[54] Brigantines and boats.
[55] Timbus.
Such a skiff is made out of a single tree, eighty feet long and three feet wide, and must be rowed as the fishermen’s boats in Germany, only that the oars are not bound with iron.
When we met them on the water, our commander, Johann Eyollas, presented the chief of the Tyembus Indians, Zchera Wassu,[56] with a shirt, a red cap, a hatchet, and several other things. After this, Zchera Wassu went with us to their place, and gave us there fish and meat in abundance.
[56] Chera Guazú.
But if this said journey of ours had lasted ten more days, we would all have died of hunger, for even without that, fifty men out of four hundred who came in the ships had already died on this journey. But in this danger God mercifully helped us, be He praised and thanked for it.
In this said place we abode four years, but our chief captain, Petrus Manchossa,[57] who was full of infirmities, and was unable to move his hands or his feet, and who had spent during this voyage forty thousand ducats of his own in cash, could not remain any longer with us, and he sailed off in two small Parchkadienes to Bonas Aeieres to the four great ships, and took two of them with fifty men and sailed for Hispania. But when he was come nearly half-way, the hand of the Almighty so smote him that he died miserably. May God be merciful to him!
[57] Pedro de Mendoza.
But before his departure he had promised us to send two other ships to Riodellaplata, as soon as he himself or the ships should arrive in Spain, and this was faithfully laid down in his will. Accordingly, when the two ships arrived in Spain, and the councillors of His Imperial Majesty were informed of this, they speedily, in the name of His Majesty, sent two ships with people, provisions, and merchandise, and all necessaries, to Riodellaplata.
The commander of these two ships was called Alvanzo Gabrero,[58] who brought with him also about two hundred Spaniards and provisions for two years. He arrived at Bonas Aeieres (where the two other ships had been left) in the year 1539, with one hundred and sixty men.