Argentina 137 



now the most fertile and densely populated portion of 

 Argentina, upon condition that he would conquer the 

 country at his own expense and thereafter pay certain 

 profits to the crown. He entered the river and sailed 

 along the northern shore as far as the island of San 

 Gabriel, and then crossed to the south shore, landing at 

 the mouth of a small stream still known as the Riachuelo 

 or " rivulet. ' He gave to the spot the name of Buenos 

 Aires. The attempt to make a settlement proved a 

 disastrous failure in the end, because of the hostility of 

 the Indians. A permanent settlement in the region was, 

 however, effected in the following year (1536) by a 

 remnant of Mendoza's followers, who established them- 

 selves on the site of what is now the city of Asuncion, 

 the capital of- Paraguay. An attempt to renew the 

 settlement at Buenos Aires, made in 1542, failed, and it 

 was not until 1580 that Juan de Garay, a Basque, com- 

 ing down the river from Asuncion, succeeded in taking 

 the spot after a bloody conflict with the Querendi 

 Indians, whom he conquered and forced to serve as 

 laborers upon the farms which he allotted to his victori- 

 ous followers. Four years afterwards De Garay was 

 killed near Santa Fe by the Indians, who fell upon him 

 at night while he was in camp on his way back to 

 Asuncion. 



During the thirty-eight years which had passed 

 between the first attempt to settle Buenos Aires and the 

 successful occupation of the spot by Juan de Garay, 

 a wave of Spanish colonization had swept into what is 

 now Argentina from the west. The conquest of Peru 

 by Pizarro and the Spanish occupation of northern Chili 

 was quickly followed by a movement from the Pacific 

 across the Andes. Expeditions from Peru established 

 settlements at Santiago del Estero in 1555, at Tucuman 



