reached the mouth of the strait that bears his name, and, wonderfully favoured by wind and weather, threaded his way to the Pacific in five weeks. Subsequent wayfarers were not so fortunate and the strait never became a practicable commercial route until after the introduction of steam navigation. In the succeeding hundred years not half a dozen ships reached the Pacific around South America. Practically, the Pacific was accessible only over the Isthmus or by the immensely long journey around the Cape of Good Hope. Nevertheless, the importance of this epoch-making voyage has not been overestimated. The Pacific became, in a sense, a Spanish lake, in which she could maintain at will a naval preponderance. She occupied the Philippines and secured control at leisure of the Pacific coast of America. However, the scientific results were more important. Thereafter, the thorough exploration of all the shores of the South Sea was only a question of time. Magellan's voyage made geography an exact science. He sketched the map of the world with broad and sure strokes and left nothing for subsequent explorers except the filling-in of details.
The occupation of the Philippines and Moluccas gave rise to new disputes between Spain and Portugal as to their rights under the Treaty of Tordesillas. The imperfect instruments of those days left the line doubtful on the eastern South American coast, as well as on the other side of the world. In 1526, Sebastian Cabot was sent by the Spanish government to determine astronomically the location of the line in America, and then to follow Magellan's track to western Asia. At the mouth of the Plate he heard rumours among the Indians of silver mines on the river's banks and of the existence of a great and wealthy empire at its headwaters. This was Peru—not yet reached by the Castilians on their way south from the Isthmus, but the coast Indians showed Cabot silver ornaments which had been passed from hand to hand from the highlands of Peru and Bolivia down the river to the Atlantic.
Cabot and his band of adventurers determined to neglect their surveying, trusting that the discovery of silver mines would excuse their disobedience. They spent three years in vain journeying and prospecting—exploring the Uruguay to the head of navigation and following up the Paraná as far as the Apipé rapids. Signs of neither silver nor gold, nor of civilised inhabitants, were found on either river. Their upper courses came down from the east—the direction opposite to that in which Eldorado was reported. The gently flowing Paraguay, coming down the plains in the centre of the continent, seemed to offer a better hope of success. But Cabot's forces and provisions were inadequate to penetrating farther north than the present site of Asuncion. Returning to a fort he had left on the lower Paraná, he found that it had been taken by Indians and its garrison massacred. Discouraged by such a succession of difficulties and misfortunes, he returned to Spain.
The news of Cabot's expedition, and its failure, stimulated the Portuguese to undertake the colonisation of the east coast of South America. Affonso da Souza started from Lisbon with an expedition, intending to take possession of the Plate. Lack of provisions, fear of the Indians, the presence of a Portuguese castaway—one of those insignificant chances that sometimes change the course of empires as a twig diverts the current of a river—stopped Alfonso before he reached his destination. Instead of establishing a colony on the estuary he founded San Vicente, just south of the Tropic of Capricorn. This became the southern outpost of the Portuguese possessions, and the temperate zone of South America was left open for the Spaniards to occupy when they chose.
Two years after Cabot's failure, Pizarro overran Peru. All Europe rang with the exploit. The Spanish king was besieged by nobles who literally begged the privilege of risking their lives and fortunes in America. These "adelantados" contracted to conquer, at their own charges, the particular districts granted them, certain profits being reserved to the crown, and Charles V. freely granted such patents. Among the grantees was a Basque nobleman, Pedro de Mendoza, to whom was given the territory beginning at the Portuguese possessions south two hundred leagues along the Atlantic coast toward the Strait of Magellan. He raised more than two thousand men and reached the Plate in 1535, where he immediately founded a city on the south bank which he named Buenos Aires. He intended to make it a base for an advance up the Paraná to find and conquer another Peru. His attempt was foredoomed to failure. The Indians surrounding Buenos Aires were implacable in their hatred of the invaders. They lived in scattered little tribes, and neither would nor could furnish food enough to maintain the Spaniards. The provisions brought from Spain were inadequate; sorties were useless; the Indians fled from large parties and ambushed small ones. The preparations for the advance up the river were delayed for months. Hundreds died of hunger and disease. Within a year the place had to be abandoned, and in a desperate condition the expedition fled up the river to Cabot's solid fort. Here the adelantado stopped, sick and discouraged, while a few hundreds of the more daring and persevering pressed on to the north, determined to reach Eldorado. Arrived at the junction of the Paraguay and Paraná, they chose the former river, and pushed on up it as far as the twentieth degree, to a place they called Candelaria. There they found vast lakes and swamps spreading to the west. It was necessary to protect their retreat before plunging into the difficult country that extends across to Bolivia. Accordingly, they divided and one party remained on the dry ground near the river, while two hundred desperate adventurers pressed on through the wilderness, hoping to reach the Bolivian plateau.
The party that stopped behind as a reserve was commanded by Domingo Irala, the real founder of the Spanish settlements in the Paraná valley. The main expedition never returned. Years afterward friendly Indians brought back the tale that it had reached the slopes of the Bolivian mountains, obtained much gold and silver and started back triumphantly, but had perished to the last man in an Indian ambush not far from the Paraguay and safety. Irala waited the appointed time and then floated down the river. He and his companions were well-nigh in despair. So far as they knew, they were the only survivors of the three thousand people who had accompanied Mendoza. To the north the country was inhospitable and impenetrable, and from their experiences of the year before they knew that at the mouth of the river no provisions or succour were to be had. On their way up the river they had passed, about the twenty-fifth degree, a beautiful and fertile rolling country, covered with magnificent forests, with park-like openings, and inhabited by a large and friendly Indian population. Opposite the mouth of the Pilcomayo, where there was a large Indian village, they stopped on their downward journey, determined to settle down and take some repose from their interminable and fruitless wanderings in search of the will-o'-the-wisp Eldorado. There, in 1536, they founded the city of Asuncion, the first Spanish settlement on the Atlantic slope of South America.
The Foundation of Buenos Aires.—The failure of Mendoza, first adelantado, to establish a colony on the Plate, did not discourage others from soliciting the grant of his territory. In 1540, Cabeza de Vaca, a "conquistador" celebrated for his feats in Florida, was appointed adelantado and set out gallantly to find the second Peru, which everyone believed to exist at the headwaters of the Paraguay. Intent on reaching the interior as soon as possible, he made no attempt to establish a town and port at the mouth of the river Plate, but landed at Santa Catharina on what is now the Brazilian coast in the latitude of Paraguay, and set off across country with four hundred men and twenty horses. The distance was a thousand miles; the route led up a heavily wooded mountain range on the coast, and thence across a broken, but open, plateau, where great rivers point out the natural routes to the Paraná. The soil was fertile and the Indians along the road were able to furnish considerable food supplies. Cabeza de Vaca made the journey without appreciable loss and arrived in Asuncion eager to take command and dash across to the Andes. But the sturdy Basques had selected their able countryman—Domingo Irala—as chief of the colony and gave the new adelantado a cold welcome. Irala insisted that a reconnoitring expedition be sent before risking the body of the Spaniards. Its command was given him and he penetrated almost to the headwaters of the Paraguay. Next year Cabeza de Vaca followed, but as soon as he left the Paraguay he got into difficulties. He could not penetrate the swamps nor make headway against the savage Indians who lived between the river and the eastern slopes of the Cordillera. He returned defeated and discouraged, and the people of Asuncion bundled him back to Spain.
Though Irala subsequently did succeed in reaching Peru, by the route up the Paraguay, no practical results followed. Paraguay remained isolated from the Spanish empire on the Pacific coast until a roundabout communication was established
