In this earlier era of River Plate history the march of civilisation had been arrested at the first step in Uruguay on each occasion on which it had been undertaken. It was not until the beginning of the seventeenth century that success attended the endeavours of the Spaniards. In 1618 the first missionaries entered Uruguay. The Franciscan fathers Bernardo de Guzman, Villavicencio, and Aldao landed in that year at the mouth of the Rio, and converted to Christianity many members of the more peaceably disposed tribes. In 1624 Bernardo de Guzman founded the first Uruguayan Jesuit settlement, Santo Domingo de Soriano, and a little later the missions of Espinillo, Viboras, and Aldao were established in the present provinces of Soriano and Colonia. Larger and more important missions were shortly afterwards founded in the north, and formed a more or less integral portion of the great Jesuit field in Paraguay. At one time there were no less than thirty-seven of these stations existing within the frontiers of the old Banda Oriental as they were then defined. In consequence of the later Brazilian encroachments, however, the sites of only seven of these--San Francisco de Borga, San Nicolas, San Juan Bautista, San Luis Gonzaga, San Miguel, San Lorenzo, and Santa Angel--lie within the boundaries of the present Republic. While in the north of Uruguay the Indians, taught by the missionaries, were now beginning to occupy themselves with agriculture and grazing, in the south the herds introduced by Hernandarias were multiplying amazingly. These were responsible for the visits of many who came over from Argentina to slay the cattle and to collect their hides. They were licensed by the Cabildo of Buenos Aires, who received a third of the profits. In order to facilitate this traffic in hides, these _Faeneros_, as they were termed, gradually established themselves upon the banks of the Uruguay and its tributaries, and upon the ocean coast. Thus the names of Cufré, Pavón, Toledo, Pando, Solis, Maldonado, and many others have been bequeathed to the soil by the merchant adventurers who trafficked in those spots, since each named his settlement after himself.