It is thus possible to form some idea of the condition of the aborigines at the time of the appearance of the Spaniards, but to obtain any knowledge of the events in South America during the centuries immediately preceding that event is a flat impossibility, and it is probably safe to say that the veil will never be uplifted, for the relics we have are of prehistoric not of modern man. Nor, in all probability, do we lose much by our ignorance, for judging by the actual state of the inhabitants of the extra-Andine regions of South America, when the Spaniards found them, we may repeat the disparaging verdict of Thucydides upon ancient Greece--that looking back as far as we can we are inclined to believe that the ancients were not distinguished, either in war or in anything else. The history of Argentina may be held to begin with the advent of the Spaniards. FOOTNOTES: [12] For much of the matter in this chapter I am indebted to the late E. J. Payne's valuable "History of the New World called America." [13] In "De Mundo." [14] "Venient annis saecula seris Quibus Oceanus vincula rerum Laxet, et ingens pateat tellus, Tiphys que novos detegat orbes, Nec sit terris ultima Thule." ("Medea," ii. 373.) [15] "Some writers carry back the date five hundred, or even five hundred and fifty, years before the Spanish invasion.... In the Report of the Royal Audience of Peru, the epoch is more modestly fixed at two hundred years before the Conquest" (Prescott, "Conquest of Peru," p. 5, _note_). [16] See Sir H. H. Howorth, "The Mammoth and the Flood," chap. xii. [17] See D'Orbigny, "L'Homme Américain," _passim_. [18] De Bougainville, "A Voyage Round the World," pp. 24-5. [19] D'Orbigny, ii. 295-7. CHAPTER III THE EUROPEAN CONQUEST Compared with Mexico and Peru the southern portions of the New World at first excited little interest, because they produced neither gold nor silver. Yet even here the discoverer was very early at work, and achievements less showy but on an almost equally grand scale have to be recorded. In 1515 Juan Diaz de Solis was sent out on a voyage of discovery by the King of Castile, who wished to counteract Portuguese influence on the east coast of South America, and Solis was the first European to sail up the River Plate, which he named after himself. But he trusted to the natives, who proved treacherous. They invited him to land, and when he had accepted their invitation they attacked and killed him and every man in the boat-crew, and afterwards roasted and devoured them in the sight of their companions. It was long before the Spaniards touched on that coast again, and the name of Solis had no permanence in the land which he discovered.