CITY OF BUENOS AYRES.

19

dently not this: in quest of those precious metals they ascended the river, and for the most part settled in the more inviting regions of Paraguay; hoping from thence to open an easy communication with the rich countries of Peru.

In 1535 the Adelantado, Don Pedro de Mendoza, on his way to Paraguay with one of the most brilliant expeditions ever equipped in Spain for South America, landed to recruit his people near the spot where Buenos Ayres now stands, and caused a fort to be built there for the first time, in which he left what he supposed a sufficient garrison for its defence; but he was mistaken-the warlike natives as soon as he was gone drove out the Spanish soldiers, and remained for nearly another half-century in undisturbed possession of all that part of the country.*

It was not till the year 1580 that the famous Don Juan de Garay, then in Paraguay, determined once more to endeavour to form a permanent settlement in the same neighbourhood. In this attempt the Spaniards as before met with a most obstinate resistance on the part of the natives, who attacked them armed with their formidable slings (the bolas now used by the gauchos) and with bows and arrows, to which they tied burning matches, which set fire not only to their tents but to their shipping. De Garay's

* See annexed plate, copied from the original in the account published by Ulric Schmidel, a volunteer under Mendoza, and one of the garrison besieged by the Querandis.

little band, which only consisted of sixty men-atarms, was at first well nigh overwhelmed by the number of the savages who poured down upon them bravely fighting for their lands. On both sides prodigies of individual valour are related. The death, however, of the Cacique, who commanded in chief, seems to have decided the battle; the Indians, seeing him fall, fled, followed by the victors till they were weary of killing them and such was the slaughter that to this day the scene of the engagement is called La Matanza, or "the Killing Ground."

After this victory De Garay took formal possession of the country in the King of Spain's name, and founded the present city of Buenos Ayres-A.D. 1580.

For two centuries the settlement thus planted languished in insignificance, abandoned to its own resources, and the mother country, to all appearance, fearing rather than desiring its aggrandisement: nor was this without cause ;-Spain, in fact, lost so immensely by the contraband trade carried on from Peru, through the river Plate, that she became accustomed to regard with something more than indifference a possession which in consequence of her own prohibitory and restrictive system, was totally unproductive to her, whilst the facilities it offered for illicit trading made it a fruitful source of grievance and of disputes with other nations.

The extent, however, of these evils in the course of time produced their own remedy. The King of

CITY OF BUENOS AYRES.

21

Spain at last discovered that a Viceroy at Lima could not put down the smugglers in the river Plate, or prevent the continual territorial encroachments of the Portuguese in the same quarter.

The necessity had long been evident of establishing a separate and independent authority on the spot where its vigilance was in daily request, and in 1776 Buenos Ayres was made the seat of a new Viceroyalty, and separated from the government of Peru.

It was about that time, also, that Spain made most important changes in her colonial system. The exclusive and pernicious monopoly of the whole trade of South America, till then possessed by the merchants of Seville and Cadiz, was put an end to, and a comparatively free intercourse was, for the first time, permitted with many ports in the new world, Iwith which till then it was death to communicate. Buenos Ayres reaped a large share of the advantages of this alteration in the commercial views and policy of the mother country; and from a nest of smugglers became one of the first trading cities in Spanish America. The rapid increase of her population, under these new circumstances, is worth notice.

CHAPTER IV.

POPULATION OF BUENOS AYRES.

Statistics of the Population. Its great increase in the last fifty years. Castes into which it was formerly divided now disappearing. Numbers of Foreigners established there, especially British. Their influence on the habits of the Natives. The Ladies of Buenos Ayres; the Men and their occupations. In the year 1767, when M. de Bougainville visited Buenos Ayres, he tells us that the number of the inhabitants did not exceed 20,000.

In 1778, the year in which the port was partially thrown open under the free-trade regulations of Spain, as they were called, a census was taken, by which it appears that the inhabitants of the city and of its campaña, or country jurisdiction, amounted to 37,679 souls, of which 24,205 belonged to the city, 12,925 to the country, and 549 were members of religious communities; divided as follows, viz. :

COLOUR.

CITY.

COUNTRY.

Males. Females. Total. Males. Females. Total.