Cabeza de Vaca possesses the chief claim to sympathy of all
those who had to do with Paraguay at this early period of its existence;
yet at the same time it is impossible to refrain from admiration of the
sheer determination and willpower with which Irala pursued his career.

For years Irala's position remained utterly precarious. He was the
chosen of the colonists, but not of the Court of Spain, which alone
possessed any legal right to appoint a person to so high an office as
his. No exalted personages were more jealous of their privileges than
these. Several times Irala was on the point of losing his Governorship,
but on each occasion the measures he adopted, aided by good fortune,
tided him over the crisis, and left him continuing in the seat of
authority. In the end, after undergoing innumerable anxieties, Irala at
last succeeded in obtaining the Royal Licence for the Governorship of
Paraguay.

All the while his energy continued undiminished, and it was due to him
that the colonization of the country made such rapid strides. The means
by which this end was effected were, from the modern point of view,
entirely dubious, for it was Irala who instituted in Paraguay
_encomiendas_, or slave settlements, into which the natives of the
country were congregated in order that their labour might be employed in
agriculture and similar occupations. This, however, was the ordinary
procedure of the period, and, as historians have already pointed out,
Irala's faults, although serious enough, were really nothing beyond
those of his age. In any case, his name stands as that of one of the
most powerful of the _conquistadores_. During the later years of his
office a comparatively undisturbed era obtained, and he held the reins
of the Paraguayan Government with a firm hand till his death, which
occurred at the age of seventy-one.

On Irala's death, it was only natural that those elements of discord and
jealousy which his strong personality had kept in check should break
out, and cause no little confusion and strife. For a while the
Governorship of Paraguay was sought by many, and the conflicting claims
led to numerous disputes, and even occasional armed collisions. One of
the most notable of the Governors who succeeded Irala was Juan de Garay.
It was this _conquistador_ who was responsible for the second and
permanent founding of the city of Buenos Aires. Garay was a far-seeing
man, who, having established a number of urban centres i