than ten to fifteen miles. Without a harbour, the anchorage was exposed
to the full fury of the south-west gales, known as `pamperos'.
However, if the site was bad the air was good; at least, it seems so,
for a captain of the expedition exclaimed on landing, `Que buenos aires
son estos!' and hence the name. Here every sort of evil chance
came on the newborn colony. The Pampa Indians, whom the historian Schmidel
seems to have only known by their Guarani name of Querandis,
at first were friendly. After a little while they ceased to bring provisions,
and the General sent out an expedition to compel them under his brother,
Don Diego de Mendoza. It does not seem to have occurred
to Don Pedro de Mendoza that, had the `cacique' of the Querandis
landed in Spain, no one would have brought him provisions for a single day
without receiving payment. However, Don Pedro* had come to America
to introduce civilization and Christianity, and therefore,
knowing, like Bernal Diaz and the other conquerors, his own moral worth,
was justly indignant that after a day or two the Indians
refused him more supplies. In the encounter which took place
between the Spaniards and the Indians, Don Diego de Mendoza was slain,
and with him several others. Here for the first time we hear of the bolas,
or three stones united, like a Manxman's legs, with strips of hide,
with which, as Hulderico Schmidel tells us, the Indians caught the horses
by the legs and threw them down. After this foretaste of European justice,
the Indians besieged the newly-built town and brought it to great straits,
so much so that, after three men had been hung for stealing a horse,
in the morning it was discovered they had been cut down and eaten.
In this desperate state Don Pedro despatched Juan de Ayolas to get supplies.
He, having obtained some maize from the Timbu Indians, returned,
leaving a hundred of his men in a little fort, called Corpus Christi,
close to Espiritu Santo, the fort which Cabot had constructed.
The friendliness of the Timbus induced Don Pedro to abandon Buenos Ayres