was ever seeking for a channel to the mines of Peru from the Atlantic coast.
Cabot appears to have ascended the Parana to the island of Apipe,
and then, returning, entered the river Paraguay. Having ascended
past what is now Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay, Cabot encountered
Indians from the north who told him of the mines in Peru and in Bolivia,
probably unaware that Cabot knew of them already. At this point,
encouraged by what he heard, he gave the name of Rio de la Plata
to what had previously been known either as La Mar Dulce or El Rio de Solis.
Like most names which are wrongly given, it remained to testify
to the want of knowledge of the giver. Four years after, Cabot returned
to Spain, having failed to attract attention to his discoveries.
In the face of the wealth which was pouring in from the Peruvian mines,
another expedition started for the river Plate. Its General -- for in Spain
the title was used indifferently by land and sea -- was Don Pedro de Mendoza,
a gentleman of Guadix in Almeria, and a member of the household of Charles V.

--
* `La Argentina', included in the `Coleccion de Angelis', Buenos Ayres, 1836.
--

Don Pedro had seen service in the Italian wars, and seems to have been
a man of character and bravery, but wanting in the discretion
and the necessary tact essential in the founder of a colony.
In 1534 the expedition started, unfortunate almost from the first.
In a `certain island', as the historian of the expedition, Hulderico Schmidel,
a German or Flemish soldier, calls Rio Janeiro, a dispute occurred
between Don Pedro and his second in command, Juan de Osorio.
At a court-martial held upon Osorio, Don Pedro appears to have let fall
some remarks which Juan de Ayolas, the Alguazil Mayor (Chief Constable),
seems to have taken up as an order for instant execution.