Portland Guardian (Vic. : 1876 - 1953), Thursday 17 August 1933, page 1


IBY C 1ARLEJ CHUVE THE STORY OFT HE PICTURE O SA - ° DI!TRIBUT D BY UNIVERfAL PICE.

SIXTEEN mutineers had stayed at Tahiti from the Bounty, but the long arm of the British Navy soon plucked them from their island para"disc. The 24-gun frigate Pandora rdached Tahiti on March 23rd, 1791, and took away 14 of the mutineers who survived. Four were drowned when the Pandora was wrecked in Torres Strait, four were acquitted, three were pardoned, and three were hanged. CHAPTER THREE. Edwards, of the Pandora, searched amiongst'the isles for the nine mutineers who had vanished, but could find no trace. of them. They were away on Pitcaiirn, ind the Bounty had been burned. One of the mutineers, the masterat-arms, Charles Churchill, had been made a king upon the death of the Tahitiarn chief, Waheeadooa, of the district of Teiviaboo. Stoned to Death. Another" mutineer, Matthew Thompson, had been coveting the title, and, becoming incensed at some fancied insult, he shot Churchill. Thompson was stoned to death by the natives. Midshipman Peter Heywood, then aged 16, had the three legs of the Isle of Man tatooed upon his right thigh. With a Tahitian girl, he set up a little home, where he built, a garden, cultivated the native flowers, and, learning the Tahitian tongue from his woman, evolved the first Tahitian dictionary, which was of great value in later years to the early missionaries. Upon the arrival of the Pandora, the mutineers, Joseph Coleman, Peter Heywood, and George Stewart, surrendered. They were immediately put in irons and confined in a box, only eleven feet long, on the deck. Others of. the mutineers, who had built a schooner, tramped across the rugged mountains of Tahiti to surrender. Stewart's Peggy. Eight other mutineers were taken prisoners, and all were put in irons and confined in the same small space. A young native girl, who loved Stewart, and whom he had named Peggy, came to see him with her baby in her arms. Weeping and screaming, she clung, to Stewart, making it necessary. to remove her by force. Her native people endeavored to persuade her to leave the beach and take food, but their efforts were in vain, and within a few weeks after the departure of the prison ship little Peggy died. Captain Fletcher could gain no news of Fletcher Christian, and the other eight mutineers. The old Tahitian chiefs spoke of an ocean of reefs that lay to the eastward which had at one time scuttled a Polynesian Armada of fighting men bent upon raiding Tahiti; some of their adventurers had seen these reefs, but few who went to the eastward ever returned. The old wise men of Tahiti believed that

the Bounty had gone eastward to that legendary sea grave of Polynesia, that track of a thousand miles of atolls and reefs. Folgor's Find. Twenty years passed b. y. Bligh had made a second and successful trip to Tahiti for breadfruit, had helped to quell the mutiny at the Nore, had fought at Copenhagen, and had become Governor of New South Wales.' Then when the Bounty had bpen forgotten, an American vessel, the Topaz, commanded by Captain Folger, had been driven out of'its course in the far south of the Pacific, when it stumbled across a grim and treacherous looking .island, on which could be seen a village perched upon a precipice hundreds of feet above the sea. Folger decided that the island must be Pitcairn Island, which had been marked down on a chart by its first discoverer, Captaip Carteret, who wrote that the islarld was uninhabited. .Being short of water, Folger decided to make- an attempt to land at the island,' but was frustrated by the terrific surf. Then, to the utter astonishment of all on board the Topaz, a man uncannily paddled through .the surf and hailed them in English-Folger had found the retreat of the mutineers. Stringely enough the hiding place of the mutineers was discovered in September, 1808, in the same year that Bligh suffered his second mutiny, when he was taken prisoner by the soldiers of New South Wales. On board the Bounty was a copy of.,Captain ...Cartert's.. "Voyage to the South Seas,"' which reliatd to 'the discovery of Pitcairn Island. Christian's Landfall. It seems possible that Fletcher Christian may have sought for the island as a suitable hiding-place, or perhaps he stumbled across it by accident, as Carteret, when charting the island, lost it to mariners by giving the wrong latitude. A mere rock' in that great solitude, the pivot often of those dreaded circular storms which commence with the hot. north wind, and revolve through west and south points, sometimes blowing out in the south, and sometimes revolving right round again to the north. When this north wind does blow, Pitcairn will be invisible at. only one mile from its thundering surf, and many a schooner-captain will pass it only two miles away, and not know, or else battle within sight of the island for two weeks without being able 'to reach its shores. Even the Pitcairners themselves have lost their island home when fishing within five miles of.land, and have spent, a whole night and half another day groping in the mists for land, . and the Pitcairners are the best seamen in the world. Old Vincent Mitchell, who early in life fought with Garibaldi, and later captained the brig Nautilus upon a hundred voyages through the dangerous isles, related how, when nearing Pit

caisn, he used to lie with his car to the deck to catch th'e sound of the Pitcairn surf, just as a Red Indian would lie with his" ear to, the ground, to 'catch the sound 'of 'aliproachinib hort nwtn. For weeks the Bounty travelled tIl ough uncharted seas. Then in the carly days of 17.10, Fletcher Christian fouqld Pitenirn Island, and succeedtd in making a landing, al. though ?t is said that they stood ofl front the island for dliys;.waidti?g ifbi thte wi'tls and iseastbo. :ubside' " The ,island?xlihough mall,l beirlg only five iliiles iii circumference, -and' scarcely tiwq 'niles.across, at its widest point, .uas thickly covered with a luxuriant growth of trees. Quintal's Firestick. The sautineers first of all effected r. landing on the west side of the island under great difliculties, but as this side was too unsheltered from the winds and the landing too rough even in the calmest seas, they made a searchlfor and found a more suitable place to the north-east of the island, and here they managed to bring their cotter safely to the shore through`. the treacherous rocks and breakers. This spot, now known as Bounty. Bay, has remained the principal landing place of the island. It wan not long before the mutincers found traces of early inhabitants, stick as a large "Maracs" or stone al r .at the top of the cliff above Bounty Bay,.human skeletonis, stone imnges, hatchets, and drinking vessels. As soon as it was possible they drove the Bounty in close enough to the shore 'to all6w her to be tied to a tree. Everything that could be1of service to the mutineers was removed-the 'masts, sails and ropes, j planks for their buildings, screws, lails and bolts, the forge, vyce and anvil, and all other.fittings likely to be of service. ' The little ten-months-old baby was taken through the surf in a barrel for safety. Last Link Severed. Christian then severed for ever his last link with home and civilization-he'gave orders for the forlorn old hulk to be burned. For a long tine nqt one. of his comlpanions vould." ý taert,.to.raie.the ship.. Young Matthew Quintal, who appears to have been the'worst of the mutineers, carried out the task by Pettinjg fire to a pile of brushwood placed in the holdl. The story of this tragic cnd is still related by the descendants of these dfutineers. It is told that the small motley band of Tahitians and whites watched the burning Bounty all night on the shore, where they were camping in caves and crevices like the very hermit crabs of the littile island. They watched the eerie scene as the nlames lapped the whole ship. John Hills had attempted to stay Christian's hand. Mutterings of dissent among the moody group on shore plainly showed that every man guessed what the years ahead would me (To be coan. (To be continued.)