April 11, 1798, a few days before the mutiny. In 1823 John Williams, the
missionary, heard at Rarotonga a native tradition of Bligh's visit. The
natives heard the first rumours of a world beyond their own from two
Tahitian castaways who had seen Captain Cook, and had with them an iron
hatchet obtained from the _Resolution_. They represented the strange
beings who traversed the ocean in vast canoes, not lashed with sinnet nor
furnished with outriggers, as impious people who laughed at the tabu, and
even ate of the consecrated food from the Maraés. They were like the
gods; if they were attacked they blew at their assailants with long
blow-pipes (pupuhi) from which flames and stones were belched. Such were
the Tutë (Cooks). Thereafter, having need of iron (kurima) and other
wonders current in Tahiti the men of Aitutaki prayed to their gods to
send the Tutë to their island with axes and nails and _pupuhi_, and this,
according to an old priest, was their prayer. "O great Tangaroa, send
your large ship to our land: let us see the Cookees. Great Tangiia, send
us a dead sea, send us a propitious gale, to bring the far-famed Cookees
to our land, to give us nails and iron and axes; let us see these
outriggerless canoes." And with the feast presented with the prayer were
promises of greater feasts so soon as their prayer was answered. The gods
heard them. A few months later the Cookees came. The great ship did not
anchor, but one of the natives took his courage in both hands, and went
off in his canoe. He brought back strange tales of what he had seen. It
was a floating island; there were two rivers flowing on it (the pumps),
and two plantations in which grew taro and sugar-cane and bread-fruit,
and the keel scraped the bottom of the sea, for he dived as deep as he
could go without finding it.
Williams has fallen into two errors in his account (p. 171). In the same
breath he claims for himself the discovery of Rarotonga, in 1823, and
announces this to have been a visit of the _Bounty_ after she was taken
by the mutineers, _i.e._ in April, 1789. Rarotonga was, in fact,
discovered by the ship _Seringapatam_ in 1814, though Williams may have
been the first to land. The tradition must have referred to Bligh's visit
to Aitutaki before the mutiny when the decks were encumbered with
bread-fruit, for we know that the first thing the mutineers did after
setting their captain adrift was to throw all the bread-fruit plants
overboard, and that they steered direct for Tahiti.
[42-1] Discovered by Cook in his second voyage. There are nine small
islands connected by a reef, covered with trees, but destitute of water.
[43-1] Sufficient for thirty days at most. In the face of the danger of
parting company, with the _Pandora_ overloaded with stores, and the
tender too feebly manned to wait at so dangerous a rendezvous as the
Friendly Islands, Edwards showed very little foresight in neglecting to
provision the tender for an independent voyage. His neglect nearly cost
the crew their lives.
[44-1] See p. 126.
[46-1] Fakaafo or Bowditch Island, whence the present permanent
inhabitants migrated.
[46-2] Nukunono, a new discovery, another of the Union Group. It was
surveyed by the American Exploring Expedition in 1840, and was found to
be 7-2/10 miles long, N. and S., and 5 miles E. and W.
[48-1] The actual position is 9·5' S. Latitude and 171·38' W. Longitude.
[49-1] Savaii in the Samoa Group. If not the 'Beauman' Islands seen by
Roggewein in 1721, they were discovered by Bougainville in 1768 and
visited by La Pérouse in 1787. Freycinet also visited them before
Edwards.
[49-2] Mata-atua Harbour. There is no river there except after heavy
rain.
[49-3] He had a finger cut off in mourning for Finau Ulukalala, who must
have died in 1790.
[50-1] La Pérouse and Kotzebue call it Pola.
[50-2] Upolu on which is Apia, the present capital of Samoa.
[50-3] Upolu is the native name, but it has been called Ojalava,
Oahtooha, Ojatava, and Opoloo by different navigators, who may have taken
the names of villages or districts to mean the whole island. The
population exceeded 20,000 at the beginning of last century.
[50-4] Turmeric powder, never a mark of distinction, was besmeared over
nursing mothers, chief women at the feasts connected with puberty, and
persons concerned in certain other ceremonies.
[51-1] Bougainville sighted Upolu on May 5th, 1760. A thick fog which
came on that afternoon, and lasted all the following day, prevented him
from approaching it, and from seeing Savaii, which he would have seen on
May 7th in clear weather. La Pérouse coasted along its southern shore on
December 17th, 1789. Unfortunately, smarting from the massacre of de
Langle and his boat's crew at Tutuila, he was in no mood for
communicating with the natives, and he did not anchor.
[51-2] See p. 12.
[52-1] Fatafehi is the hereditary title of one of the spiritual chiefs of
Tonga. He had no executive authority, but his wealth, derived from his
lands and the offerings to which he was entitled, gave him considerable
influence. The complicated hierarchy of spiritual chiefs in Tonga was a
continual puzzle to Cook. Fatafehi at this time was an ornamental
personage, inferior in dignity to the Tui Tonga, and in power to Tukuaho,
who wielded the authority of his father Mumui, the Tui Kanakubolu. The
Toobou (Tubou) mentioned here was the deputy of the tyrant Tukuaho, who,
eight years later, was to pay the penalty of his crimes in the Revolution
of 1799. Hamilton mentions that the tradition of Tasman's visit in 1642
was still preserved.
[54-1] Among the people who boarded the ship from Tofoa Lieut. Hayward
recognized some of those who attacked Bligh's boat four days after the
mutiny, and murdered Quartermaster Norton, but solicitude for the crew of
the tender, which might call there, prevented Edwards from punishing them
as they deserved. No doubt, both at Tofoa and Namuka, the natives would
have attempted to take the ship had they thought success possible as, we
now know, they had planned to capture Cook's ships, and as they actually
did capture the privateer _Port-au-Prince_ in 1806 at Haapai. In 1808
William Mariner, one of the survivors of that ill-fated ship, who has
left behind him the best account of a native race that exists probably in
any language, was led by the strange native account of Norton's murder,
to visit his grave. The natives asserted that Norton was killed by a
carpenter for the sake of an axe which he was carrying; that his body was
stripped and dragged some distance inland to a _Malae_ where it lay
exposed for three days before burial; and that the grass had never since
grown upon the track of the body nor upon its resting-place on the
_Malae_. Mariner found a bare track leading inland from the beach and
terminating in a bare patch, lying transversely, about the length and
breadth of a man. It did not appear to be a beaten path, nor were there
people enough in the neighbourhood to make such a path. Probably it was
an old track, long disused and forgotten, for by such natural causes is
man's belief in the supernatural fed.
[55-1] The Vavau Group, called by the natives Haafuluhao, which then as
now, owed spiritual allegiance to Tonga.
[55-2] Manua, the most Easterly of the Samoa Group, called Opoun by La
Pérouse.
[55-3] Tutuila, discovered by Roggewein in 1721, visited by Bougainville
4th May, 1768, and by La Pérouse 10th December, 1787. On the day before
his murder by the natives, Comte de Langle, La Pérouse's second in
command, discovered Pangopango harbour while on a walk through the
island, but neither Bougainville nor La Pérouse seems to have discerned
the masked fissure in the cliff which forms its entrance. Edwards must
have had a copy of Bougainville on board, but no record of La Pérouse's
visit four years before, or he would have shown greater caution in
communicating with the natives. That he had heard something of La
Pérouse's voyage, and had some ground for suspicion is shown by Hamilton.
A detailed account of de Langle's murder is to be found in "La Pérouse's
Voyage," vol. ii.
[56-1] Vavau.
[57-1] He might have added "in the Pacific," for it is a magnificent
land-locked harbour, a little narrow for sailing ships to beat out of in
a southerly wind, but excellent for steamships.
[57-2] This was Finau Ulukalala, one of the most notable men in Tongan
history. He had just succeeded his elder brother, the Finau (Feenow) of
Captain Cook's visit in 1777. On April 21st, 1799, he conspired against
Tukuaho, the temporal sovereign of Tonga and assassinated him, plunging
Tonga into a civil anarchy which lasted twenty years. He was Mariner's
patron and protector until his death in 1809. "The great master of Greek
drama," says a writer in the "Quarterly Review," "could have desired no
better elements than are to be found in the history of this remarkable
man; his remorseless ambition and his natural affections--his contempt
for the fables and ceremonies of his country when in prosperity--his
patient submission to them when in distress--his strong intellects--his
evil deeds--and the death which was believed to be inflicted on him in
vengeance by the over-ruling divinities whom he defied."
[58-1] Hunga.
[58-2] Niuababu.
[58-3] Falevai.
[58-4] Fonua Lei (Land of Whales' teeth).
[58-5] Laté.
[58-6] Toku.
[58-7] These islands had already been twice visited and named, and Cook,
though he did not visit them, gives all their native names in his list of
the islands composing the Friendly or Tonga Group. The honour of their
discovery belongs to the Spanish pilot Maurelle, who sailed from Manila
in 1781, without proper charts or instruments and almost without
provisions for his long voyage to America. Reduced to desperate straits
by famine, he sighted Fonua Lei, the northernmost of the Tonga Group,
which he called Margoura, believing it to be one of the Solomon Islands.
At Vavau he was liberally entertained by Bau or Poulaho, the Tui Tonga of
Cook's visit four years before. La Pérouse passed close to the islands in
December, 1787, but, consistent with his determination to hold no further
intercourse with natives after the murder of M. de Langle, did not enter
the harbour of Neiafu. Edwards had no account of either of these voyages.
La Pérouse's journals were not published until 1797.
Fonua Lei was again destroyed by an eruption in 1846. The inhabitants who
had plantations on it were removed to Vavau just in time.
[59-1] There is only one. It was so named by Tasman 1642. Maurelle called
it Sola. But Edwards probably mistook the twin islets of Hunga Tonga and
Hunga Haapai for Pylstaart.
[62-1] Niua-fo'ou (New Niua), discovered by W. Cornelis Schouten in the
Dutch ship _Eendracht_ (Unity) on May 14th, 1616, and named by him "Good
Hope" Island. Twelve canoes came off, and some of them attempted to take
the boat that he had sent ashore for water, but desisted on discharge of
a volley which killed two men. He wrote: "The island was full of black
cliffs, green on the top, and black, and was full of coco-trees and black
earth. There was a large village, and several other houses on the
seashore: the land was undulating, but not very high." No ship is known
to have visited the island from 1614 to this visit in 1791.
The cocoanuts grown here are the largest in the world, but the specimens
planted in other islands do not appear to maintain their abnormal size.
The island is further remarkable from the fact that the Megapodius, or
Scrub hen, is plentiful there, and nowhere else in the Pacific further
east than the New Hebrides. The natives have no traditions of its
introduction. The eggs have been prized as a delicacy in Tonga for
centuries, and are exported thither by every canoe going southward during
the breeding season. It is said that they are sometimes hatched
artificially, but the young _malao_ does not take kindly to the bush in
Tonga, although the vegetation is much the same. Why should the bird be
found in Polynesia, having skipped all the intermediate islands of
Melanesia? To what story of the migration of races is it the only clue?
[63-1] Niuatobutabu, like Niuafoou, subject to the King of Tonga.
[63-2] Uea, discovered by Wallis in 1767, and visited by Maurelle on
April 22nd, 1781. It has 3000 inhabitants who are said by the French
missionaries to be increasing. Uea is nominally independent under its own
queen, but the French priests wield the real power in so spirited a
fashion that the natives frequently attempt to escape from the island as
stowaways.
[64-1] Mourning for the death of a chief or near relation.
[65-1] This confirms the story of Kau Moala, a Tongan navigator, who
returned to his native land in 1807 and related his adventures to
Mariner. He had visited Futuna, Rotuma and Fiji in a double canoe, and,
in describing Rotuma, he related the legend of two giants who had
migrated from Tonga to Rotuma in legendary times. He was shown gigantic
bones in proof of the story, the bones, no doubt, of some marine monster.
Mention is made of Rotuma in a Tongan saga of the early sixteenth
century, and there can be no doubt that there was occasional intercourse
between these distant islands during the period when the Tongans were the
Norsemen of the Pacific.
Kau Moala heard nothing of Edwards' visit, though he brought news of the
visit of a ship to Futuna, and of an ineffectual attempt to take
her--perhaps the visit of Schouten, whose account of the affray tallies
closely with theirs even to the killing of six natives. The tradition was
still fresh after 190 years. Edwards' visit, having brought no disasters
on the natives, escaped the attention of the native poets and was
forgotten.
[67-1] Native name Fataka. The Russian Captain Kroutcheff, who landed
upon it in 1822, found it uninhabited.
[67-2] Kroutcheff placed it 41 minutes further west.
[68-1] This was Vanikoro in the Santa Cruz Group. It was probably seen by
Mendaña in 1595, and again by Carteret in 1767, but the interest attached
to it by Europeans, and particularly to Edwards' visit, lies in the
undoubted fact that at that very time there were survivors of La
Pérouse's ill-fated expedition upon it. If his search for the mutineers
had been as keen at this part of his voyage as it was in the earlier
portion, he would have been the means of rescuing them. The smoke he saw
may well have been signal fires lighted by the castaways to attract his
attention.
La Pérouse's ships were cast away in 1788, just three years before,
shortly after the Commander had delivered his journals to Governor
Phillip in Botany Bay for transmission to Europe. Their fate was unknown
until Peter Dillon chanced upon a French swordhilt in Tucopia
thirty-eight years later in 1826. Satisfying himself that they had been
brought from Vanikoro, he persuaded the East India Company to place him
in command of a search expedition. In 1827 he made a thorough examination
of the island, and found the remains of the _Boussole_; the _Astrolabe_,
according to the native account, having foundered in deep water. He found
the clearing where the survivors had felled timber to build themselves a
brig in which they sailed to meet a second shipwreck elsewhere, perhaps
on the Great Barrier reef of Queensland. But two had been left, and of
these one had died shortly before his visit, and the other had gone with
the natives to another island leaving no trace behind him.
D'Entrecasteaux, when in search of La Pérouse in 1793, also passed within
sight of the castaways.
D'Urville made a thorough examination of the island both in 1828 and
1838. The relics brought home by Dillon may be seen in the Gallerie de la
Marine in the Louvre.
[69-1] This was the dangerous reef now known as Indispensable Reef, after
the ship _Indispensable_ commanded by Captain Wilkinson, who discovered
it in 1790.
[69-2] It was, in fact, the mainland of New Guinea. The land East of Cape
Rodney, comprising Orangerie, Table, and Cloudy Bays, lies so low and is
so generally obscured with haze that on a dull day Edwards would not have
seen it.
It is doubtful whether Edwards' Capes Rodney and Hood, are correctly
placed in the modern charts. Our Cape Rodney is not a conspicuous
headland, and it lies half a degree eastward of 212·14 W. Longitude, and
9' South of 10^{6}·3° S. Latitude. Edwards' positions are usually so
accurate that I cannot see why they should have been departed from. Our
Cape Hood, on the other hand, is exactly in the position of his Cape
Rodney, and is besides a very conspicuous wooded tongue of land. Beyond
is another conspicuous point. Round Head, which corresponds in position
with Edwards' Cape Hood. Mount Clarence, moreover, would not appear to
lie between Capes Rodney and Hood until the former was out of sight
astern. I think that Mount Clarence must have been hidden by clouds, and
that Edwards' Mount Clarence was in reality the high cone in the Saroa
district, which is a conspicuous feature on the coast line. A further
indication that the day was hazy lies in the fact that Edwards did not
see the great Owen Stanley Range which towers up 13,000 feet behind. Had
he done so he would not have mistaken the mainland for a group of
scattered islands. Hamilton does not call Mount Clarence an "island," but
a "mountain." A further proof that Edwards' "Cape Hood" was Round Head is
found in the remark "After passing Cape Hood the land appears lower, and
to branch off about N.N.W., . . . for we saw no other land." This applies
to Round Head, and to no other part of the coast.
[70-1] If he had kept this course he would have struck the New Guinea
Coast again a little East of the Maikasa River.
[70-2] East Bay.
[71-1] It is difficult to understand how Edwards failed to see Flinders
Passage, which, while not free from obstructions to the westward, would
have admitted him to a safe anchorage at the Murray Islands, inside the
Barrier Reef.
[71-2] It was an unfortunate choice. Had he steered north on first
encountering the reefs he would have made the coast which he might have
followed in safety, as Bligh did in his boat voyage after the mutiny, by
what is now known as the Great North-East Channel. He was led Southward
by his plan of using the Endeavour Straits. See Hamilton's account, pp.
141-2.
[73-1] Two men were crushed to death; one by a gun that had broken loose,
and the other by a falling spar. The whole ship's company seems to have
behaved splendidly, working at the pumps and at the sail they were
preparing to haul under the ship's bottom until they could scarcely stand
for fatigue, with nothing to replenish their strength but "a cask of
excellent strong ale which we brewed at Anamooka" (Hamilton).
[73-2] Every reader must be struck by the fact that in his description of
this disaster, Edwards never once speaks of the prisoners. Hamilton, it
is true, does say "The prisoners were ordered to be let out of irons,"
but another account, ascribed to Lieutenant Corner, second lieutenant of
the _Pandora_, throws a sinister light on this part of the narrative.
"Three of the _Bounty's_ people, Coleman, Norman, and M'Intosh, were now
let out of irons, and sent to work at the pumps. The others offered their
assistance, and begged to be allowed a chance of saving their lives;
instead of which, two additional sentinels were placed over them, with
orders to shoot any who should attempt to get rid of their fetters.
Seeing no prospect of escape, they betook themselves to prayer, and
prepared to meet their fate, everyone expecting that the ship would soon
go to pieces, her rudder and part of the sternpost being already beat
away. No notice was taken of the prisoners, as is falsely stated by the
author of the 'Pandora's Voyage,' although Captain Edwards was entreated
by Mr. Heywood to have mercy upon them, when he passed over their prison
to make his own escape, the ship then lying on her broadside, with the
larboard bow completely under water. Fortunately the master-at-arms,
either by accident or design, when slipping from the roof of 'Pandora's
Box' into the sea, let the keys of the irons fall through the scuttle or
entrance, which he had just before opened, and thus enabled them to
commence their own liberation, in which they were generously assisted, at
the imminent risk of his own life, by William Moulter, a boatswain's mate
who clung to the coamings, and pulled the long bars through the shackles,
saying he would set them free, or go to the bottom with them. Scarcely
was this effected when the ship went down. The master-at-arms and all the
sentinels sunk to rise no more. Among the drowned were Mr. Stewart, John
Sumner, Richard Skinner, and Henry Hillbrandt, the whole of whom perished
with their hands still in manacles."
Some allowance is to be made both for the confusion of a shipwreck, and
for the natural fear of the commander that in the loosening of the ties
of authority natural to such a moment, the liberation among his crew of a
number of men who had already mutinied successfully, and were going home
with a rope about their necks, would be an act of merciful folly. This,
however, does not excuse him for refusing his prisoners the shelter of an
old sail on the sand cay, and so obliging them to get shelter from the
sun by burying themselves neck-deep in the sand, as Heywood afterwards
stated. Heywood further asserted that after the vessel struck the
prisoners, having wrenched themselves out of their irons, implored
Edwards to let them out of "Pandora's Box," but that he had them all
ironed again.
[74-1] In his evidence before the court-martial Edwards said: "The double
canoe, that was able to support a considerable number of men, broke
adrift with only one man, and was bulged upon a reef, and afforded us no
help when she was so much wanted."
[74-2] Hamilton says 34.
[75-1] Each boat was supplied with the latitude and longitude of Timor,
1100 miles distant. As soon as they embarked the oars were laid athwart
the boat so that they could stow two tiers of men. The men were
distributed as follows:
_Pinnace_--Capt. Edwards; Lieut. Hayward; Rickards, Master's Mate;
Packer, Gunner; Edmonds, Captain's Clerk; 3 prisoners, 16 privates.
_Red Yawl_--Lieut. Larkan; Surgeon Hamilton; Reynolds, Master's Mate;
Matson, Midshipman; 2 prisoners; 18 privates.
_Launch_--Lieutenant Corner; Bentham, Purser; Montgomery; Carpen Bowling,
Master's Mate; Mackendrick, Midshipman; 2 prisoners; 24 privates.
_Blue Yawl_--George Passmore, Master; Cunningham, Boatswain; Innes,
Surgeon's Mate; Fenwick, Midshipman; Pycroft, Midshipman; 3 prisoners; 15
privates.
[77-1] Tree Island.
[77-2] Now called Prince of Wales' Channel or Flinders Channel. It is the
best Channel through Torres Straits, and, if Edwards' narrative had been
published his discovery would doubtless have been perpetuated in his
name.
[77-3] Horn Island.
[77-4] Dingoes.
[77-5] North West Reef.
[78-1] Like Bligh's men, they wetted their shirts in salt water to cool
themselves by evaporation, but found that the absorption through the skin
tainted the fluids of the body with salt so that the saliva became
intolerable in the mouth. The young bore the want of water better than
the old, but all alike became excessively irritable.
[80-1] This hospitality was not extended to the prisoners, who were
confined in irons in the castle, and fed on bad provisions. But on the
passage to Batavia in the _Rembang_ they had worse in store, for the ship
was partially dismasted in a cyclone, and would certainly have gone
ashore but for the exertions of the English passengers. The prisoners
took their turn at the pumps with the rest, and when their strength gave
out, they were put in irons and allowed to rest upon a wet sail soaked
with the drainings of a pig-stye under which it was spread. At Batavia
Edwards distributed the purchase-money of the tender among his people to
enable them to buy clothes, and the prisoners, having their hands at
liberty, made suits and hats for the _Pandora's_ crew, and so were able
to buy clothes of their own.
A VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD.[91-1]
BY GEORGE HAMILTON, SURGEON OF THE _PANDORA_.
GOVERNMENT having resolved to bring to punishment the mutineers of His
Majesty's late ship _Bounty_, and to survey the Straits of Endeavour, to
facilitate a passage to Botany Bay, on the 10th of August 1790, appointed
Captain Edward Edwards to put in commission at Chatham, and take command
of the _Pandora_ Frigate of twenty-four guns, and a hundred and sixty
men.
A great naval armament then equipping retarded our progress, and
prevented that particular attention to the choice of men which their
Lordships so much wished; as contagion here crept amongst us from
infected clothing, the fatal effects of which we discovered, and severely
experienced, in the commencement of the voyage.