EXPLOEATION OF AEGENTINA. 345 



and the strait sufficed to enable cartographers to figure with tolerable accuracy the 

 true form of the east coast of the Continent. But the bleak shores of Fuegia and 

 Patagonia were too forbidding to attract explorers to the interior of those regions 

 at a time when so much remained to be done in more promising lands. 



Hence researches were confined to the inlets, sounds, and straits in the hope of 

 finding some through passage from ocean to ocean. Thus Francisco de Hoces 

 penetrated in 1527 to the neighbourhood of the " Land's End," but no colony was 

 founded in these regions, while the Spaniards were endeavouring to secure firm 

 footing in the land watered by the river which at that time bore the name of Rio 

 de Solisfrom its discoverer. Diaz de Solis had returned to these waters in 1516, 

 but only to fall in a fray with the natives on the banks of a coast stream in the 

 Banda Oriental. In 1538 Sebastian Cabot pushed much farther inland, penetrating 

 to Paraguay, and erecting a fort at the confluence of the Parana with the Carca- 

 rana on the spot where now stands the town of Gaboto, so called from the Italian 

 form of his name. 



Cabot was the first to perceive that the estuary of Solis and one of the great 

 rivers discharging into it might become an excellent highway of access to the 

 regions of Plata, " Silver," that is to Bolivia and Peru. Hence the curious mis- 

 nomer of " Argentina " or " La Plata " applied to a region not by any means noted 

 for the importance of its silver mines. The Peruvian and the Bolivian Andes 

 are the true Argentina. 



But the colony founded by Cabot could not be maintained, and a few years 

 afterwards the Spaniard, Mendoza, settled on the south side of the estuary, on the 

 spot where now stands Buenos Ayres. Compelled by the Indians to abandon the 

 settlement, he withdrew with his little party to the fortalice of Carcarafm, whence 

 his lieutenants made numerous excursions in the surrounding districts. Ayolas, 

 one of these pioneers, founded the station of Asuncion on the left bank of the 

 Paraguay, which afterwards became the capital of the Republic. 



Then he ascended the river as far as Matto Grosso, and advancing boldly into 

 the savannas of the plains, the yungas of the foothills, and the Andean forests, he 

 at last reached Peru in 1537. Ayolas was thus the first of all the conquerors to 

 cross the Continent from sea to sea. He was followed seven years afterwards by 

 Irala, who performed the same feat, and henceforth Spain held the lines of com- 

 munication between the eastern and western sections of her vast South American 

 domain. In 1542, a no less daring expedition was carried out by Alvar Nunez, 

 who made his way from the coast of Brazil by the rivers and portages directly to 

 Paraguay. 



In 1575, Juan de Garay recovered Buenos Ayres, where he succeeded in 

 maintaining himself and developing the settlement. The true contour lines of the 

 Magellanic coasts were determined in 1579 by the pilot Sarmiento, one of the 

 most remarkable mariners on record, and during the two following centuries the 

 whole region was explored between the Plate basin and the rampart of the Andes. 

 But in the extreme north and south the savage aborigines arrested, and frequently 

 drove back, explorers and settlers. On the one hand the Abipons, Mocovi, and 



