446 AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. 



Even at present, despile the artificial port, basins, breakwaters, and other 

 recently completed harbour works, Buenos Ay res is scarcely distinguished from 

 the uniform contour line of the horizon ; masts, funnels, towers, all appear, seen 

 from the estuary, as if rising above a floating island. Without hills, or any 

 broken ground rising more than 60 feet above the surface, Buenos Ayres can 

 present no imposing or conspicuous object to visitors arriving from any point of 

 the compass. The streets, laid out in the monotonous chessboard fashion of so 

 many American cities, stretch away in interminable straight lines, unbroken by 

 any natural obstacle causing a change of direction. Towards the south alone the 

 reo-ularity of the geometrical plan is somewhat interrupted by the scarps of a 

 terrace, which fall abruptly towards the PdacJmelo, the " Brook," as the neighbour- 

 ing rivulet is called, A little variety in the quadrilateral blocks of houses has also 

 been introduced by the railway lines and stations, and some other structures. 



Althouo-h its site was one of the first to be chosen for a Spanish settlement, 

 Buenos Ayres is not the oldest city in the Republic. In 1535, that is, eight years 

 after the erection of the fortress of Espiritu Santo, near the mouth of the 

 Carcarana, Dieo-o de Mendoza penetrated into the Riachuelo, and erected a few 

 huts on the terrace dominating this streamlet. But being unable to maintain 

 friendly relations with the Querandi Indians, he soon found himself blocked 

 with his soldiers and settlers in his narrow camping-ground. Assaults and conflicts 

 followed with varying success; but the little colony failing to shake off" the 

 enemy, Alvar Nunez broke up the settlement in 1542, when the district was 

 restored to the Indians. 



Eepulsed in this direction, the Spaniards turned their arms in the direction 

 of the Parana and Paraguay rivers, where the natives had submitted without 

 much show of resistance. But the progress of the whites in the interior 

 rendered all the more indispensable the foundation of a trading place on the 

 shores of the estuary. It seemed rash to attempt to gain a footing in the vicinity 

 of the warlike Charruas of the Banda Oriental, hence it was decided to recover 

 the position abandoned on the Riachuelo. In 1580 Juan de Garay, at the head of 

 sixty soldiers and a troop of Indian auxiliaries, resumed possession of the terrace 

 at Buenos Ayres. The Querandi natives had at the time withdrawn from the 

 district, and the leaders at once set about distributing the land. 



The establishment of a commercial station at the entrance to the vast fluvial 

 basin of La Plata could not fail to affect the interests of the old trade routes. 

 The merchants of Cadiz and Seville, who enjoyed a monopoly of the traffic with 

 the New World by the New Grenada and Peruvian routes, exacted from the 

 Government the monstrous condition that European goods destined for La Plata 

 should be forwarded by the way of Peru and the Upper Paraguay. 



Nevertheless, Buenos Ayres managed to secure a few concessions, while the 

 contraband trade was rapidly developed by the establishment of a Portuguese 

 colony at Sacramento on the opposite side of the estuary. But the place developed 

 verv slowly, and in 1744, over a century and a half after its foundation, the 

 population still fell short of 20,000. It continued to languish till the year 1776, 



