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[Illustration: GLYPTODON.]




                             BUENOS AYRES,
                                  AND
                         THE PROVINCES OF THE
                           RIO DE LA PLATA:

                 THEIR PRESENT STATE, TRADE, AND DEBT;

       WITH SOME ACCOUNT FROM ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS OF THE PROGRESS
           OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY IN THOSE PARTS OF SOUTH
                 AMERICA DURING THE LAST SIXTY YEARS.


                                  BY
                     SIR WOODBINE PARISH, K.C.H.,
F.R.S., G.S., VICE PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON,
      MANY YEARS HIS MAJESTY'S CHARGE D'AFFAIRS AT BUENOS AYRES.

                                LONDON:
                    JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.

                                 1839.

                                LONDON:
                  Printed by WILLIAM CLOWES and SONS,
                           Stamford Street.




INTRODUCTION.


The greater part of the materials for this volume were collected
during a long official residence in the country to which they relate:
containing, as I believe they do, some information which may be
interesting, if not useful, I feel that I ought not to withhold them
from the public, in whose service they were obtained.

The chapters which give an account of the settlements made by the old
Spaniards on the coast of Patagonia, and of the explorations of the
Pampas south of Buenos Ayres, both by them and their successors in the
present century, will be found to throw some new light on the progress
of geographical discovery in that part of the world. Our occupation
of the Falkland Islands, in the first instance, and the work shortly
afterwards published by Falkner in this country, pointing out the
defenceless state of Patagonia, joined to the enterprising character
of the British voyages of discovery about the same period, appears
to have stimulated the Spaniards, in alarm lest we should forestall
them, to examine their coasts, to explore their rivers, and to found
settlements, of which every record was concealed from public view, lest
the world at large should become better acquainted with possessions,
all knowledge of which it was their particular care and policy to
endeavour to keep to themselves.

Thus, though Spain, at an enormous cost, acquired some better
information relative to countries over which she claimed a nominal
sovereignty, the results were not suffered to transpire, but remained
locked up in the secret archives of the viceroys and of the council of
the Indies; where probably they would have been hidden to this day had
not the South Americans assumed the management of their own affairs.

In the confusion which followed the deposition of the Spanish
authorities, the public archives appear to have been ransacked with
little ceremony, and many documents of great interest were lost, or
fell into the hands of individuals who, like collectors of rarities in
other parts of the world, showed anything but a disposition to share
them with the public at large. I will not say that this was always
the case, but the feeling prevailed to a sufficient extent to enhance
materially the value of those which were either offered for sale or
obtainable by other means.

Some few individuals were actuated by a different spirit, amongst whom
I ought especially to name Dr. Segurola, the fellow-labourer with Dean
Funes in his historical essay upon the provinces of La Plata, whose
valuable collection of MSS. (from which that work was principally
compiled) was always accessible to his friends, and to whom I have
to acknowledge my own obligations for leave to take copies of many
an interesting paper. Others, also, whom I do not name, will I trust
not the less accept my thanks for the facilities they afforded me
for obtaining such information as I required. The government, I must
say, was always liberal, in giving me access to the old archives, and
in permitting me to transcribe documents[1] which I could not have
obtained from other quarters.

With these facilities, and by purchase, I found myself, by the time
I quitted South America, in possession of a considerable collection
of MS. maps and of unedited papers respecting countries of which the
greater part of the world is, I believe, in almost absolute ignorance.

Amongst the most interesting perhaps of these I may mention--

The original Diaries of Don Juan de la Piedra, sent out from Spain, in
1778, to explore the coasts of Patagonia.

A series of papers drawn up by his successors the Viedmas, the founders
of the settlements at San Julian and on