m his last trip to the west.

MENDOZA SETTLES BUENOS AIRES

A.D. 1535

ROBERT SOUTHEY

By the discovery in 1515 of the Rio de la Plata ("River of
Silver"), the Spaniards opened for themselves a way to
colonization in South America. The first explorer, Juan Diaz
de Solis, was killed by the Indians on landing from the
river. But in 1519 Magellan, while on his great voyage of
circumnavigation, visited the Plata, and in 1526 Sebastian
Cabot, in the service of Charles I of Spain (the emperor
Charles V), ascended the river to the junction of the
Paraguay and the Parana, both of which he then explored for
a long distance.

Among the natives, whose silver ornaments, it is said, gave
origin to the name La Plata, as well as to that of
Argentina, Cabot passed two years in friendly intercourse.
He then sent to Spain an account of Paraguay, and a request
for authority and reenforcements to take possession of the
country with its rich resources. Although his request was
favorably received, no efficient action was taken upon it,
and, after waiting for five years, Cabot, despairing of the
necessary assistance, left the region.

It was not long, however, before a somewhat extensive
settlement in those parts was projected. Don Pedro Mendoza,
a knight of Guadix, Granada, one of the royal household,
undertook the colonization of the country, and September 1,
1534, he sailed from San Lucar.

Mendoza had enriched himself at the sackage of Rome by the Constable de
Bourbon in 1527. Ill-gotten wealth has been so often ill-expended as to
have occasioned proverbs in all languages; the plunder of Rome did not
satisfy him, and, dreaming of other Mexicos and Cuzcos, he obtained a
grant of all the country from the river Plata to the straits, to be his
government, with permission to proceed across the continent to the South
Sea.

He undertook to carry out in two voyages, and within two years, a
thousand men, a hundred horses, and stores for one year at his own
expense, the King[51] granting him the title of _adelantado_, and a
salary of two thousand ducats for life, with two thousand more from the
fruits of the conquest in aid of his expenses. He was to build three
fortresses, and be perpetual alcaid of the first; his heirs after him
were to be first alguazils of the place where he fixed his residence,
and after