It was about nine in the evening, when the decks were comparatively clear, that Orellana and his companions, having divested themselves of most of their clothes, came together to the quarter-deck, approaching the door of the great cabin. The boatswain ordered them away. Orellana, however, paid no attention to him, placed two of his men at either gangway, and raising a hideous war-cry, they commenced the massacre, slashing in all directions with the knives, and brandishing the double-headed shot. The six who remained with the chief on the quarter-deck laid nearly forty Spaniards low in a few minutes, of whom twenty were killed on the spot. Many of the officers fled into the great cabin, and hastily barricaded the door. A perfect panic ensued on board. Many attempting to escape to the forecastle were stabbed as they passed by the four Indian sentries, and others jumped into the waist, where they thought themselves fortunate to lie concealed among the cattle on board; a number fled up the main shrouds and kept on the tops or rigging. The fact is that those on board did not know whether it was not a general mutiny among the pressed hands and prisoners, and the yells of the Indians and groans of the dying, and the confused clamour of the crew, were all heightened in effect by the obscurity of the night. And now Orellana secured the arm-chest, which had been placed on the quarter-deck for security a few days before. It was of no use to him, as he only found a quantity of fire-arms, which he did not understand, or for which he had no ammunition; the cutlasses, for which he was in search, were fortunately hidden underneath. By this time Pizarro had established some communication with the gun-rooms and between decks, and discovered that the English prisoners had not intermeddled in the mutiny, which was confined to the Indians. They had only pistols in the cabin, and no ammunition for them; at last, however, they managed to obtain some by lowering a bucket out of the cabin window, into which the gunner, out of one of the gun-room ports, put a quantity of cartridges. After loading, they cautiously and partially opened the cabin door, firing several shots, at first without effect. At last, Mindinuetta, one of the captains of the original squadron, had the fortune to shoot Orellana dead on the spot, on which his faithful companions one and all leaped into the sea and perished. For full two hours these eleven Indians had held a ship of sixty-six guns, and manned by nearly 500 hands!
Pizarro, having escaped this peril, reached Spain in safety, “after having been absent between four and five years, and having,” says the narrator, “by his attendance on our expedition, diminished the naval power of Spain by above three thousand hands (the flower of their sailors), and by four considerable ships of war and a patache.” He had not encountered Anson, nor done any of his ships damage. To the disasters and adventures encountered by that commander we must now return.
THE “CENTURION” OFF CAPE HORN
Off Cape Horn the weather was so terrible that it obliged the oldest mariners on board [pg 49]“to confess that what they had hitherto called storms were inconsiderable gales.” Short, mountainous waves pitched and tossed the vessels so violently that the men were in perpetual danger of being dashed to pieces. One of the best seamen on the Centurion was canted overboard and drowned; his manly form was long seen struggling in the water, he being a good swimmer, while those on board were powerless to assist him. Another man was thrown violently into the hold and broke his thigh; a second dislocated his neck, and one of the boatswain’s mates broke his collar-bone twice. The squalls were so sudden that they were obliged to lie-to for days together, almost under bare poles, and when in a lull they ventured to set a little canvas, the blasts would return and carry away their sails. Squalls of rain and snow constantly occurred. The Centurion, labouring in the heavy seas, “was now grown so loose in her upper works that she let in the water at every seam, so that every part within board was constantly exposed to the sea-water, and scarcely any of the officers ever lay in dry beds. Indeed, it was very rare that two nights ever passed without many of them being driven from their beds by the deluge of water that came in upon them.” Shrouds snapped, and yards and masts were lost on several of the squadron. [pg 50]Two of the vessels, the Severn and the Pearl, became separated from the fleet, and were no more seen by them on the voyage.
But their worst trouble was a terrible outbreak of that insidious disease, the scurvy. In April, May, and part of June, the loss on the Centurion alone was two hundred men, and at length they could not muster more than six fore-mast hands in a watch capable of duty. The symptoms of this horrible complaint are various; but apart from the universal scorbutic manifestations on the body, diseased bones, swelled legs, and putrid gums, there is an extraordinary lassitude and weakness, which degenerate into a proneness to swoon, and even die, on the least exertion of strength, and a dejection of spirits which leads the invalid to take alarm at the most trifling accident. Let the reader imagine what all this meant on closely-packed ships, tempest-tossed off the dreaded Horn. When at length the Centurion reached the famed Crusoe Island, Juan Fernandez, the lieutenant “could muster no more than two quartermasters, and six fore-mast hands capable of working.” Without the assistance of the officers, servants, and boys, they might never have been able to reach the island after sighting it, and with such aid they were two hours in trimming the sails. When their sloop, the Tryal, followed them to this haven of refuge, only the captain, lieutenant, and three men were able to stand by the sails. When, ten days later on, the Gloucester was seen in the offing, and Anson had sent off a boat laden with fresh water, fish, and vegetables for the crew, it was found that they had already thrown overboard two-thirds of their complement. It took them, with some assistance sent by Anson, a month before they could fetch the bay, contrary winds and currents, but more their utterly exhausted condition, being the causes. They were now reduced to eighty out of an original crew of three hundred men. Severe as have been the sufferings from scurvy endured on many of the Arctic expeditions, there is no case on record as painful as this. The three ships which reached Juan Fernandez had on board when they left England 961 men; before the ravages of the disease were stopped the number was reduced to 335, scarcely sufficient to man the Centurion alone. And it must be remembered that all this time they were uncertain of the movements of Pizarro and his fleet, which might appear among them at any moment. The refreshment obtained at the island, fresh water, vegetables, fruit, fish in abundance, a little goat’s flesh, and seal-meat, proved of great value to those of the crew whose constitutions were not thoroughly undermined by the fell disease; but it was as much as they could do to effect the many repairs required on the vessels, to the extent even of removing and replacing masts.
Of the beauty of many parts of Juan Fernandez the chaplain speaks in enthusiastic terms. “Some particular spots occurred in these valleys, where the shade and fragrance of the contiguous woods, the loftiness of the overhanging rocks, and the transparency and frequent falls of the neighbouring streams, presented scenes of such elegance and dignity, as would with difficulty be rivalled in any other part of the globe.... I shall finish this article with a short account of the spot where the commodore pitched his tent, and which he made choice of for his own residence, though I despair of conveying an adequate idea of its beauty. The piece of ground which he chose was a small lawn, that lay on a little ascent, at the distance of about half a mile from the sea. In the front of his tent there was a large avenue cut through the woods to the seaside, which, sloping to the water with a [pg 51]gentle descent, opened a prospect of the bay and the ships at anchor. This lawn was screened behind by a tall wood of myrtle sweeping round it, in the form of a theatre; the slope on which the wood stood rising with a much sharper ascent than the lawn itself, though not so much but that the hills and precipices within-land towered up considerably above the tops of the trees, and added to the grandeur of the view. There were besides two streams of crystal water, which ran on the right and left of the tent within a hundred yards’ distance, and were shaded by the trees which skirted the lawn on either side, and completed the symmetry of the whole.”
Meantime, the other vessels of the squadron did not put in an appearance. That two of them, the Pearl and Severn, were not to be expected, we have already learned; but what had become of the Wager? It was learned afterwards that while making the passage to the island of Socoro, one of the rendezvous of the squadron, she had become entangled among the rocks and grounded, soon becoming an utter wreck. The Honourable John Byron, afterwards a commodore in his Majesty’s service, but then a youngster on board, has left an account of the disaster in his well-known work.[15] “In the morning, about four o’clock,” says he, “the ship struck. The shock we received upon this occasion, though very great, being not unlike a blow of a heavy sea, such as in the series of preceding storms we had often experienced, was taken for the same; but we were soon undeceived by her striking again more violently than before, which laid her upon her beam-ends, the sea making a fair breach over her. Every person that now could stir was presently upon the quarter-deck; and many of those were alert upon this occasion that had not showed their faces upon deck for above two months before; several poor wretches, who were in the last stage of the scurvy, and who could not get out of their hammocks, were immediately drowned.” Some seemed bereaved of their senses; one man was seen stalking about the deck flourishing a cutlass over his head, calling himself king of the country, and striking everybody he came near, till he was knocked down by some of those he had assaulted. “Some, reduced before by long sickness and the scurvy, became on this occasion as it were petrified and bereaved of all sense, like inanimate logs, and were bandied to and fro by the jerks and rolls of the ship, without exerting any efforts to help themselves.... The man at the helm, though both rudder and tiller were gone, kept his station; and being asked by one of the officers if the ship would steer or not, first took his time to make trial by the wheel, and then answered with as much respect and coolness as if the ship had been in the greatest safety; and immediately after applied himself with his usual serenity to his duty, persuaded it did not become him to desert it as long as the ship kept together.” The captain, who had dislocated his shoulder by a fall the day before, was coolness itself, and one of the mates did all in his power to inspire them with the belief that they would not be lost so near land. This wrought a change in many who but a few minutes before had been in despair, praying on their knees for mercy. It was another illustration of—
“When the devil was sick,”
for they commenced breaking in the casks of brandy or wine as they came up the hatchway, and several got so intoxicated that they were drowned on board, and lay floating about the decks for several days. The boatswain and some of the men would not leave the ship so long as there was any liquor to be found on her; and Captain Cheap, having got off as many of the crew as would come, about a hundred and forty in number, suffered himself to be helped out of his bed, put into the boat, and carried ashore.