ter the original portrait in the Palace of the
Viceroys at Lima._

_A. Rischgitz._]

In the first instance, these forays were responsible for comparatively
little friction, since the number of Indians near at hand was as
plentiful as the neighbouring white men were rare. When the nearer land
became depopulated, however, it began to be necessary to extend the
expeditions farther afield from Sao Paolo, and it was then that the
Mamelucos came into contact with the growing numbers of the Spanish
settlers, and with the Indians who now resided beneath the protection of
the Spanish power. When the Jesuit missionaries arrived in Northern
Uruguay and in Southern Paraguay their advent had the effect of
embittering the feud between the frontiersmen; for the Jesuits, forming
the Indians into companies of their own, withdrew them still farther
from the onslaughts of the Paolistas. These latter determined at all
costs to capture and to drive back their gangs of slaves, became more
and more emboldened, and pushed forward to the south and west well into
the Spanish territories, harrying the missionary settlements, and laying
waste the countryside.

For years the Guarani Indians, unarmed, were helpless in the face of
such attacks. Eventually, however, the influence of the Jesuits obtained
permission from the Court of Spain for these latter to be provided with
firearms, and after this the Indian regiments, trained and disciplined,
offered such effective resistance to the Mamelucos that these were
forced to cease their slave-raids.

In 1574, when the importation into Brazil of negro slaves from West
Africa had become a regular affair, the demand for slaves on the part of
the Paolistas naturally became less active. Even with this item of
discord removed, such intervals of peace as were patched up between the
rival Powers were of short duration. The fertile and temperate lands to
the north of the River Plate still remained in dispute, and although the
Spaniards succeeded in retaining the possession of the bulk of these,
there were times when the Portuguese penetrated as far as the waters of
the great river, and in the end they managed to detach several of the
most northerly districts from Spanish control, and in adding these to
their own colonies.

It was consistent with the curious irony of fate which seemed to direct
the operations of the Continent at that period, that while the
Portuguese and Spaniards, actual lords of the soil, we