Here he thought to capture some of the Indians of the "Mother of Waters," and to take them with him to Spain. But they, resenting the pretension, ambushed the explorer's party, and de Solis was killed. Four years later Magellan essayed the passage. But the name of La Plata did not result from these voyages. It was Sebastian Cabot, the Englishman in the service of Spain, who, later, ascending the great estuary then known as the Mar Dulce, or fresh-water sea, discovered the Paraná, and, following it and the Paraguay River upstream, and landing where the city of Asuncion now stands, found the Guaranis wearing silver ornaments, and from these baubles--which, however, came in reality not from the district itself but from across the Andes, from the still unknown Inca Empire of Peru--gave the name of the Plate or Plata River. Its wealth to-day comes not from precious metals, but from the bounties of Nature in the vegetable and animal world: the wealth of corn and cattle. [Illustration: BUENOS AYRES. Vol. II. To face p. 160.] Cabot established a settlement at San Espiritu. The rumours of a great, rich, unknown empire fired his imagination. Then he returned to Spain for means to open up communication with the lands beyond the Andes. But in his absence the garrison was massacred by the Indians. A chief of the Timbus became enamoured of a certain Spanish lady among the few colonists, and he, striving to gain possession of her, caused the treacherous murder of the garrison. Two years after Cabot's return to Europe, the astounding news of Pizarro's conquest of Peru arrived, in 1532, and adventurous spirits were fired with the desire themselves to set forth on similar quests of gold and fortune. Among these spirits of the times was the Marquis of Mendoza, and the story of how he failed in reaching Peru forms one of the interesting pages of history in this picturesque period. Mendoza, on February 2, 1534, founded Buenos Ayres, which has grown to the vast and wealthy Argentine capital[32] of to-day. Some of Mendoza's people, who had survived the dangers to which many fell victims, founded Asuncion, the first Spanish American interior capital, to-day the capital of the Republic of Paraguay. But let us turn to our map.