Pitcairn Island. The mutineers of the Bounty, after the success of their
plot, unanimously elected Christian for their Captain, and sailed for
Tahaiti. On their way thither, they passed the small hilly, well peopled
island of Tabuai, seen in 1777 by Cook, and formed the resolution of
settling there. With much difficulty they brought the ship into harbour,
through numerous coral reefs. They were received in the most friendly
manner by the natives, who only showed symptoms of uneasiness when they
saw the new comers preparing to erect a fortress on a point of land near
the harbour; even in this obnoxious undertaking, however, they assisted;
but harmony was not of much longer continuance. The Europeans,
confident in the superiority they derived from their weapons, soon
became insolent, and especially irritated the islanders by the abduction
of their women.
A sudden attack was made on Christian and his crew, who gained a height,
where they defended themselves, and so effectually, that none of the
party was killed, and but one man wounded; while the fire of their
muskets produced great havoc among the savages. Though conquerors in
this instance, they however found it advisable to quit Tabuai, and to
sail once more for Tahaiti. During the voyage thither, a deep melancholy
seized the mind of Christian; remorse, and dark forebodings of the
future, haunted him incessantly; he shut himself up in his cabin, seldom
appeared, and spoke but little.
When the Bounty again cast anchor before Tahaiti, the natives crowded to
the shore, rejoicing in the speedy return of their friends, but were
much surprised at missing the captain and a great part of the crew.
Christian persuaded them that Captain Bligh and the other men had made a
settlement on Tabuai, of which island the captain had become king, but
that he himself, and those who accompanied him, preferred returning to
Tahaiti, where among their kind friends, they wished to pass the
remainder of their days. These innocent people gave implicit credence to
his story, and heartily rejoiced in the prospect of their friends'
continued residence among them. Christian's private intention, however,
was to establish a colony on some unknown and uninhabited island, since
it was easy to forsee, that the criminals would be first sought in
Tahaiti, whenever the tidings of their proceedings should reach the
English government. Being dissatisfied with some of his companions, or
unable to obtain their concurrence in his views, he concerted his
project with eight only of the crew, and under the strictest injunctions
of secrecy. Thus arose a second conspiracy among the accomplices in
guilt.
Christian and the parties to his new plot, found an opportunity of
engaging the rest of the crew at a distance, while they weighed anchor
and stood out to sea, with eight Tahaitians and ten women, whom they
had enticed to accompany them. After a search of some weeks in those
seas, they accidentally lighted upon Pitcairn Island, discovered by
Carteret in the year 1767. Its extent is inconsiderable, but they found
it uninhabited, and the soil fruitful, although high and rocky.
Christian and his companions examined it closely, and, charmed with its
luxuriant vegetation, resolved here to conceal themselves for ever from
the world, hoping by this means to escape the punishment they so well
merited.
All their endeavours to discover a harbour capable of admitting the
Bounty, proving fruitless, they determined to place themselves under the
lee of the island, save the cargo, and then destroy the ship, lest its
appearance might betray them to vessels passing by.
This resolution was carried into effect, the cargo was brought quickly
ashore, and the ship burnt.
At first the colony suffered from a scarcity of provisions, as the
island produced neither bread-fruit nor cocoa-trees; they, however,
contented themselves with a temporary subsistence on roots and fish,
relying for the future improvement of their supplies on the trees
destined for the West Indies, and other plants brought from Tahaiti;
which had all been landed uninjured, and immediately planted. Time
indeed was required before the bread-fruit and cocoa-trees would bear,
but some sweet potatoes, yams, taro-roots, and others, yielded in the
following year an ample harvest.
Unanimity and concord appeared firmly established among the colonists,
who, by common consent, elected Christian as their head. Pretty little
huts, and diligently cultivated fields of taro, yam, and potatoes, soon
adorned the wilderness. After the lapse of three years, Christian became
the father of a son, whom he named Friday Fletcher October Christian;
but the infant's birth made its father a widower. Strongly inclined to a
second marriage, and all the women being already provided with husbands,
he seduced a wife from one of the Tahaitians, who, incensed at this
outrage, watched an opportunity when Christian was at work on his
plantation, attacked, and murdered him. Intelligence of this deed
spreading quickly through the colony, produced instant retribution from
the musket of an Englishman.
Long inflamed by jealousy, at the decided preference shown by their
females for the strangers, the passions of the Tahaitians were
exasperated beyond endurance, by this act of retaliation; they made a
sudden attack by night on the English, and murdered all, except one man
named Adams, who, though severely wounded, contrived to escape into the
forest, and elude the pursuit of the murderers. The women rendered
desperate by the massacre of their lovers, and eager for revenge, found
means to obtain it the very next night. They overpowered the Tahaitians
in their sleep, and murdered them to a man!
As soon as it was light in the morning, these blood-stained Megæras
sought for the corpses of their beloved Englishmen, and perceiving that
Adams was missing, conjectured that he might be concealed and safe;
although traces of blood were visible on the ground of his hut. They
accordingly searched the forest in every direction, and at last found
him in a most miserable condition. They bound his wounds, carried him
into a hut, and by their united care and the application of healing
herbs, Adams, being young and vigorous, soon recovered his health. The
affections of all the women now concentrated themselves in this one
object. He became their common chief and husband, to whom they willingly
promised obedience; and, according to his testimony, jealousy never
embittered their lives.
Till the year 1803, consequently during fourteen years, Adams remained
with his progeny concealed from the world. In this year the English
Captain Falgier, sailing from Canton to Chili, landed at Pitcairn's
Island, where they with astonishment encountered a people speaking
English, having the most intimate knowledge of European customs, and
betraying their origin in their features and complexion. Adams himself
explained to him the enigma. Falgier communicated the information he had
received to the English Government, but represented the situation of the
island so erroneously, that it passed for a new discovery, till the
English frigate Breton, in the year 1814, on her voyage from the
Marquesas to the coast of Chili, also touched at the Pitcairn Island,
which from the account of its discoverer Carteret, they considered
uninhabited. The crew were therefore much surprised at the sight of
cultivated fields, and ornamental cottages; and also of men assembled on
the shore making friendly signals and inviting them to land. Some were
even seen skilfully guiding their little canoes through the surf, and
approaching the frigate.
The sailors were about to address them in the language of the South Sea
Islands, when their surprise was not a little increased by hearing the
name of the ship and her captain enquired for, in pure English. The
Captain himself replied to these questions, and the conversation
becoming interesting, invited his new acquaintances on board; they
immediately complied, and even when the whole crew surrounded them and
overwhelmed them with questions, betrayed no symptom of the timidity
universal among the South Sea islanders.
The young man who had first mounted the vessel, saluted the Captain with
the greatest propriety, and enquired whether he had known in England a
man of the name of William Bligh. This suddenly threw a light on the
mystery of the Pitcairn islanders; and they were in return asked if
there was a man on the island named Christian. The answer was "No, he
has been long dead, but his son is in the boat which is coming
alongside." This placed the origin of the colony beyond all doubt.
The crew of the Breton were further informed, that the whole population
of the island consisted of forty-eight persons--that the men were not
allowed to marry before their twentieth year, and must only have one
wife--that Adams had instructed them in the Christian religion--that
their general language was English, but that they also understood the
Tahaitian, and that they acknowledged the King of England as their
sovereign. On being asked if they did not wish to go to England with the
frigate, they answered "No: we are married and have children."
The sight of a ship of war and its crew, they said, was no novelty to
them; and they mentioned Captain Falgier's visit to their island. A
little black poodle dog which they suddenly caught sight of, put them
all to flight. "That is certainly a dog," they exclaimed, as they
retreated; "we have never seen one, but we know that it will bite." A
little observation, however, convinced them of the animal's good-nature,
and they were soon induced to play fearlessly with him. Being conducted
into the cabin, they were there entertained with a breakfast, at which
they behaved very modestly, and showed in their conversation much
natural understanding. They said a grace before eating, and then partook
with a good appetite of the provision set before them.
With much difficulty the Captain effected a landing. A pleasant path
winding among groves of cocoa and bread-fruit trees, led him to a very
pretty, well situated little village, whose houses, though small, were
convenient and beautifully clean.
One of Adams's daughters, a young and very attractive looking girl,
received the guests, and conducted them to her father, a man of sixty,
but still of very vigorous appearance.
The conversation naturally fell on Christian's mutiny, in which Adams
maintained he had taken no part, having been wholly unacquainted with
the design till the moment of its execution. He spoke with abhorrence of
the manner in which Captain Bligh and his officers and men had been
treated.
The Captain proposed to Adams to accompany him back to England; but the
whole colony assembling round him, with tears in their eyes, besought
him not to take their good father from them. The scene affected even the
Englishmen.
The Pitcairn islanders are of very pleasing exterior; they have black
hair and beautiful teeth. The men are slender, and their height five
feet ten inches and upwards. The dress of both sexes consists of a
mantle like the Chilian pancho, and they wear hats made of reeds adorned
with feathers. They still possess a great quantity of old clothes from
the ship Bounty, but, with better taste than their maternal ancestors
the Tahaitians, they never wear them. The island has a beautiful
appearance, and is said to be extremely fruitful. Wild boars are found
in the interior.
Seven years after this visit of the Breton, the American merchant-ship
Eagle, whose Captain I met in Chili, touched on Pitcairn Island. He
found the population already increased to a hundred persons, and was
delighted with the order and good government of the little colony. Adams
reigned as a patriarch king amongst them, and, as sovereign arbitrator,
settled all disputes, no one presuming to object to his decision. Every
family possessed a portion of land; the fields were measured off from
each other, industriously cultivated, and yielding abundant crops of
yams and sweet potatoes. On Sundays, the whole population assembled at
Adams's house, when he read the Bible to them, exhorted them to concord
and good conduct, and took pains to confirm their virtuous dispositions.
Every evening at sunset, when after the heat of the day the inhabitants
of this delightful climate are revived by the refreshing coolness of the
air, the young people formed a semicircle round their beloved father,
while he communicated to them some knowledge of the manners and history
of his native country, its connections with other nations, and the arts,
inventions, and customs of the European world. Adams's knowledge is
probably not very extensive, but it has sufficed to enable him to train
up his numerous family in habits and information which fit them for the
easy acquisition of all the arts of civilization.
His attentive auditory have accurately retained his instructions, and
converse with wonderful facility on the characteristics and customs of
different nations.
Abusive words are strictly prohibited; and some of the islanders,
perfectly astonished at hearing a sailor on board the American vessel
which visited them swear at another, enquired of the Captain whether
such expressions were permitted in his country.
The Captain was enchanted with the conduct and character of this amiable
people; and ascribed their virtues to the instructions and example of
their patriarch. This good old man, however, expressed much anxiety
concerning the future. "I cannot," said he, "live much longer,--and who
shall prosecute the work I have begun? My children are not yet so firmly
established, but that they are liable to fall into error. They require
the guidance of an intelligent virtuous man from some civilized nation."
At Tahaiti, as already stated, I met with one of Adams's wives, who had
arrived there a short time before in an European ship, and from her I
learnt many of the particulars here related. She spoke tolerably good
English, but with a foreign accent. This old woman had been induced, by
that longing for our native home which acts so powerfully upon the human
mind, to return to the land of her birth, where she intended to have
closed her life, but she soon changed her mind. The Tahaitians, she
assured me, were by no means so virtuous as the natives of the little
Paradise to which she was now all impatience to return. She had a very
high opinion of her Adams, and maintained that no man in the world was
worthy of comparison with him. She still spoke with vehement indignation
of the murder of the English by her countrymen, and boasted of the
vengeance she had taken.
Adams, who was now very aged and feeble, had proposed to the
Missionaries to send a Tahaitian as his successor; and fearing that the
population of his island might exceed the means of subsistence which
their quantity of arable land afforded, he was desirous of settling some
of his families in Tahaiti.
With his first wish the Missionaries will certainly comply as a means of
extending their dominion over Pitcairn Island also. May Adams's paternal
government never be exchanged for despotism, nor his practical lessons
of piety be forgotten in empty forms of prayer.
In the year 1791, the English frigate Pandora was sent, under the
command of Captain Edwards, to the South Sea in pursuit of the mutineers
against Bligh. Those who had remained in Tahaiti were found and carried
back to England, where they were condemned to death according to the
laws; the royal mercy was extended to a few only, the rest suffered the
full penalty of their crime.
[Illustration: CHART OF THE NAVIGATORS' ISLANDS]
THE NAVIGATORS' ISLANDS.
THE NAVIGATORS' ISLANDS.
On leaving Tahaiti, I proposed to pass a few days on the Radack Islands,
which I had formerly discovered; and, on my way thither, determined to
visit the Navigators' Islands. These are probably the same seen by
Roggewin in 1721, which he called Baumann's Islands; but Bougainville
has appropriated the discovery, as made by him in 1766, and given them
the name they now bear, on account of the superior sailing vessels built
there, and the remarkable skill the inhabitants display in their
management. Neither Roggewin nor Bougainville have given their situation
accurately, nor have these original errors been perfectly corrected by
the unfortunate La Pérouse, or the Englishman Edwards, who alone are
known to have since touched on these islands; the former visited only
the more northern islands; and the latter communicated no particulars of
his voyage to the public. I therefore considered it worth the trouble to
complete the survey, by examining those which lay to the south of La
Pérouse's track.
I at first steered past the Society Islands, lying to leeward from
Tahaiti, in order to rectify their longitude; and afterwards carefully
endeavoured to avoid the course taken, to my knowledge, by any former
navigator.
On the 25th of March we saw, to the north, the island of Guagein, and to
the north-west that of Ulietea. When the western point of the latter lay
due north from us, I found its longitude, according to our chronometers,
151° 26' 30", which is nearly the same as on the maps.
The island of Maurura, on the contrary, is very inaccurately laid down;
we found the longitude of the middle of this island, as we sailed past
its southern coast, to be 152° 10' 40". In the evening we had already
cleared the Society Islands, and were pursuing a westward course.
On the following morning we perceived a cluster of low coral islands,
connected by reefs, which, as usual, enclosed an inland sea. The country
was covered with thick dwarf shrubs; and, in the whole group, we saw but
one cocoa-tree rising solitarily above the bushes. A multitude of
sea-birds, the only inhabitants of these islands, surrounded the vessel
as we drew nearer. The group stretches about three miles from North to
South, and is about two miles and a half broad. Guided by observations
which, from the clearness of the atmosphere, I had been enabled to make
correctly immediately before they came in sight, I estimated their
latitude as 15° 48' 7" South; their longitude as 154° 30'. We were the
first discoverers of these Islands, and gave them the name of our
meritorious navigator, Bellingshausen.
The night was stormy: morning indeed brought cheerful weather, but no
cheerful feelings to our minds, for we had lost another member of our
little wandering fraternity; he died, notwithstanding all the efforts of
our skilful physician, of a dysentery, occasioned by the continual heat
and the frequently damp air. This same year the Tahaitians suffered
much from a similar disease, and died in great numbers from the want of
medical assistance. The Missionaries, who only desire to govern their
minds, have never yet troubled themselves to establish any institution
for the health of the body.
During this and the few succeeding days, the appearance of great flocks
of sea-birds frequently convinced us that we must be in the
neighbourhood of unknown islands; but as from the mast-head they can
only be discerned at a proximity of fifteen or sixteen miles, we did not
happen to fall in with them.
On the second of April, however, we passed a little uninhabited island,
something higher than the coral islands usually are. Its latitude is 14°
32' 39" South, and its longitude 168° 6'. I then considered it a new
discovery, and gave it the name of my First Lieutenant, Kordinkoff; but,
on my return, I learned that it had been previously discovered by
Captain Freycinet, on his voyage from the Sandwich Islands to New
Holland, in the year 1819; the narrative of which had not appeared when
I left Europe. The situation of this island, as he has given it,
corresponds exactly with my own observation.
This same night, by favour of the clear moonshine, we saw the most
easterly of the Navigators' Islands, Opoun, rising from the sea like a
high round mountain. Westward from it, and close to each other, lie the
little islands Leoneh and Fanfueh.[5] Near these is Maouna, with another
little island at its north-east point. Forty-five miles further lies
Ojalava, and ten miles and a half from it Pola, the largest, highest,
and most westward of the group: connected with them are several other
small islands, which I shall hereafter have occasion to mention.
As the chart which accompanies this volume accurately describes the
geographical situation of all these islands, it is only necessary here
to remark, that it was drawn up from the most diligent astronomical
observations.
All these islands are extremely fertile, and very thickly peopled.
Ojalava surpasses any that I have seen, even Tahaiti itself, in
luxuriant beauty. The landscape of Pola is majestic; the whole island is
one large, high, round mountain, which strikingly resembles the
Mauna-roa upon the island of Owahy: it is not quite so lofty indeed as
the latter, but its altitude is about the same as that of the Peak of
Teneriffe.
All the islands of the South Sea are more or less formed of coral reefs,
which make secure harbours; the Navigators' Islands only are not
indebted to these active little animals for this advantage. We sailed
round all their coasts, and could find but one open bay, which runs far
inland in the island of Maouna, opposite the small island already
noticed off its north-east point.
The inhabitants of these islands are still far less civilized than were
the Tahaitians when first discovered by Wallis. Those of Maouna
especially are perhaps the most ferocious people to be met with in the
South Sea. It was they who murdered Captain de Langle, the commander of
the second ship under La Pérouse, the naturalist Laman, and fourteen
persons from the crews of both ships, on their venturing ashore;
although they had loaded the natives with presents.
These savages attacked them with showers of stones; and the muskets of
the Europeans after the first discharge, which unfortunately did but
little execution, could not be reloaded speedily enough for their
protection. Triumphing in their inhuman victory, they mangled and
plundered the remains of their unfortunate victims.
We sailed to the scene of this dreadful occurrence, since called
Massacre Bay. The appearance of the country was inviting; the shores
were bordered with cocoa-trees, and the freshest vegetation enlivened
the interior, but nothing betrayed that the island was inhabited; no
smoke arose, and no canoe was to be seen; this was the more remarkable,
as on La Pérouse's arrival, his ship, as soon as perceived by the
natives, was surrounded by several hundred canoes laden with provisions.
A small canoe, carrying only three men, at length rowed towards us; we
laid to, and by signs gave permission to the savages to come on board;
this they could not resolve upon; but one of them climbed the ship's
side high enough to see over the deck, and handed to us a few
cocoa-nuts, all the provisions they had brought; a piece of iron, which
we gave him in return, he pressed to his forehead in sign of
thankfulness, and then bowed his head. He examined the deck a long time
with prying and suspicious glances, without speaking a word; then
suddenly commenced a long pathetic harangue, growing more and more
animated as he proceeded, and pointing with passionate gestures,
alternately to the ship and the land. His eloquence was quite thrown
away on us; but the silence with which we listened, might probably lead
him to suppose that we attached some importance to it. His confidence
gradually increased, and he would perhaps have spoken longer, had not
his attention been arrested by the approach of several canoes.