FOOTNOTES:
[7] Kotzebue says 200.—"In the parallel of the Rio de la Plata, although 200 miles from land, we were daily carried by the current thirty-nine miles out of our course; so great is the influence of this mighty river."—Kotzebue's Voyage round the World, 1823-26.
[8] The distance between Point Piedras and Santa Lucia Point is fifty-three miles.
[9] Vessels drawing more than sixteen feet water seldom get nearer than seven or eight miles.
[10] In former times the commanders of our men-of-war established a good rule, that "no boat should go on shore without its anchor, and none leave it after sunset;" which, if attended to by our merchantmen, might prevent many a calamitous accident.
[11] They will be found in Purdy's "Sailing Directory, for the South Atlantic Ocean," published by Laurie, 1837, together with those of M. Barral of the French navy, the results of a still more recent survey of the River.
CHAPTER III.
CITY OF BUENOS AYRES.
First Impressions of Buenos Ayres. Date of the Foundation, and Insignificance of the Colony for a long period. Contraband Trade carried on through it a grievance to the Mother Country. Erected into a distinct Viceroyalty in 1776, and its trade opened in consequence of the modified system adopted by Spain about the same time. The advantages of this to Buenos Ayres.
If my first feelings on being carted ashore at Buenos Ayres in the uncouth manner I have described, were none of the most agreeable, they soon passed off, and gave way to different impressions. As I walked up to the lodgings which had been prepared for me, I was struck with the regularity of the streets and buildings, the appearance of the churches, the general cheerfulness of the white-stuccoed houses, and especially with the independent contented air of the people—- a striking contrast to the wretched beggary and slave population, of which I had lately seen so much at Rio de Janeiro.
The date of the foundation of this city is comparatively recent, and long subsequent to the arrival of the first discoverers of the country, to whom neither the aspect of the Pampas, nor the warlike disposition of the Querandis, the then inhabitants, appear to have offered any attractions. Their search was for the land of gold and silver, which was evidently not this: in quest of those precious metals they ascended the river, and for the most part settled in the more inviting regions of Paraguay; hoping from thence to open an easy communication with the rich countries of Peru.
The first Settlement at Buenos Ayres, in 1535, beseiged by the Querandi Indians.
(From the original representation given in Ulric Schmidel's account thereof, on his return to Nuremberg.)
In 1535 the Adelantado, Don Pedro de Mendoza, on his way to Paraguay with one of the most brilliant expeditions ever equipped in Spain for South America, landed to recruit his people near the spot where Buenos Ayres now stands, and caused a fort to be built there for the first time, in which he left what he supposed a sufficient garrison for its defence; but he was mistaken—the warlike natives as soon as he was gone drove out the Spanish soldiers, and remained for nearly another half-century in undisturbed possession of all that part of the country.[12]
It was not till the year 1580 that the famous Don Juan de Garay, then in Paraguay, determined once more to endeavour to form a permanent settlement in the same neighbourhood. In this attempt the Spaniards as before met with a most obstinate resistance on the part of the natives, who attacked them armed with their formidable slings (the bolas now used by the gauchos) and with bows and arrows, to which they tied burning matches, which set fire not only to their tents but to their shipping. De Garay's little band, which only consisted of sixty men-at-arms, was at first well nigh overwhelmed by the number of the savages who poured down upon them bravely fighting for their lands. On both sides prodigies of individual valour are related. The death, however, of the Cacique, who commanded in chief, seems to have decided the battle; the Indians, seeing him fall, fled, followed by the victors till they were weary of killing them: and such was the slaughter that to this day the scene of the engagement is called La Matanza, or "the Killing Ground."
After this victory De Garay took formal possession of the country in the King of Spain's name, and founded the present city of Buenos Ayres—A.D. 1580.
For two centuries the settlement thus planted languished in insignificance, abandoned to its own resources, and the mother country, to all appearance, fearing rather than desiring its aggrandizement: nor was this without cause;—Spain, in fact, lost so immensely by the contraband trade carried on from Peru, through the river Plate, that she became accustomed to regard with something more than indifference a possession which in consequence of her own prohibitory and restrictive system, was totally unproductive to her, whilst the facilities it offered for illicit trading made it a fruitful source of grievance and of disputes with other nations.
The extent, however, of these evils in the course of time produced their own remedy. The King of Spain at last discovered that a Viceroy at Lima could not put down the smugglers in the river Plate, or prevent the continual territorial encroachments of the Portuguese in the same quarter.
The necessity had long been evident of establishing a separate and independent authority on the spot where its vigilance was in daily request, and in 1776 Buenos Ayres was made the seat of a new Viceroyalty, and separated from the government of Peru.
It was about that time, also, that Spain made most important changes in her colonial system. The exclusive and pernicious monopoly of the whole trade of South America, till then possessed by the merchants of Seville and Cadiz, was put an end to, and a comparatively free intercourse was, for the first time, permitted with many ports in the new world, with which till then it was death to communicate. Buenos Ayres reaped a large share of the advantages of this alteration in the commercial views and policy of the mother country; and from a nest of smugglers became one of the first trading cities in Spanish America. The rapid increase of her population, under these new circumstances, is worth notice.