e/ quando hay ahora diferencia sobre buenos caballos,
suclen decir es en bondad tan bueno como Motilla.'
--

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 explanation.
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