THE FOUNDING OF ARGENTINA 29 



the banks in the basin of the Rio de la Plata, in the 

 name of the right of discovery and conquest, and 

 fertilized them by its labour. The other stream came 

 from the ancient empire of the Incas, already sub- 

 dued by the Spanish armies. This spread toward 

 the interior of the country as it passed from the 

 Pacific to the Atlantic, occupied the land in virtue of 

 the same rights, and exploited it by means of a feudal 

 system. . . . The same year, 1535, saw the foundation 

 of the two towns, Buenos Aires and Lima, and was 

 the centre of these two cycles of discoveries and con- 

 quests. Thirty-eight years later, in the same year, 

 1573, the Conquistadores who came from Peru founded 

 the town of Cordoba, two hundred miles away from the 

 Parana, while those who came from the Rio de la Plata 

 founded the town of Santa Fe on the banks of that 

 river." 1 



Tucuman and Salta were established by conquerors 

 from Peru, while San Juan and Mendoza were built 

 by the Chilean Spaniards. The line of demarcation 

 between the two zones of colonization crosses the 

 immense desert plains of the interior, not the elevated 

 tablelands of the Andes. 



The two types of Argentinians differed in every 

 respect, in blood as well as in environment. The 

 indigenous race, which was eliminated on the coast, 

 mingled intimately with the conquering race in the 

 interior. 



The establishments on the Rio de la Plata had 

 originally been merely stages on the road to Peru, 

 and had no value of themselves. The elevated table- 

 lands of the Andes long remained the economic centre 

 of Spanish America, and the provinces of the interior, 

 which sold them cattle and mules, depended very 

 closely upon them. The end of the eighteenth century 

 was marked by more rapid progress in the region of 

 the Pampas. The vice-royalty of La Plata was created. 



1 Mitre, Historia de Belgrano, I, ch. i. pp. 4 and 5. 



