Narrative of the surveying voyages of his majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle (vol.2): between the years 1826 and 1836 : describing their examination of the southern shores of South America, and the Beagles's circumnavigation of the globe

308 SPANISH SETTLEMENT. Marcll during a dreadful massacre of Spanish settlers at Port San Jose. He said that the Indians were jealous of their encroach- ments, and seized an opportunity, while the Spaniards were attending the performance of mass, to fall upon them, and indiscriminately slay all, except three or four who were taken alive and kept as slaves. That the Spaniards should have chosen San Jose for the place of their settlement instead of New Bay, or the Chupat itself, is easily accounted for, by mentioning that small vessels can generally run from the River Negro to Port San Jose without much risk and in a short time, whereas there are strong tides and dangerous ' races' off the peninsula of San Jose, and the entrance of the Chupat will not admit a vessel drawing more tlian seven feet : even this only at high-water. I think that the Chupat is the river alluded to by Falkner, as being in the " country of Chulilaw." * He was told that it traversed the continent as far as the Andes, and judging from the drift-timber, as well as volcanic scoriae brought down by it, there is ground for thinking that the Chupatf rises in the Cordillera. There is also reason to suppose that the river de- scribed and placed variously by different geographers, under the name of Camarones, is this Chupat, chiefly because the Indians who frequent the country bordering upon the south bank of the Negro, say that there is no river of consequence between that and the Santa Cruz, excepting the Chupat. With this river so near at hand, the west side of New Bay would be an excellent situation for a settlement. There ships of any burthen might anchor in safety, and a communication be carried on with the interior by means of flat-bottomed boats, or barges, so constructed as to admit of being towed, or tracked, in the river, and capable of running up to New Bay before a fair wind. In the River Negro similar boats go a long way up the river for salt ; they are towed by horses or oxen ; and such vessels, even of thirty tons bvirthen, might enter the Chupat, if constructed so as to draw but little water. I need not dwell upon the possible advantages to be derived from opening a * Falkner, p. 87. t Chupat is the Indian name. I