After this encounter famine seemed to stare the followers of Mendoza in the face, and an expedition sent up the river in search of food was everywhere met with hostility. Mendoza now determined to proceed up the stream, and on an island he found an interpreter in one of the followers of Cabot. _Buenos Ayres_ was meanwhile partly relieved by the return of an expedition that had been sent to procure provisions from the coast of _Brazil_. This was the extent to which the bright visions of Mendoza were destined to be realized. Tortured in body and broken in spirit, the knight left the scene of his misfortunes. On his homeward voyage he was still pursued by hunger, and his reason gave way before death came to his relief. Mendoza had resigned his powers to his lieutenant, Ayolas, who ascended the _Paraná_ and reached the _Paraguay_, there losing one of his ships. Those whom it had conveyed proceeded by land, and encountered a tribe in some respects civilized. The _Carios_ possessed maize and the sweet potato, and in their farms were found ostriches, sheep, and pigs. Their capital was surrounded by stakes. The tribesmen offered the invaders provisions on condition of their departing. This not being accepted, a fight ensued, and the natives fled. Ayolas then founded a city, in which he took to himself, as we are told, seven wives, permitting two to each of his followers. The city was called _Asuncion_. [Sidenote: 1537.] After the delay of some months in his new settlement, Ayolas determined to find his way in the direction of _Peru_; and taking with him a sufficient party, he left one of his officers, Irala, with fifty Spaniards, at _Candelaria_ on the _Paraguay_, as a supporting party in case of his retreat. The succeeding months were occupied by him in wanderings in the primeval forest, where he received from a tribe the glad tidings of the presence of gold and silver in the adjacent regions. Ayolas and his party were, however, compelled to find their way back, when they were doomed to disappointment in not meeting Irala, who, despairing of their return, after waiting six months, had returned to _Asuncion_. Ayolas and his people were soon after murdered by the tribe of _Payaguas_. Irala meanwhile, having repaired his vessels, returned to _Candelaria_ and made fresh, but of course fruitless efforts to discover Ayolas, whose death, when he had ascertained it, he cruelly avenged on some _Payaguas_. [Sidenote: 1537.] Learning the tale of treasure to be found in the interior, Irala now bent his attention to discover it. At _Buenos Ayres_ wealth could only be the reward of industry, and therefore the settlement founded by Mendoza was abandoned, and the whole Spanish colony flocked up the river to _Asuncion_. They mustered six hundred souls, and _Asuncion_ thus became the earliest founded permanent city in the region of _La Plata_. [Sidenote: 1540.]