A vanished Arcadia : being some account of the Jesuits in Paraguay, 1607 to 1767

Front matter

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

A BRAZILIAN MYSTIC— THE LIFE AND MIRACLES OF ANTONIO CON SELHERIO.

Royal 8vo. 15/- net.

Chapter I Page

Early history — State of the country — Indian races — Character¬ istics of the different tribes — DobrizhoSer’s book — Various expeditions — Sebastian Cabot — Don Pedro de Mendoza — Alvar Nunez — His expedition and its results — Other leaders and preachers — Founding of the first mission of the Society of Jesus - -- -- -- -- j — 49

Chapter II

Early days of the missions — New settlements founded — Relations of Jesuits with Indians and Spanish colonists — Destruction of missions by the Mamelucos — Father Mace ta— Padre Antonio Ruiz de Montoya — His work and influence — Retreat of the Jesuits down the Parana ----- 50 — 85

Chapter III

Spain and Portugal in South America — Enmity between Brazilians and Argentines — Expulsion of Jesuits from Paraguay — Struggles with the natives — Father Mendoza killed — Death of Father Montoya ------- 86 — iox

Chapter IV

Don Bernardino de Cardenas, Bishop of Paraguay — His labours as apostolic missionary — His ambitions and cunning — Pre¬ tensions to saintliness — His attempts to acquire supreme power — Quarrels between Cardenas and Don Gregorio, the temporal Governor ------- 102 — 126

Chapter V

Renewal of the feud between the Bishop and Don Gregorio — ■ Wholesale excommunications in Asuncion — Cardenas in 1644 formulates his celebrated charges against the Jesuits— The Governor, after long negotiations and much display of force, ultimately succeeds in driving out the Bishop — For three years Cardenas is in desperate straits— In 1648 Don Gregorio is suddenly dismissed, Cardenas elects himself Governor, and for a short time becomes supreme in Asuncion — The Jesuits

XVI

CONTENTS

PACE

are forced to leave the town and to flee to Corrientes — A new Governor is appointed in Asuncion — He defeats Cardenas on the field of battle — The latter is deprived of his power, and dies soon after as Bishop of La Paz .... 127 — 169

Chapter VI

Description of the mission territory and towns founded by the Jesuits — Their endeavours to attract the Indians — Religious feasts and processions — Agricultural and commercial organi¬ zations ---------- 170 — 195

Chapter VII

Causes of the Jesuits’ unpopularity — Description of the lives and habits of the priests — Testimony in favour of the missions — Their opposition to slavery — Their system of administra¬ tion ---------- 196 — 212

Chapter VIII

Don Jose de Antequera — Appoints himself Governor of Asuncion — Unsettled state of affairs in the town — He is commanded to relinquish his illegal power — He refuses, and resorts to arms — After some success he is defeated and condemned to be executed — He is shot on his way to the scaffold — Renewed hatred against the Jesuits — Their labours among the Indians of the Chaco . 213 — 234

Chapter IX

The Spanish and Portuguese attempt to force new laws on the Indians — The Indians revolt against them — The hopeless struggle goes on for eight years — Ruin of the missions 235 — 258

Chapter X

Position of the Jesuits in 1761 — Decree for their expulsion sent from Spain — Bucareli sent to suppress the colleges and drive out the Jesuits — They submit without resistance — After two hundred years they are expelled from Paraguay — The country under the new rule — The system of government practically unchanged - -- -- -- -- 259 — 279

Chapter I

Early history — State of the country — Indian races — Characteristics of the different tribes — Dobrizhoffer’s book — Various expeditions — Sebastian Cabot — Don Pedro de Mendoza — Alvar Nunez — His expedition and its results — Other leaders and preachers — Found¬ ing of the first mission of the Society of Jesus

With the exception of the French Revolution, perhaps no event caused so much general controversy at the end of the eighteenth century as the expulsion of the Jesuits from Spain and Portugal and their colonial possessions. As no definite charges were ever brought, at least in Spain, against the members of the Company of Jesus (King Charles III. having kept the reasons ocultas y reservadas and the proofs privilegiadas) , curiosity is to some extent not satisfied as to the real reason of their expulsion from the Spanish possessions in America.

It is almost impossible to understand nowadays the feelings which possessed the average man in regard to the Jesuits from the middle of the last century till a relatively short time ago. All the really great work done by the Society of Jesus seemed to have been forgotten, and every vulgar fable which it was possible to invent to their prejudice found ready acceptance upon every side. Nothing was too absurd to be believed. From the calumnies of the Jansenists to the follies of Eugene Sue the mass of accusation, invective, and innuendo kept on increasing in intensity. Indiscriminate abuse and un¬ reasoning hatred, mixed with fear, seem to have possessed all minds. Even Pascal confesses (in a postscript to the ninth Provincial Letter) that ‘ after having written my letter I read the works of Fathers Barry and Binet.' If such a man as Pascal could be so grossly unfair as to write a criticism on works which he had not read, what can be expected from the non-judicial and uncritical public which takes all upon trust ?

From Japan to the interior of Bolivia there is scarcely a country in which the Jesuits have not laboured assidu¬ ously, and in which they have not shed their blood freely without hope of reward, yet it would require much time and a lengthy catalogue to enumerate the list of satirical and calumnious works which have appeared against them in almost every language in Europe. Of these, perhaps the most celebrated is the well-known ‘ Monarquia de los Solipsos,’* by Padre Melchior Inshoffer, an ex-Jesuit, who describes the Company in the worst possible terms. It is interesting chiefly on account of the portraits of well-known people of the time (1615 to 1648), as Pope Clement VIII., Francisco Suarez, Claudio Aquaviva, and others, veiled under easily distinguishable pseudonyms. The object of the writer, as the title indicates, is to show that the Jesuits endeavoured to turn all to their own profit. In this, if it was the case, they do not seem to have been greatly different from every other associated body of men, whether lay or clerical. The celebrated Spanish proverb, ‘ Jesuita y se ahorca, cuenta le hace,’ meaning, Even if a Jesuit is hung he gets some good out of it, may just as well be applied to members of other learned professions as to the Jesuits.

The world has rarely persecuted any body of men con¬ spicuous by its poverty, or if it has done so has rarely persecuted them for long. The Inquisition of Spain, violent against the wealthy Jews and comfortable Moriscos,

LABOURS AND PERSECUTION took little notice of the Gipsies ; but, then, ‘ Pobre como cuerpo de Gitano ’ was and is a common saying in Spain.

As in the case of the Templars, persecution only began against the Jesuits when it became worth while to per¬ secute them. Ignatius Loyola, Francisco Xavier, and Diego Lainez, as long as they confined themselves to preaching and to teaching, were safe enough. Even the annals of theological strife, bloodthirsty and discreditable to humanity as they are, contain few examples of per¬ secutors such as Calvin or Torquemada, to whom, ruth¬ less as they were in their savage and narrow malignity and zeal for what they thought the truth, no suspicion of venal motives is attributed.

Of the Jesuits’ intrigues, adventures, rise and fall in Europe, much may be said in attack or in extenuation ; but it is not the intention of the present work to deal with this aspect of the question. It was in Spanish America, and especially in Paraguay and Bolivia, where the policy of the Company in regard to savage nations was most fully developed, as it was only the Jesuits who ever suc¬ ceeded in reclaiming any large number of the nomad or semi -nomad tribes of those countries.

Many excellent works in French, and the celebrated ‘ Christianismo Felice nel Paraguay ' of the Abbate Muratori in Italian, certainly exist. But neither Father Charlevoix, the French historian of the missions, nor Muratori was ever in Paraguay, and both their books contain the faults and mistakes of men, however excellent and well intentioned, writing of countries of which they were personally ignorant. Both give a good account of the customs and regimen of the missions, but both seem to have believed too readily fabulous accounts of the flora and fauna of Paraguay.* The fact of having

* Though in this respect Charlevoix is not so credulous as Padre Ruiz de Montoya and the older writers, he yet repeats the story of

1—2 listened too readily to a fable about an unknown animal in no way detracts from the general veracity of an author of the beginning of the eighteenth century, for in all other respects except natural history Charlevoix keeps within the bounds of probability, though of course as a Jesuit he holds a brief for the doings of the Com¬ pany in Paraguay. Muratori is more rarely led into extravagances, but is concerned in the main with the religious side of the Jesuits, as the title of his book indicates.

Many other French writers, as Raynal, Montesquieu, and Voltaire, have treated of Paraguay under Jesuit rule, but their writings are founded on hearsay evidence. A German, Father Dobrizhoffer, stands alone.* * His delight¬ ful ‘ History of the Abipones, an Equestrian People of Paraguay,’ is perhaps the most charming book dealing with the subject. A simple and easy style, a keen habit of observation, long acquaintance with the country, a zeal for the conversion of the infidel, not only to Christianity, but to a more comfortable mode of life, to which he adds a faith sufficient to move the Cordillera of the Andes, but at the same time restricted by a common-sense and veracity not always observable in religious writers, render Dobrizhoffer a personal friend after the perusal of his writings.

English is singularly barren in regard to the Jesuits in Paraguay. Father Falconer, an English Jesuit, has left a curious and interesting book (printed at Hereford in the bird that cleans the alligator’s teeth, the magic virtues of the tapir’s nails, and many others. See Charlevoix, vol. i., bk. i., p. 27, Paris, 1756.

* Dobrizliofier’s book was written in Latin, and printed in Vienna in 1784 under the title of ' Historia de Abiponibus,’ etc. A German translation by Professor Keil was published at Pesth in the same year. The English translation is of the year 1822.

WRITINGS ON THE MOVEMENT

1774), but he treats exclusively of what is now the pro¬ vince of Buenos Ayres, the Falkland Islands, and of Patagonia. As an Englishman and a Jesuit (a somewhat rare combination in the eighteenth century), and as one who doubtless knew many of the Paraguayan priests, his testimony would have been most important, especially as he was a man of great information, much education, an intrepid traveller, and, moreover, only entered the Company of Jesus at a comparatively advanced age.

It is in Spanish, or in Latin by Spanish authors, that the greater portion of the contemporary histories and accounts are to be found.* Literatures, like other things, have their times of fashion. At one time a knowledge of Spanish was as requisite as some tincture of French is at present, and almost as universal. Men from Germany, England, and Holland who met in a foreign country communicated in that language. In the early portion of the 19th century Ticknor, Prescott, and Washington Irving rendered Spanish literature fashionable to some degree.

Later the historical researches of Sir William Stirling Maxwell drew some attention to it. To-day hardly any literature of Europe is so little studied in England. Still leaving apart the purely literary treasures of the language, it is in Spanish, and almost alone in Spanish, that the early history of America is to be found.

* It is to be remembered that the Spanish colonists were as a rule antagonistic to the Jesuits, and that, therefore, Spanish writers do not of necessity hold a brief for the Jesuits in Paraguay. Moreover, the names of Esmid (Smith), Fildo (Fields), Dobrizhoffer, Cataldini and Tomas Bruno (Brown, who is mentioned as being natural de Yorca), Filge, Limp, Pifereti, Enis, and Asperger, the quaint medical writer on the virtues of plants found in the mission territory, show how many foreign Jesuits were actually to be found in the reductions of Paraguay. For more information on this matter see the ' Coleccion de Documentos relativos a la Expulsion de los Jesuitas de la Republica Argentina y Paraguay,’ published and collected by Francisco Javier Brabo, Madrid, 1872.

After the struggle for independence which finished about 1825, some interest was excited in the Spanish- American countries, stimulated by the writings of Hum¬ boldt ; but when it became apparent that on the whole those countries could never be occupied by Northern Europeans, interest in them died out except for purposes connected with the Stock Exchange. Yet there is a charm which attaches to them which attaches to no other countries in the world. It was there that one of the greatest dramas, and certainly the greatest adventure in which the human race has engaged, took place. What Africa has been for the last twenty years, Spanish America was three hundred years ago, the difference being that, whereas modern adventure in Africa goes on under full observation, and deals in the main with absolutely uncivilized peoples, the conquest of South America was invested with all the charm of novelty, and brought the conquerors into contact with at least two peoples almost as advanced in most of the arts of civilization as they were themselves.

When first Sebastian Cabot and Solis ascended the Parana, they found that the Guaranis of Paraguay had extended in no instance to the western shore of either of those rivers. The western banks were inhabited then, as now, by the wandering Indians of the still not entirely ex¬ plored territory of the Gran Chaco. Chaco * is a Quichua Indian word meaning ‘ hunting ’ or ‘ hunting-ground,’ and it is said that after the conquest of Peru the Indian tribes

* The Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, in his ' Commentaries Reales ' (en Madrid cio. ioccxxm., en la oticina Real y a costa de Nicholas Rodriguez Franco, Impressor de libros, se hallaran en su casa en la calle de el P050 y en Palacio), derives the word from the Quichua Chacii = a surrounding. If he is right, it would then be equivalent to the Gaelic ' tinchel.' Taylor, the Water-poet, has left a curious description of one of these tinchels. It was at a tinchel that the rising under the Earl of Mar in the '15 was concocted.

ATTEMPTS TO CIVILIZE THE INDIANS 7 which had been recently subjugated by the Incas took refuge in this huge domain of forest and of swamp.

Be that as it may, the Chaco Indians of to-day, com¬ prising the remnants of the Lulis, Tobas, Lenguas, Mocobios, and others, are almost as savage as when first we hear of them in the pages of Alvar Nunez and Hulderico Schmidel. These tribes the Jesuits on many occa¬ sions attempted to civilize, but almost entirely without success, as the long record of the martyrdom of Jesuit missionaries in the Chaco proves, as well as the gradual abandonment of their missions there, towards the second half of the eighteenth century.

Certain it is that at various places in the Chaco, in the quaint old maps the Jesuits have left us, one reads ‘ Mission de Santa Cruz de los Vilelas,’ ' Mission de la Concepcion de los Frontones,’ and others ; but much more frequently their maps are studded with crosses, and some such legend as ‘ Hie occisi sunt PP. Antonius Salinus et Petrus Ortiz Zarate.’* It was only when the Jesuits encountered the more peaceful Guaranis that they met with real success.

What was the nature of their success, how durable it was, what were the reasons which caused the expul¬ sion of the order from America, and especially from Paraguay, and what has been the result upon the re¬ mainder of the Indians, it is my object to endeavour to explain.

A long residence in the river Plate, together with two visits to Paraguay, in one of which I saw almost all the remnants of the Paraguayan missions and a few of those situated in the province of Corrientes, and in the Brazilian

* See the curious map contained in the now rare work of P. Pedro Lozano, entitled, ‘ Descripcion Chorographica . . . del Gran Chaco, Gualamba,’ etc. Also in the interesting collection of old maps published in 1872 at Madrid by Francisco Javier Brabo.

province of Rio Grande do Sul, have given me some per¬ sonal acquaintance with the subject.*

The actual condition of the rich district of Misiones (Paraguay) at the time I visited it, shortly after the con¬ clusion of the great war between Paraguay and Brazil in 1870, does not enable me to speak with authority on the condition of communities, the guiding spirits of which were expelled as far back as the year 1767. The actual buildings of the missions, the churches in a dismantled state, have indeed survived ; in many instances the tall date-palms the Jesuits planted still wave over them. Generally the college was occupied by the Indian Alcalde, who came out to meet the visitor on a horse if he possessed one, with as much silver about the bridle and stirrups as he could afford, clothed in white, with a cloak of red baize, a large jipi-japa hat, and silver spurs budded on his naked feet. If he had never left the mission, he talked with wonder and respect of the times of the Jesuits, and at the oration knelt down to pray wherever the sound of the angelus might catch him. His children before bed¬ time knelt all in a row to ask his blessing. If he had been to Asuncion, he probably remarked that the people under those accursed priests were naught but animals and slaves, and launched into some disquisition he had heard in the solitary cafe which Asuncion then boasted. In the latter case, after much of the rights of man and the duties of hospitality, he generally presented you with a heavy bill for Indian corn and pindo f which your horse had

* It is, of course, to be taken into consideration that my two journeys in Paraguay were made after the great war which terminated in 1870, after lasting four years ; but the writings of Demersay (‘ Histoire du Paraguay et des fitabhssements des Jesuites,’ Paris, 1862), those of Brabo, and of Azara, show the deserted state of the district of Misiones in the period from 1767, the date of the expulsion of the Jesuits, to the middle of the nineteenth century.

f Cocos Australis.

THE RUINED MISSIONS eaten. In the former, usually he bade you go with God, and, if you spoke of payment, said : ‘ Well, send me a book of Hours when you get to Asuncion.’

Of Indians, hardly any were left to judge of, for in the villages in which, according to the reports furnished to Bucareli, the Viceroy of Buenos Ayres at the time of the expulsion of the Jesuits, the population numbered in the thirty towns of the missions one hundred and twenty thousand,* a population of at most twenty thousand was to be found. On every side the powerful vegetation had covered up the fields. On ruined church and chapel, and on broken tower, the lianas climbed as if on trees, creep¬ ing up the belfries, and throwing great masses of scarlet and purple flowers out of the apertures where once were hung the bells. In the thick jungles a few half-wild cattle still were to be found. The vast estancias, where once the Jesuits branded two and three thousand calves a year, and from whence thousands of mules went forth to Chile and Bolivia, were all neglected. Horses were scarce and poor, crops few and indifferent, and the plantations made by the Jesuits of the tree ( Ilex Paraguay ensis) from which is made the yerba mate, were all destroyed.

In the vast forests, stretching to the Salto de Guayra, a few scattered tribes known as Caaguas, roamed through the thickets, or encamped upon the streams. In the thirty towns, once full of life and stir, in every one of which there was a church, finer, as an old Spanish writer says, than any in Buenos Ayres, there was naught but desolation and despair. The Indians either had returned into the woods, been killed in the ceaseless revolutionary wars, or had been absorbed into the Gaucho popula-

* See the reports of the Marques de Valdelirios and others in the publications of Francisco Javier Brabo, Madrid, 1872, and in the * Ensayo de la Historia Civil de Paraguay, Buenos-Ayres y Tucuman ’ por Dr. Don Gregorio Funes, Buenos Ayres, 1816.

tions of Corrientes, Rio Grande, Entre Rios, and of Santa Fe.

It may be that all Indian races are destined to dis¬ appear if they come into contact with Europeans ; cer¬ tainly, experience would seem to confirm the supposition. The policy of the Jesuits, however, was based on isolation of their missions, and how this might have worked is matter at least for speculation. It was on account of the isolation which they practised that it was possible for the extravagant calumnies which were circulated as to their rule and riches to gain belief. It was on account of isolation that the first conflicts arose betwixt them and the authorities, both clerical and lay. That the Jesuits were more highly esteemed than the other religious orders in Spanish America in the seventeenth century, the saying current in those days, * Los demas van a una, los Jesuitas a una ' — i.e.. The others get all they can, but the Jesuits have one aim (the conversion of the Indians) — seems to show.

It is not my purpose to deal with the probable reasons which induced their expulsion in Europe. Suffice it to say that, whatever crimes or misdemeanours they were guilty of, they were never called on to answer before any tribunals, and that in many instances they were treated, especially in Portugal, with great cruelty and injustice.

The burning, at the age of eighty, of the unfortunate Malagrida in Lisbon under the auspices of Pombal, for a book which it seems improbable he could have written in prison at so great an age, and which, moreover, was never brought into court, only supposed extracts from it being read, may serve as an example. In order to clearly understand the position of the Jesuits in America, and especially in Paraguay and Bolivia, it is necessary to glance briefly at the history of the first conquest of the river Plate

WHY THE JESUITS FAILED ii

The discovery of America opened up to Europe, and especially to Spain, opportunities for expansion of national territory and individual advancement which no epoch, either before or since, has equalled. From a cluster of small States, struggling for existence against a powerful enemy on their own soil, in a few years Spain became the greatest empire of the world. The result was that a spirit of adventure and a desire to grow rich speedily possessed all classes. In addition to this, every Spaniard in America during the first few years of the conquest seemed to con¬ sider himself, to some extent, not only as a conqueror, but also as a missionary.

Now, missionaries and conquerors are men, on the whole, more imbued with their own importance and sanctity, and less disposed to consider consequences, than almost any other classes of mankind. The conjunction of the two in one disposed the conquistador es of America to imagine that, no matter how cruel or outrageous their treatment of the Indians was, they atoned for all by the introduction of what they considered the blessing of the knowledge of the true faith. It will be seen at once that, if one can determine with accuracy which of the many ‘ faiths ’ preached about the world is actually the true faith, a man who is in possession of it is acting properly in endeavouring to diffuse it. The meanest soldier in the various armies which left Spain to conquer America seems to have had no doubt about the matter.

Bernal Diaz del Castillo, who, as he himself relates, came to America at the age of eighteen, and therefore could have had little previous opportunity of studying theology, and who, moreover, was unfitted to do so by the want of knowledge of Latin, to which he himself con¬ fesses, yet at the end of his history of the conquest of Mexico, one of the most interesting books ever written, has the following passage :

‘ But it is to be noted that, after God, it was we, the real conquerors, who discovered them [the Indians] and conquered them ; and from the first we took away their idols, and taught them our holy doctrine, and to us is due the reward and credit of it all, before any other people, even though they be churchmen : for when the beginning is good, the middle and ending is good, which the curious [i.e., attentive] reader may see in the Christian polity and justice which we showed them in New Spain.

‘ And I will leave the matter, and tell the other benefits which, after God, by our agency, came to the natives of New Spain.'*

One would imagine, on reading the above extract, Bernal Diaz had never killed an Indian in his life, and that he had sacrificed his prospects in coming to Mexico solely to introduce ‘ a Christian polity and justice ' amongst the inhabitants. Yet he was no hypocrite, but a stout sagacious soldier, even kindly, according to his lights, and with a love of animals uncommon in a Spaniard, for he has preserved the names and qualities of all the horses and mares which came over in the fleet from the Habana with Cortes, f The phrase, despues de Dios (after God) occurs repeatedly in the writings of almost all the conquistador es of America. Having, after God, conquered America, the first action of the con¬ querors was to set about making their fortunes. In those

* Bernal Diaz, ‘ Historia de la Conquista de la Nueva Espafia,’ vol. iv. , cap. 207, Madrid, 1796.

■f Especially noting down the appearance and qualities of ' el caballo Motilla,' the horse of Gonzalo de Sandoval. Thus does he minutely describe Motilla, ' the best horse in Castille or the Indies.’ ‘ El mejor caballo, y de mejor carrera, revuelto & una mano y k otra que decian que no se habia visto mejor en Castilla, ni en esa tierra era castano acastafiado, y una estrella en la frente, y un pie izquierdo calzado, que se decia el caballo Motilla ; 6 quando hay ahora diferencia sobre buenos caballos, suclen decir es en bondad tan bueno como Motilla.’

DESCRIPTION OF THE COUNTRY countries which produced gold and silver, as Mexico and Peru, they worked the mines by the labour of the Indians, the cruelties and hardships being so great that, in a letter of Philip II. to the Conde de Chinchon, the Viceroy of Peru, dated Madrid, April 30, 1639, written fifty years after the discovery, he says : ‘ These Indians flee, become ill, and die, and have begun to diminish greatly in number, and they will be finished soon unless an efficient remedy is provided shortly.’

In Paraguay there were no mines, but there were other methods of extracting money from the Indians. At the first conquest Paraguay was not the little country bounded on the west by the Paraguay, on the south by the Parana, on the north by the Aquidaban, and on the east by Sierra of Mbaracavu, as it is at present. On the contrary, it embraced almost all that immense territory known to-day as the Argentine Confederation, some of the Republic of Uruguay, and a great portion of Brazil, embracing much of the provinces of Misiones, Rio Grande do Sul, Parana, and Matto Grosso, as well as Paraguay itself. How the little country, twelve hundred miles from the sea, came to give its name to such an enormous territory, and to have the seat of government at Asuncion, demands some ex¬ planation. Peru and Chile were discovered and occupied some time before the eastern side of South America. Their riches naturally drew great attention to them ; but the voyage, first to Cartagena de Indias, and then across the isthmus, and the re-embarkation again on the Pacific, were both costly and arduous. It had been the ambition of all explorers to discover some river which would lead from the Atlantic to the mines of Peru and what is now Bolivia, then known as Alta Peru. Of course, this might have been achieved by ascending the Amazon, especially after the adventurous descent of it by Orellana, of which Fray Gaspar de Carbajal has left so curious a description ;

but, whether on account of the distance or for some other reason, it never seems to have been attempted.

In 1526 Sebastian Cabot left Spain with three small vessels and a caravel for the object of reaching the Moluccas or Spice Islands. It was his purpose to reach them through the Straits of Magellan. Being compelled by want of supplies to abandon his route, he entered a broad estuary, and ascended it under the impression that he had discovered another channel to the Pacific. He soon found his mistake, and began to explore the surround¬ ing country. Fifteen years before, with the same object, Juan de Solis had entered the same estuary. On the island of Martin Garcia he was killed by a Chana Indian, and his expedition returned home. Hearing that there was much silver at the head-waters, he had called it the Rio de la Plata. If we take the head-waters of the river Plate to be situated in Bolivia, there certainly was much silver there ; but Cabot was unaware that the head-waters were above two thousand miles from the estuary, and he was not destined to come near them. He did go as far as a point on the river Caracara, in what is now the province of Santa Fe, and there he built a fort which he named Espiritu Santo, the first Spanish settlement in that part of America. Whilst at Espiritu Santo, several exploring parties were sent to scour the country. One of them, under a soldier of the name of Cesar, never returned. Tradition, always eager to make up to history for its want of interest, asserted that after marching for years they reached a city. Perhaps it was the mystic Trapalanda of which the Gauchos used to discourse at night when seated round a fire of bones upon the pampa. Perhaps some other, for enchanted cities and Eldorados were plentiful in those days in America, alternating with occasional empires, as that of Puytita, near the Laguna de los Xarayes, Manoa, and the Ciudad de los Cesares, supposed