for the object of reaching the Moluccas or Spice Islands.
It was his purpose to reach them through the Straits of Magellan.
Being compelled by want of supplies to abandon his route, he entered
a broad estuary, and ascended it under the impression that he had discovered
another channel to the Pacific. He soon found his mistake,
and began to explore the surrounding country. Fifteen years before,
with the same object, Juan de Solis had entered the same estuary.
On the island of Martin Garcia he was killed by a Chana Indian,
and his expedition returned home. Hearing that there was much silver
at the head-waters, he had called it the Rio de la Plata.
If we take the head-waters of the river Plate to be situated in Bolivia,
there certainly was much silver there; but Cabot was unaware
that the head-waters were above two thousand miles from the estuary,
and he was not destined to come near them. He did go as far
as a point on the river Caracara, in what is now the province of Santa Fe,
and there he built a fort which he named Espiritu Santo,
the first Spanish settlement in that part of America.
Whilst at Espiritu Santo, several exploring parties were sent
to scour the country. One of them, under a soldier of the name of Cesar,
never returned. Tradition, always eager to make up to history
for its want of interest, asserted that after marching for years
they reached a city. Perhaps it was the mystic Trapalanda of which
the Gauchos used to discourse at night when seated round a fire of bones
upon the pampa. Perhaps some other, for enchanted cities and Eldorados
were plentiful in those days in America, alternating with occasional empires,
as that of Puytita, near the Laguna de los Xarayes, Manoa,
and the Ciudad de los Cesares, supposed to be situated near Arauco
in the Chilian Andes. However, one of the party actually returned
after years, and related his adventures to Ruy Diaz de Guzman,*
the first historian of Paraguay. Thus it was that the stream of adventurers