l quarter-deck guns; by which they formed most
mischievous weapons, in the use of which, by swinging round the head,
the Indians about Buenos Ayres are extremely expert, being trained to
it from their infancy. When these things were in good forwardness,
the execution of their scheme was perhaps precipitated by a particular
outrage committed upon Orellana, who was ordered aloft by one of the
officers, and being incapable of doing so, the officer, who was
a brutal fellow, beat him with such violence, under pretence of
disobedience, that he left him bleeding on the deck, and quite
stupified with wounds and bruises. This certainly increased his thirst
of revenge, so that within a day or two he and his followers began to
execute their desperate resolves in the following manner.

About nine in the evening, when many of the principal officers were
on the quarter-deck indulging in the freshness of the night air, the
forecastle being manned with its customary watch, Orellana and his
companions, having prepared their weapons, and thrown off their
trowsers and other cumbrous parts of their dress, came all together
on the quarter-deck, and drew towards the door of the great cabin. The
boatswain reprimanded them for their presumption, and ordered them
to be gone; on which Orellana spoke to his followers in their native
language, when four of them drew off, two towards each gangway, and
the chief and six remaining Indians seemed to be slowly quitting the
quarter-deck. When the detached Indians had taken possession of the
gangways, Orellana placed his hands hollow to his mouth, and bellowed
out the war-cry of the savages, said to be the harshest and most
terrifying of sounds. This hideous yell was the signal for beginning
the massacre; upon which all the Indians drew their knives and
brandished their prepared double-headed shot. The chief, and the six
who remained with him on the quarter-deck, fell immediately on the
Spaniards with whom they were intermingled, and in a very short space
laid forty of them at their feet, above twenty of whom were killed on
the spot, and the rest disabled.

In the beginning of the tumult, many of the officers rushed into the
great cabin, where they put out the lights and barricadoed the door;
while of the others, who had escaped the first fury of the Indians,
some endeavoured to escape along the gangways to the forecastle, where
the Indians, placed there on purpose, stabbed the greater part of them
as