espucci had reached the area (his own account of 1502 has it that he reached its latitudes), however his failure to accurately describe the main geographical features of the region such as the R�o de la Plata casts some doubt on whether he really did so. Magellan's fleet spend a difficult winter at what he named Puerto San Juli�n before resuming his voyage further south on August 21, 1520. During this time he encountered the local inhabitants, likely to be Tehuelche people, described by his reporter, Antonio Pigafetta, as giants called Patagons.
Rodrigo de Isla, sent inland in 1535 from San Mat�as by Sim�n de Alcazaba Sotomayor (on whom western Patagonia had been conferred by Carlos V of Spain), is presumed to have been the first European to have traversed the great Patagonian plain. If the men under his charge had not mutinied, he might have been able to cross the Andes to reach the Chilean side.
Pedro de Mendoza, on whom the country was next bestowed, founded Buenos Aires, but did not venture to the south. Alonzo de Camargo (1539), Juan Ladrilleros (1557) and Hurtado de Mendoza (1558) helped to make known the western coasts, and Sir Francis Drake's voyage in 1577 down the eastern coast through the strait and northward by Chile and Peru was memorable, yet the description of the geography of Patagonia owes more to Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa (1579�1580), who, devoting himself especially to the south-west region, made careful and accurate surveys. The settlements which he founded at Nombre de Dios and San Felipe were neglected by the Spanish government, the latter being abandoned before Thomas Cavendishvisited it in 1587 and so desolate that he called it Port Famine. After the discovery of the route across Cape Horn the Spanish Empire lost interest in any further conquests in southern Patagonia, although it maintained its claim of a de jure soveregnity over the area.
In 1669, the district around Puerto Deseado, explored by John Davis about the
