be hoped, they will not be buried in unprofitable obscurity. When the war with Brazil for the Banda Oriental broke out, in 1826, Colonel Cabrer drew a MS. map from these materials for the use of General Alvear, the Buenos Ayrean Commander-in-chief, which he was afterwards kind enough to present to me. By a curious coincidence, about the same time, I obtained possession of one upon a large scale of the southern provinces of Brazil, drawn, by the Emperor's order, from the best data to be collected at Rio de Janeiro, for the Marquis of Barbacena, who commanded the Brazilian army, and lost it at the battle of Ituzaingo. They have, I believe, afforded Mr. Arrowsmith data for materially improving his last maps of that part of South America. CHAPTER XII. THE LITTORINE PROVINCES. SANTA FÉ-ENTRE RIOS-CORRIENTES-THE OLD JESUIT MISSIONS-PARAGUAY UNDER DR. FRANCIA. De Garay founds Santa Fé, and meets with Spaniards from Peru. His subsequent Deeds and Death. The Government of the Rio de la Plata separated from that of Paraguay, and Santa Fé annexed to Buenos Ayres. Its former prosperity, and great capabilities, especially for Steam Navigation. The Entre Rios -constituted a Province in 1814, its Extent, Government, and Population-chiefly a grazing Country. Corrientes-its valuable natural Productions-mistaken ideas of the people as to Foreign Trade. The Lake Ybera-Pigmies, Ants, Ant-Eaters, Locusts, and Beetles. The Missions now depopulated-their happy and flourishing state under the Jesuits. Paraguaysome Account of its former Prosperity and Trade, and the establishment of the tyrannical rule of Dr. Francia. PROVINCE OF SANTA FE. THE first discoverers of La Plata, as has been already observed, fixed themselves in Paraguay, and established the seat of their government at Assumption, the capital of that province. In his way up the river, Sabastian Cabot built a fort, called SanctiEspiritu, at the junction of the Carcarana with the Parana; Ayolas, a few years after, built another not far from it, to which he gave the name of Corpus Christi; but these, like Mendoza's settlement at Buenos Ayres, were very soon destroyed by the warlike nations which then inhabited the whole of the right bank of the river; and, for the first halfcentury, with their views solely fixed on making a nearer approach to Peru, the Spaniards concerned themselves but little about the conquest of the poorer lands they had left behind them. The ships, which during that time continued to arrive in the River Plate, with fresh adventurers from Spain, with an inland navigation before them, to Assumption, requiring as much time as the whole voyage out from Europe, were entirely dependent for the refreshments they required on the accidental good will of the natives. Once in the Parana, if any accident befel them, for nearly a thousand miles there was not a single Christian port in which they could take refuge. It was under these circumstances that Don Juan de Garay, a Biscayan hidalgo (in 1573), who had already greatly distinguished himself amongst his companions at arms in those parts, solicited and obtained permission to make a sally from Assumption, to endeavour to re-establish Cabot's fort at the mouth of the Carcarāna, and to found other settlements upon the right bank of the Parana. The whole force he could muster for this enterprise, when ready, consisted only of eighty men, a small party wherewith to attempt to seize upon lands defended by a numerous and warlike people, |