoms of water. Pinzon, as in duty bound, landed with a notary and took formal possession of the territory for the crown of Castile. The natives whom he saw in the neighbourhood declined to have any dealings whatsoever with the strangers; and not liking their appearance, the commander made sail next day and stood to the north-west until he came to the mouth of a river where he again encountered a multitude of naked Indians with whom his men had a desperate encounter, in which a number of Spaniards were wounded or slain. Discouraged by this reception, the navigator now stood forty leagues to the north-west, being once more near the equinoctial line. Here the water was so sweet that he replenished his casks from it.

Astonished at this phenomenon, he stood in for land, and arrived among a number of islands whose people he found hospitable and in no way afraid of intercourse with the strangers. By degrees Pinzon realised the fact that these islands lay at the mouth of an immense river, a river so great that its dimensions can scarcely be realised by one accustomed even to the largest of European streams, such as the Danube or the Volga, far less by one whose ideas of an inland stream were formed by the Guadalquiver. The mariner had in fact alighted at the mouth of the mightiest of the mighty streams of the New World, a river which pours into the ocean a greater volume of water than even the Mississippi or the Plata; he had reached the Amazons, a stream which, discovered at its mouth by one Spaniard, was, a few years later, to be traced throughout the greater part of its course down to the ocean by another Spaniard, the ill-fated Orellana.

The Amazons at its mouth has a breadth of no less than thirty leagues, the volume of water proceeding through which penetrates for forty leagues into the sea before losing its sweetness. Whilst lying at the mouth of this river, Pinzon encountered a sudden swelling of the stream, which, meeting the current of the ocean, caused a rise of more than five fathoms, the mountain waves threatening his ships with destruction. Having extricated his vessels with no small difficulty from this danger, Pinzon, finding that there was no object to detain him in this region, showed that he was not less civilised than other Spanish navigators at the time in the matter of requiting hospitality, by carrying off thirty-six natives as slaves.

Having the polar star once more to guide him, the mariner pursued his course along the coast, passing the mouths of the Orinoco, and entering the gulf of Pária, where he took in brazil-wood, and from which he emerged by the celebrated Boca del Drago. He subsequently reached Palos about the end of September of the same year, having lost two of his vessels at the Bahamas. Vicente Pinzon has the glory of having been the first European to cross the equinoctial line on the Western Atlantic and of having discovered Brazil.

1500.

Later in the same year in which Pinzon had discovered Cape St. Augustine and had taken possession of the neighbouring coast in the name of the sovereigns of Castile, an event happened which illustrates how sometimes in human affairs the effect of accident may almost anticipate the calculations and discoveries of genius.⁹ Scarcely eight years had elapsed since Columbus had set out on that voyage which, according to the motto beneath his armorial bearings, gave a new world to Castile and to Léon, when another expedition was equipped by King Emanuel of Portugal, the commander of which, without having the least idea of discovering land to the westwards, accidentally lighted upon the coast of South America.

But although Cabral has little or no merit in having been one of the first two independent discoverers of Brazil, yet it would be unfair to state that chance was wholly answerable for his discovery, and that scientific inquiry had no share in the matter. Scientific inquiry in this instance was, however, not due to Cabral, but to Prince Henry of Portugal, the great patron of maritime exploration along the western coast of Africa, and who, though he did not survive to know it, had paved the way for the great achievement of Vasco de Gama. It was in order to follow up the discoveries of the hero of the Lusiad that King Emanuel had equipped the squadron which left Belem on the Tagus, with befitting pomp and solemnity, in March A.D. 1500. The commander took with him a banner blessed by the Bishop of Ceuta, and set out under a royal salute from the fleet. It is remarkable that this expedition, destined to add to the Portuguese position in the East, should lead to the foundation of the Lusian Empire of the West.

Cabral steered for the Cape de Verdes and then westwards to escape “the Doldrums” or calms on the African coast; and so sailing, he, on the 25th of April, sighted land near the harbour which bears his name. He himself now proceeded on his original destination eastward, but he sent back one of his vessels to inform his king of his discovery in the West, to follow up which an expedition was next year despatched.

1501.

Amerigo Vespucci, now in the service of Portugal, landed on the coast of Brazil south of the equator; but the cannibal savages whom he discovered declined to have any dealings with the intruders whom their domains could not but attract. The forests were like gardens of flowers, the trees having blossoms of all colours, contrasted with the perfection of effect only met with in nature. Parasites filled the intervening spaces between trees and boughs, whilst orchids hung from them in the air, and birds of tropical plumage warbled amidst groves of pomegranate and orange trees. As Vespucci and his companions sailed southwards, new heavens were revealed to his wondering eyes, the Southern Cross looking down upon them in its glory. On reaching the eighth degree of southern latitude they found the natives more tractable. They were welcomed everywhere, and were thus enabled to explore the coast. They coasted onwards till the thirty-second degree, when they put out to sea, going twenty degrees further in the same direction. Here they met with stormy weather, and the cold became intense, so that Vespucci deemed it expedient to retrace his way to Lisbon, which place he reached in safety after a voyage of sixteen months. It was from this voyage that Amerigo Vespucci was considered the discoverer of the mainland of South America. His name was at first applied to these southern regions, but was afterwards extended to the whole continent. Vespucci was ignorant that Brazil had previously been discovered both by Pinzon and Cabral. His account of his voyage, addressed to Lorenzo de Medici, was published at Strasburg in 1505. It is said to have been printed in Venice in 1504.

1504.

In the spring of the ensuing year (1503) Vespucci again sailed from Lisbon with a squadron of six vessels, of which, however, he only commanded one ship. After many disasters and the loss of one vessel of the squadron, he reached Brazil, with his own ship alone, at the celebrated bay of All Saints, Bahia. There he remained two months in the hope of being joined by the rest of the fleet. He then sailed two hundred and sixty leagues to the south, where he remained for five months, building a fort and taking in a cargo of brazil-wood. In the fort he left a garrison of twenty-four men and set sail for Lisbon, where he arrived in June 1504. The other four vessels of the squadron were never afterwards heard of.

Early in the following year Amerigo Vespucci was at Seville on his way to the Spanish court in quest of employment, and was the bearer of a letter from Columbus to his son Diego, in which the great navigator, speaking of Vespucci, says, “Fortune has been adverse to him as to many others. His labours have not profited him as they reasonably should have done.... He goes with the determination to do all that is possible for me.” It is pathetic to hear the great discoverer thus speaking of the man whose name was to usurp the place of Columbus on the two continents of the New World.

The cargo of brazil-wood which had been brought by Amerigo to Lisbon was so much esteemed that a trade in it at once sprang up, and the result was that the coast whence it was procured, and finally the whole neighbouring country, came to be called Brazil. The Portuguese Government determined to colonize the land, and accordingly despatched thither, in the first instance, a portion of the criminal population of Portugal.

1508.

Amerigo Vespucci being once more in the service of the king of Castile, in which he obtained the rank of chief pilot, which he held until his death, it was determined to take advantage of his previous discoveries, and in the year 1508 Pinzon and Solis proceeded on an expedition to Cape St. Augustine and thence southwards, taking possession of several points at which they landed, in the name of the king of Spain. As before this date the Pope Alexander VI. had assigned to the Castilian and Lusitanian crowns, respectively, the line beyond which their respective discoveries might in either case be taken possession of, the Portuguese king now complained that the proceedings of this last Spanish expedition on the coast of South America were an infringement of the grant which had been made to him by the Sovereign Pontiff. Notwithstanding this, the king of Castile in the year 1515 despatched Juan de Solis on another expedition to the south, in the hope of finding the means of communication with the ocean which more than a year before this time had been reached overland by Vasco Nuñez de Balboa. This expedition resulted in the discovery of a stream to which Solis gave the name of the Sweet Sea; for the extent of its fresh waters forbade him to entertain the idea of its being a river. The Sweet Sea was named by a subsequent navigator the River of Silver, from the ornaments of that metal found amongst the people on the banks of the Paraguay, which flows into the Paraná, which with the Uruguay forms the Plata, and is now known to us as the Plata or the River Plate. This discovery cost De Solis his life; for, having landed incautiously on the island of Martin Garcia, he was set upon by the natives and murdered.

1519.

And here it is necessary to mention the great navigator who should rank next to Columbus in South American discovery. Fernando Magalhaens (in Spanish Magallanes), better known as Magellan, was born in Oporto late in the fifteenth century. He entered the Portuguese navy at the usual early age, and served in India under Albuquerque. Fancying that his merits at Malacca had been overlooked, he retired from the service of Portugal, and made proposals for new discoveries to Cardinal Ximenes. He shared the view of Columbus that there must exist somewhere a western passage to the seas beyond America, which seas had been seen by Vasco Nuñez de Balboa. Having held out the inducement of obtaining the Moluccas by sailing westward, inasmuch as by the compact between Spain and Portugal all countries discovered 180° west of the Azores were to belong to the former country, he obtained a fleet of five vessels, manned by two hundred and thirty-four persons, which sailed from Seville under his command on August 10th, 1519.

They steered for Brazil, and in the middle of the following December he entered the river Plata. Finding that it was not a strait, he sought his way southward, and took refuge in a harbour on the coast of Patagonia in the 49th degree of S. latitude, to which he gave the name of Port San Julian. During his stay here he had to repress a conspiracy amongst the four commanders of his squadron, who were Spaniards, and who resented his being placed over them. Of these, two were hanged, a third was stabbed, and the fourth was put on shore.

1520.

It was not until August 1520 that Magellan, who had previously taken possession of Port San Julian in the name of the king of Spain, proceeded southward, and on October 21st he entered the strait which separates Patagonia from Terra del Fuego, and which bears his name. On the 20th of November he cleared the strait with his squadron, which, by the desertion of one ship and the loss of another, was now reduced to three vessels. Emerging triumphantly on the vast expanse beyond,—having been the first navigator to sail to it from the Atlantic, he had the right to bestow upon it the name of the Pacific Ocean.¹⁰

1526.

The name which, next to that of De Solis, deserves to be remembered in connection with the discovery of La Plata, is that of Sebastian Cabot, the son of John Cabot, a Genoese navigator, who, being then in the service of Henry VII., was the first European that set foot on North-American soil. Sebastian Cabot is said to have been born in England, Bristol being assigned as his birthplace. In 1497 he coasted the shore from Labrador to Florida. In 1526, Cabot, then chief pilot to the king of Spain, accepted the command of a squadron of four vessels fitted out by the merchants of Seville. In April of that year he set sail with the view of reaching China and Japan—then called Cathay and Cipango—by way of the straits discovered by Magellan in 1520; but, a mutiny breaking out in his command, he renounced his more ambitious enterprise and resolved to content himself with following up the discovery that had been made by the ill-fated De Solis.

Having entered the “Sweet Sea,” Cabot proceeded until he reached an island which he named after Gabriel. There leaving his vessels, he explored from a boat the coast of the mainland. A safe anchorage was afforded on the northern shore, where he found one of the Spaniards who had landed with De Solis, and who had escaped the cannibals. Throwing up a small earthwork to protect a portion of his men, he proceeded to explore the upper portion of the river. When he had reached the junction of the Paraná and the Uruguay he sent one of his officers with a vessel up the latter stream, whilst he himself ascended the former until he reached the Carcaraña or Tercero, where he erected a small fort called San Espiritu, leaving in it a garrison of seventy men. Still pursuing his course, he duly reached, after having surmounted countless difficulties, the junction of the Paraná with the Paraguay, nearly nine hundred miles from the sea. Having explored the Paraná a hundred and fifty miles further, he then returned to the junction and ascended the latter stream, and whilst there he received unexpectedly a welcome reinforcement from Spain. Cabot passed the following two years in friendly relations with the Guaranís, in whose silver ornaments originated the name of La Plata and thence of the Argentine Republic, the name having been applied by Cabot to the stream now called the Paraguay. That able and sagacious man now sent to Spain two of his most trusted followers with an account of Paraguay and its resources, and to seek the authority and reinforcements requisite for their acquisition. Their request was favourably received, but so tardily acted on that in despair the distinguished navigator quitted the region of his discoveries after a delay of five years.

1534.

The two earliest explorers of the Plata had been professional navigators; the commander of the third great expedition to that region was a courtier and a wealthy knight. Don Pedro de Mendoza, no doubt attracted by the name of the Silver Stream, undertook to plant the Spanish race on its shores on the following conditions, namely: That the region extending from the Plate to the Straits of Magelhães, a barren territory, was to be under his government; that he should pursue his way by peaceful or by warlike means across the continent until he should reach the ocean; that he was to be entitled Adelantado, and to receive a salary of four thousand ducats; that he was to be perpetual Alcalde of one of three forts which he was to establish; that to his heirs should be reserved the post of first Alguazil of the town where he should fix his residence; and that, should he capture another Montezuma or Atahualpa, he and his soldiers should receive two-thirds of the royal ransom. As a commentary on these ambitious views, Mendoza likewise took with him eight priests to teach and spread the unselfish doctrines of Christianity. His force consisted of some two thousand men with one hundred horses. Touching on his way at Rio de Janeiro, he thence proceeded along the coast and up the river Plata to the distance of one hundred miles. The flat southern shore was then in the possession of the Quirandis, a tribe which has long since disappeared before civilization. The green plains, unclothed by woods and unbroken by hills, displayed no natural feature from which the knight might derive a name for his town; but as the climate seemed of the best, he resolved to call it Buenos Ayres.