AND the governor, in furtherance of his expedition to succour the Spaniards, in the month of May 1541, sent a caravel with Philip de Caceres, accountant of His Majesty, with orders to enter the river La Plata, and visit the colony founded there by Don Pedro de Mendoza, and called Buenos Ayres. And because the season of the year was winter, and the weather unfavourable to navigation, he was unable to enter that river, and returned to the island of San Catalina, where the governor was.[303] And about this time there arrived nine Spanish Christians, who came in a boat, having fled from the colony of Buenos Ayres because of the ill-treatment used towards them by the captains residing in the province; and from these Spaniards he obtained information of the state in which the Spaniards were who lived in that country. They told him that the colony of Buenos Ayres was inhabited and provided with people and commodities; and how Juan de Ayolas, whom Don Pedro de Mendoza had sent on an expedition of discovery into the interior, while returning from his discovery, and intending to take refuge in certain brigantines which he had left in the harbour, named by him Candelaria, in the river Paraguai, had been killed by a certain nation of Indians living on the same river, called Payaguás[304]; and all the Christians, with many other Indians whom he had brought with him from the interior of the country to carry the loads, belonging to the tribe of Chameses, were also slain; and that of all the Christians and Indians only one boy of the Chameses had escaped; and all this had happened because he (Juan de Ayolas) had not found in the said harbour of Candelaria the brigantines which he had left to be guarded till his return, according to the orders he had given a certain Domingo de Irala of the province of Biscay in Spain, whom he had left in the capacity of captain; who, before the return of Juan de Ayolas, had withdrawn and abandoned the harbour of Candelaria, so that Juan de Ayolas, not finding the brigantines as he had expected, had fallen a victim to the Indians, who had stripped and slain all his party because of the fault of the said Domingo de Irala, the Biscayan captain of the brigantines. They also told him that on the shore of the river Paraguai, one hundred and twenty leagues below the harbour of Candelaria, a colony had been formed which was called the town of Ascension,[305] having a good understanding and friendship with a tribe of Indians called Carios, and that most of the Spaniards in that province resided there. They further informed him that in the colony and harbour of Buenos Ayres, situated on the rio del Parana, there were seventy Christians, and the distance from that harbour to the city of the Ascension, on the Paraguai, was three hundred and fifty leagues, of very difficult navigation, up the river. Here, in the capacity of locum tenens of the governor of the land and province, resided Domingo de Irala of Biscay, through whose fault happened the death of Juan de Ayolas, and all the Christians whom he had brought with him. They also told him that Domingo de Irala had gone from the town of the Ascension up the river Paraguai with certain brigantines and people, saying that he was going to search out and relieve Juan de Ayolas, and had entered a land, much troubled with rains and marshes, and because of this he had been unable to explore that land, and had returned with six Indian captives of the same tribe of Payaguás as those who had killed Juan de Ayolas and the Christians. From these prisoners he had obtained information and sure knowledge of the death of Juan de Ayolas and of the Christians, as well as from an Indian of the tribe of Chameses, named Gonzalo, who had escaped when his tribesmen and the Christians, whose loads they were carrying, were slain; who had lived ten years in captivity among those Payaguás. And Domingo de Irala had withdrawn from that country, having lost sixty men from sickness and fatigue. And they also told him that the officials of His Majesty, residing in that land and province, had done and were doing great wrongs to the Spaniards, colonists and conquerors, and to the Indian natives, vassals of His Majesty, and that there was much dissatisfaction and disgust. For this reason, and also because of the ill-treatment they had suffered from these captains, they had stolen a boat from the harbour of Buenos Ayres, and had taken to flight with the intention and determination to inform His Majesty of all that had passed in that land and province. To those nine Christians, who came naked, the governor gave clothing, and took them under his protection in order to bring them back with him to the province, for they were useful men, good sailors, and one of them was a pilot who knew the navigation of the river.
[303] Schmidt gives a false account of this; cf. supra, p. [35].
[305] In the original Spanish version the city of Asuncion is always written Ascension.
[CHAPTER THE FIFTH.]
How the governor hastened his journey.
HAVING listened to the statement of those nine Christians, the governor thought that, in order to succour as speedily as possible the Spaniards residing in the town of the Ascension, as well as those in the port of Buenos Ayres, he would discover a road by terra firma from the island, and so make his way to those parts already mentioned where the Christians were, and that he would send the vessels round by sea to Buenos Ayres. He therefore, against the will and opinion of the accountant Philip de Caceres, and of the pilot Antonio Lopez, who advised that they should all go together to Buenos Ayres, sent from the island of St. Catalina, Pedro Dorantes (the factor) to explore a road by land into the interior of the country where formerly many vassals of the King of Portugal had been killed by the native Indians. This Pedro Dorantes, by order of the governor, started with one hundred Spaniards, and some Indians who acted as guides; and at the end of three months and a half he returned to the island of St. Catalina, where the governor was awaiting him, and this, among other things, was what he reported: having crossed great sierras, and mountains, and much desert country, he had arrived at a place called “el Campo” (the plain), where the country began to be inhabited, and that the natives of the island had told him that the route he had taken was the safest to enter that country. He had followed a river called the Ytabucú,[306] which is opposite the point of the island at eighteen or twenty leagues from the harbour. When the governor knew of this, he sent immediately to reconnoitre the country watered by this river, through which he decided to make his journey; and having done this, he determined to enter the country by that route, in order to explore a region that had never before been seen, and carry relief, in the shortest possible time, to the Spaniards in that province. Having thus decided upon his plans, he told the friars, Bernardo de Armenta and Alonzo Lebron his companion, to remain in the island of St. Catalina and instruct the native Indians in the Christian doctrine, directing and confirming those already baptized. But these monks declined to obey, assigning as a pretext that they wished to accompany the governor
, in order to establish themselves in the town of the Ascension, where the Spaniards were whom he was going to relieve.
[306] Or Itapucu. This river rises in the coast range, and falls into the ocean south of San Francisco.