Mendoza had covenanted to carry five hundred men in his first voyage. Such was his reputation, and such the ardor for going to the Silver River, that more adventurers offered than it was possible for him to take, and he accelerated his departure on account of the enormous expense which such a host occasioned. The force with which he set forth consisted of eleven ships and eight hundred men. So fine an armament had never yet sailed from Europe for America: but they who beheld its departure are said to have remarked that the service of the dead ought to be performed for the adventurers. They reached Rio de Janeiro after a prosperous voyage, and remained there a fortnight, during which time the Adelantado, being crippled by a contraction of the sinews, appointed Juan Osorio to command in his stead. Having made this arrangement they proceeded to their place of destination, anchored at Isle St. Gabriel within the Plata, and then on its southern shore and beside a little river. There Don Pedro de Mendoza laid the foundation of a town which because of its healthy climate he named "Nuestra Senora de Buenos Aires" ("Our Lady of Good Air"). It was not long before he was made jealous of Osorio by certain envious officers, and, weakly lending ear to wicked accusations, he ordered them to fall upon him and kill him, then drag his body into the plaza, or public market-place, and proclaim him a traitor. The murder was perpetrated, and thus was the expedition deprived of one who is described as an honest and generous good soldier. Experience had not yet taught the Spaniards that any large body of settlers in a land of savages must starve unless well supplied with food from other sources until they can raise it for themselves. The Quirandies, who possessed the country round about this new settlement, were a wandering tribe who, in places where there was no water, quenched their thirst by eating a root which they called _cardes_, or by sucking the blood of the animals which they slew.