308 



SPANISH SETTLEMENT. 



March 



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 than 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 Biver 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 burthen, 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. 



