The agile, hardy, and fierce Pampa Indians, having once fallen foul of
the invaders, allowed them no respite. Attacked by day and night,
deprived of all supplies of food, Mendoza's troops began to suffer from
exhaustion and hunger, to say nothing of the wounds inflicted by their
enemies.
In the end, the leaders had to admit to themselves that the place was no
longer tenable. Nevertheless, neither Mendoza nor his men had any
intention of abandoning permanently these fertile plains through which
ran the great rivers. The scarcity of minerals in these districts had
now become sufficiently obvious to them; yet even to men in quest of
little beyond gold the extraordinary fertility of the alluvial soil was
not altogether lost. With a courage and pertinacity which does the
adventurers every credit, they determined, instead of abandoning the
river and putting out to sea, to sail far up-stream into the unknown,
and to seek their fortune inland.
Mendoza's expedition first of all established itself for a while on the
site of Sancti Spiritus, Cabot's old abandoned fort, which they now
rechristened Corpus Christi. Shortly after their arrival at the place,
Mendoza himself, who had doubtless suffered many disillusions concerning
the gold and precious stones of these districts, and whose health had
given way beneath the stress of the hardships and of the numerous
precarious situations in which he had found himself, set sail for Spain.
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