Among the natives, whose silver ornaments, it is said, gave origin to the name La Plata, as well as to that of Argentina, Cabot passed two years in friendly intercourse. He then sent to Spain an account of Paraguay, and a request for authority and reenforcements to take possession of the country with its rich resources. Although his request was favorably received, no efficient action was taken upon it, and, after waiting for five years, Cabot, despairing of the necessary assistance, left the region. It was not long, however, before a somewhat extensive settlement in those parts was projected. Don Pedro Mendoza, a knight of Guadix, Granada, one of the royal household, undertook the colonization of the country, and September 1, 1534, he sailed from San Lucar. Mendoza had enriched himself at the sackage of Rome by the Constable de Bourbon in 1527. Ill-gotten wealth has been so often ill-expended as to have occasioned proverbs in all languages; the plunder of Rome did not satisfy him, and, dreaming of other Mexicos and Cuzcos, he obtained a grant of all the country from the river Plata to the straits, to be his government, with permission to proceed across the continent to the South Sea. He undertook to carry out in two voyages, and within two years, a thousand men, a hundred horses, and stores for one year at his own expense, the King[51] granting him the title of _adelantado_, and a salary of two thousand ducats for life, with two thousand more from the fruits of the conquest in aid of his expenses. He was to build three fortresses, and be perpetual alcaid of the first; his heirs after him were to be first alguazils of the place where he fixed his residence, and after he had remained three years he might transfer the task of completing the colonization and conquest either to his heir or any other person whom it might please him to appoint--and with it the privileges annexed--if within two years the King approved the choice. A king's ransom was now understood to belong to the crown; but as a further inducement this prerogative was waived in favor of Mendoza and his soldiers, who were to share it, first having deduced the royal fifth, and then a sixth. If, however, the King in question were slain in battle, half the spoils should go to the crown. These terms were made in wishful remembrance of the ransom of Atabalipa. He was to take with him a physician, an apothecary, and a surgeon, and especially eight "religioners." Life is lightly hazarded by those who have nothing more to stake, but that a man should, like Mendoza, stake such riches as would content the most desperate life-gambler for his winnings is one of the many indications how generally and how strongly the contagious spirit of adventure was at that time prevailing.