a considerable amount of property which had been taken from him by the King's officers at Assumption.

In Paraguay, after the deposition of Cabeza de Vaca, the people were assembled to proceed, as on the former occasion, to the election of a Governor pending the Emperor's pleasure, and once more Yrala was chosen, by a large majority of votes, to fill the vacant office. He was so ill at the time that he had already received extreme unction, and when the notification was made to him of his election, he only prayed that he might be excused the honour, on the ground that he was not in a state to think of any further matters connected with this world. The people, however, would take no refusal; and as he was urged to accept the appointment, not only by his own friends, but by those of the Adelantado, under the circumstances he allowed himself, when sufficiently recovered, to be carried in a chair into the public square, where he took the necessary oaths, and was once more proclaimed Governor of the Province (April, 1544).

Men's minds, however, were very unsettled by these events, and Yrala had enough to do for some time to keep peace in the colony. The Indians also, observing the dissensions amongst the Spaniards, availed themselves of the opportunity to rise in revolt against their authority, and to put them down effectually Yrala was obliged to take the field with an imposing force. They fought desperately, and would not give in till more than 2000 of them were slain and many more made prisoners by the Spaniards. The slaughter was the greater from the circumstance of the Spaniards having on their side the warlike Yapirús, whose practice in battle was to decapitate their captives, in order to parade their hairy scalps, like the North American Indians, as trophies of victory. The surviving captives were distributed amongst the soldiery by Yrala, whose conduct in this respect, as contrasted with that of his predecessor, gained him their good will, and made them his obedient followers in another attempt which he was now projecting to realize the great problem still to be solved, of the possibility of reaching the Empire of the Incas from the Rio de la Plata.

CHAP. III.

PUTS DOWN AN INDIAN REBELLION.

37

The attempts hitherto made had not been without their fruits, and the soldiers, as well as their captains, were now pretty well familiarised with what they were to expect from such an undertaking. The nature of the difficulties to be overcome was no longer unknown. The

country to be traversed had been already explored for some distance, the character of the people had been ascertained, and all the vicissitudes of the climate and its effects had been experienced. The thirst for gold, the first and principal incitement to action, had been rather increased than lessened by all they had learned; and it seemed only requisite now that they should be led on by a commander in whom they had full confidence, as they had in Yrala, to insure eventual success, if it was to be obtained by human exertions.

Four times had Yrala ascended the river Paraguay nearly throughout its whole navigable extent. For nearly 150 leagues above Assumption he knew every tribe on its shores, and every point which presented either difficulties or facilities for such an undertaking. His determination therefore to prosecute the discovery was felt to be taken on good grounds, and, when publicly announced, the only difficulty which arose was as to who were to be left behind.

Naming Don Francisco de Mendoza to act for him at Assumption, he started in the month of August, 1548, with 350 followers, 130 of whom were horsemen, and 2000 Guaranis. This time they disembarked in the vicinity of the Sierra San Fernando, opposite to what is called the Pan d'Azucar, or Sugar-loaf Hill, in lat. 21°, whence marching across the country of the Chiquitos in a north-westerly direction for between 300 and 400 miles, they struck the great river Guapey or Grande, upon the frontiers of the Province of Charcas, a branch of the river Madeira, which falls into the Amazons. There some Indians came forth from their village to meet them, bidding them welcome, to their amazement, in the Spanish language. From them they learned that they had at last reached the confines of Peru. These Indians were in the service of Don Pedro Anzures, who ten years before (in 1538) had founded the city of Chuquisaca in the province of Charcas.

Some writers have described this expedition of Yrala as attended with unexampled difficulties and all kinds of hardships and privations; but this is not borne out by Schmidel, who was of the party, and who has given a very particular and circumstantial narrative of it from first to last. According to his account, notwithstanding their numbers, the people were never without a good supply of food, of which they found abundance amongst all the tribes they fell in with. The country was for the most part found to be fertile, and abounding with all kinds of game; the Indians were located in villages, cultivating maize and casava and other roots and fruits of the soil, and with quantities of domestic poultry-fowls, ducks, geese, &c.—in their houses; water was in some places scarce, but the Indians showed them a species of agavé (?), the leaves of which when tapped afforded enough to quench their thirst ;* the locusts, also, in some parts had laid waste the lands, and as they approached the river Guapey they had to cross some extensive plains covered with salt as white as snow as far as the eye could reach (Salinas), where of course there was nothing to eat or drink; but in general the Indians were submissive, and voluntarily brought them such supplies as they stood in need of; and though some tribes, armed with bows and poisoned arrows, attempted to impede their progress, they were easily defeated, and always made to suffer dearly for their resistance. The soldiers in such cases, unrestrained by their commander, took all the licence of war, slaughtering and making slaves of the men, carrying off their wives and daughters, and pillaging and destroying their habitations.

Schmidel gives an account of one of their forays, in which he was himself personally engaged. The Spaniards had been in chase of some treacherous Imbayás, who had attacked them in the night: he says, "Three days afterwards we came unexpectedly upon a tribe living in a wood with their wives and children; they were not the people we were in pursuit of, but allies of theirs, who had not

CHAP. III.

SENDS MESSENGERS TO LA GASCA.

39

the least idea of our intention to attack them; nevertheless we fell upon them, and killed and captured about 3000, and if it had not been nightfall not one would have escaped. I got for my own share nineteen men and some women, not old ones, and other things."

The Indians, in revenge for these cruelties, put to death three unfortunate Spaniards, who had been residing with them ever since the expedition of Ayolas years before, having been left among them sick when he was returning from his inroad into the interior; some prisoners afterwards made by Yrala mentioned the particulars, adding that one of them was a trumpeter, by name Gonzalez: a proof that Ayolas had got so far.

The Spaniards in Paraguay had been so long without intelligence from any other part of the world, that they were in total ignorance of the stirring events which had taken place in Peru. They now, for the first time, were apprised of the civil war between Almagro and Pizarro, and its disastrous consequences; of the execution of the former and the assassination of the latter; and of the still more astounding news of the subsequent rebellion of Gonzalo Pizarro, which had just been put down by that extraordinary man La Gasca, who was then at Lima, occupied in completing his measures for the pacification and settlement of the country.

Yrala soon received intimation that he had better not advance further till he had communicated with the President; he therefore halted his men, and sent forward a deputation, under Nuflo de Chaves, to apprize La Gasca of his proceedings, and to make him a tender of his own services with those of the men of the Rio de la Plata in aid of the King's authority.

La Gasca received his messengers very kindly at Lima, but seems to have been only anxious to get rid as speedily as possible of such unexpected visitors. With that object he sent a civil answer to Yrala, thanking him for his offer of service, but desiring him on no account to advance further into Peru, apprehensive lest his followers might fall in with some of the discomfited adherents of Gonzalo Pizarro, and cause fresh disturbances; which by all ac

counts they were quite ready to do, especially when informed of the President's prohibition against their entry into the land they had reached with so much toil and labour, and which had for so many years been the object of all their hopes and wishes.

Yrala himself had further cause for dissatisfaction from La Gasca's assuming, in virtue of the extraordinary powers with which he was invested, to confer the government of Paraguay upon old Diego Centeno, who had been of such service to him in putting down the late rebellion: fortunately for Yrala he was then on his death-bed at Chuquisaca, and it seems doubtful if he ever was aware of his appointment; the President did not think fit to name any one else, and Yrala prepared, in obedience to his orders, to retrace his steps to Assumption, his people most unwillingly following him.

A year and a half was spent in this expedition, the results of which, Schmidel says, "instead of gold and silver, were 12,000 Indian women and youths, whom the Spaniards carried off with them as slaves;" fifty fell to Schmidel's share as a volunteer.

What was of more importance, perhaps, to the people of Paraguay were some European sheep and goats, which they had purchased of their countrymen in Peru*-the first ever seen in that country; three years afterwards the first horned cattle were carried to them from the coast of Brazil, the origin of that mighty stock which constitutes the present wealth of the people of the Rio de la Plata.

Yrala found everything in disorder at Assumption from the belief, occasioned by his long absence, that he had met with the same fate as Ayolas, and had been cut off by the Indians; in consequence of which there had been a struggle for the government, in which his lieutenant, Mendoza, had been killed by the partisans of Abreu, who had taken his place, and was now driven out in his turn, and shortly after put to death. It was not without difficulty that Yrala settled these disputes; he did so at last

* They were very scarce at that time even in Peru, where sheep were sold at from 40 to 50 dollars each.