Drake’s narrator, while writing pious words with one hand and stealing Spanish silver with the other, had not much time to make sharp observations, but his notes are interesting. “Passing thus,” says the Reverend Mr. Fletcher, “in beholding the excellent works of the Eternal God upon the seas as if we had been in a garden of pleasure, April 5, 1578, we fell in with the coast of Brazil, in 30° 30′ towards the Pole Antarctic where the land is low near the sea, but much higher within the country, having in depth not above twelve fathoms three leagues off from the shore; and being deceived by the inhabitants (Indians), we saw great and huge fires made by them in sandy places. After this, we kept our course sometimes to the seaward, sometimes to the shore, but always southward as near as we could till April 14th, in the morning, at which we passed Cape St. Mary which lies in 35′ near the mouth of the River Plata running within it, about six or seven leagues along the main, we came to anchor in a bay under another Cape which our General afterwards called Cape Joy. (The present site of Montevideo.) The country here about is of a temperate and most sweet air, very fair and pleasant to behold, and, besides the exceeding fruitfulness of the soil, it is stored with plenty and mighty deer.” A few months later the good Reverend wrote thus: “We lighted on a Spaniard who lay asleep, and had lying by him thirteen bars of silver, weighing in all about 4,000 Spanish ducats. We freed him of his change which, otherwise, might have kept him working.” Since this time the Spaniards have slowly spread and mingled and intermarried with the Indians, and the various resulting states have secured the independence of the Castilian yoke and are now very rapidly advancing. But for the first two centuries progress was very insignificant. Buenos Aires, the New York of South America, is here spreading on the banks of the silver river. Montevideo and other cities are growing with a vigour similar to that of Yankee towns, and if excellence of climate, fertility of soil, and limitless natural resources count for anything, the gathering basin of the Rio de la Plata will certainly soon become the United States of South America.