Of the cattle carried by De Garay to Buenos Ayres it was not long before some escaped into the territory of the Indians, where they increased and multiplied, as the horses had done before. The settlers were too few, in the first instance, to domesticate more than were necessary for their own immediate wants, neither was the extent of their lands, for some time, adequate to the maintenance of any considerable stock; the cattle, therefore, ranged at liberty in the Pampas, and, though occasionally hunted down by the Spaniards for the hides, or by the Indians for food, the destruction was as nothing compared with the prodigious increase which went on:--they also found their way into the Banda Oriental, probably from Paraguay, where they multiplied even faster than in the Pampas, from the better quality of the pasturage and the more constant supply of water; and here it was that the illicit trade established by the Portuguese appears first to have awakened the Spaniards to a notion of the future importance of these animals. The vicinity of their establishment at Colonia, immediately opposite to Buenos Ayres, not only facilitated their smuggling across it the European goods and tobacco and slaves which were wanted, but made it a convenient station for collecting from the Spaniards the hides for which they were but too glad to find any sale under the restrictions then imposed upon all trade. The Portuguese took good care to buy them only at such low prices as insured them an enormous profit upon their exportation for other markets; but the speculation answered to both parties, and as the contraband trade of the Portuguese with Buenos Ayres increased, so we find did the cattle establishments of the Spaniards in the Banda Oriental. Cargoes of hides were occasionally shipped for Spain, particularly after the Spaniards founded Monte Video, in 1726; but the demand was far from equal to the production, and the stock of cattle went on gradually increasing till the partial opening of the colonial trade in 1778. At that period the cattle had reached an amount which, perhaps, has never been equalled at any subsequent period, but the increased demand for country produce which then took place was well nigh exterminating the whole stock. In 1783 no less than 1,400,000 hides were officially registered for exportation, besides a vast number clandestinely shipped.