young man, almost of his own age, who accompanied him on his visit to the British ship.

ten inches, some of them exceeding six feet. The young women were also tall, one, not the tallest, was five feet ten inches. All had white teeth, and profuse black hair, neatly dressed, and ornamented with wreaths of flowers. Their features were of a decidedly European cast, the complexion being a clear brunette. Their dress consisted of a loose bodice reaching from waist to knees, with a sort of mantle thrown over the shoulder, and reaching to the ankles, which was thrown aside when at work. Their feet were bare. A photograph, taken many

If the islanders were astonished at their visitors, the latter were no less amazed at the aspect of this little community. The island, apparently about a dozen miles in circuit, rose to the height of a thousand feet, the steep cliffs down to the water's edge being clothed with palm, banyan, cocoa-nut, and bread-fruit trees, while in the valleys were plantations of taroroot, yams, and sweet-potatoes. The village, which consisted of five houses, that being the number of families, was situated on a level plat-years after, of Maria Christian, Ellen Quintal, form high above the ocean, shaded with broad- and Sarah M'Koy, daughters of these young leafed bananas and plantains. The houses women, gives a perfect representation of those were of wood, two stories in height, each hav- who were seen by the English captains. The ing its pig-pen, poultry-house, bakery, and young people were then mostly unmarried, for another for the manufacture of tappa, the sub- Adams discouraged very early marriages, as stitute for cloth, a kind of paper made by pound- the girls would then necessarily be occupied ing together layers of the inner bark of trees. with the care of their children; and he also inThe population now numbered forty-six. The culcated upon the young men the necessity of young men, all born on the island, were finely having made some provision for a family before formed, tall, the average height being five feet entering into any matrimonial engagement.

The older women were mainly occupied in mak- | er Christian, and daughter of that little girl ing tappa; the younger worked in the fields who had been brought an infant on the Bounty, with their fathers and brothers. Their strength and upon his death-bed Adams appointed him and agility astonished their visitors. "One pastor. of them," says Captain Pipon, "accompanied us to the boat, carrying on her shoulders, as a present, a large basket of yams, over such roads and precipices as were scarcely passable by any creatures except goats, and over which we could scarcely scramble with the help of our hands. Yet with this load on her shoulders she skipped from rock to rock like a young roe." Both sexes were expert swimmers.

For more than thirty-five years no one knew any thing of his history and antecedents. He first disclosed it in 1852 to Admiral Moresby. He was the illegitimate son of a British marquis, whose name is not given, and so we are ignorant of the name-Paget, Cholmondeley, Cecil, Stewart, Beresford, or what not-to which he had such right as an illegitimate son has to his father's name, instead of the one More even than by their attractive persons which he assumed. His mother, to whom he were the visitors charmed by the gentle man- was always tenderly attached, was the daughners and sincere piety of the islanders. ter of an Irish baronet, who, having been im"What most delighted us," writes Captain Pi-plicated in the Irish rebellion, was lost in atpon, was the conviction which John Adams tempting to escape to France. His mother had impressed on the minds of these young formed a fixed resolution that he should never people of the propriety and necessity of re-accept a favor from his father's family, and on turning thanks to the Almighty for the many her death-bed, when he was two-and-twenty blessings which they enjoy. They never omit years old, she exacted of him a promise that saying grace before and after meals, and never he would not even use a sum of money investthink of touching food without asking a blessed a score of years before for his support. She ing from Him who gave it. They repeat the Lord's Prayer and the Creed morning and evening."

For another ten years we have no record of the people, though the island was two or three times visited by whalers. In 1823 a vessel stopped there, and one of the crew was so charmed that he asked permission to remain. His name was John Buffett, a young man of much intelligence. He was received, and soon appointed to act as schoolmaster. About the same time another seaman, John Evans, was left by a whaler. Perhaps the charms of the young women had much to do with this. At all events, Buffett married a daughter of Young, and Evans one of Adams's.

In

placed him with a family named Nobbs, and insisted that he should assume their name. 1811, then being twelve years old, he was placed in the navy through the influence of Admiral Murray. But, after some years, his mother learning that inquiries had been made about him-probably by his father-took him from the navy and placed him at school. In 1816 he accepted a berth on a vessel fitted out for the service of the South American patriots. Of his adventures we can here give but a bare outline. While in charge of a prize he was captured by the Spaniards, and set to carrying stones to repair the forts at Callao, wearing irons of fifty pounds' weight. He escaped by secreting himself on board a New Bedford whaler, rejoined his ship, which made many prizes; and in 1817 he was able, he says, to send $700 to his "poor mother, who sadly needed it." In 1818, he, with thirty-six others, in an open launch, cut out a large merchant-ship from under the guns of Arica. His share of the prize-money amounted to $2000, half of which he sent to his mother. In the succeeding three years he took part in several hazardous enterprises, among which was Cochrane's famous exploit of cutting out a Spanish frigate from under the guns of Callao. In 1822 he was recalled to England by his mother, who soon died. In 1823 he went to Sierra Leone A year before a little launch of eighteen tons, as chief mate of a vessel. Of nineteen persons with two men on board, appeared at the island. only four lived to return. In 1824 he went They had sailed from Callao, in Peru, 3500 back to Africa as commander of the same ship, miles away. One of the men was so worn out and lay sick with fever for six weeks, but rethat he died in a few days. The other, a man covered so as to take his ship back. He then of thirty, who gave his name as George Hunn resolved to quit England forever, and take up Nobbs, said he had come to end his days on the his residence on Pitcairn Island. Collecting island. He possessed a good education, and his little property, he sailed for Calcutta in had acquired some knowledge of surgery. His 1825. There he remained nearly two years; earnest manner pleased the old patriarch, and then sailed on the ship Ocean, of New York, he was appointed schoolmaster and surgeon. for Callao. Here, after much delay, he found He soon married the grand-daughter of Fletch- a man named Bunker, who had an unfinished

In 1825 Captain Beechy, of the Resolute, being on a voyage of discovery, stopped at the island. He remained three weeks, and his account confirms all that had been said by Staines and Pipon. He found the population to be sixty-six. The Resolute was provided with a chaplain, and Adams embraced the opportunity of being formally married to the blind, bedridden old woman who had been his companion for five-and-thirty years.

John Adams died in 1829, surrounded by the flock to whom he had so long been a parent. But a successor had been strangely raised up for him.

launch, which he had no means of completing. Nobbs invested all his means in purchasing a share of this, on condition that the two should sail in her for Pitcairn Island, where he arrived on the 28th of October, after a voyage of six weeks, and began his new life, of which we shall have more to say.

In 1830 a severe drought occurred on the island, and fears were felt that its small area would not afford support to the population, and after anxious deliberation it was resolved to emigrate to Tahiti, where Queen Pomare offered them a large grant of fertile land. They went next year in a government vessel. But the gross licentiousness of the Tahitans was abhorrent to the pure Pitcairners, and they returned in six months.

Pitcairn Island had already come to be frequently visited by ships, and in 1832 a man of nearly sixty years landed. He called himself Joshua Hill; said he belonged to the family of the Duke of Bedford, and had been sent by the British government to assume chief authority in the island. The simple natives were, above all things, anxious to be recognized as a part of the British empire. They yielded faith to Hill's representations; and he set up, and for six years maintained, a reign of terror. He determined first of all to drive off the three Englishmen. When Nobbs was taken sick, Hill forbade his friends from visiting him, and refused to allow him medicines from the general chest. Buffett was brought, upon some trumpery charge, before a court, of which Hill was judge, jury, and executioner. Buffett was hung up by the hands, beaten till his head was broken and his hand dislocated, flogged with a cat-o'-nine-tails, and fined. Hill endeavored to induce Evans's wife to leave him; not succeeding in this, he tried to have Evans taken away by a man-of-war, which happened to arrive. Failing in this, he promulgated a law of treason, and when Evans asked for a written copy of it, he was tried and flogged. It is impossible to recount a tenth of the mad freaks of this man. The result was that the three Englishmen and their families were driven from the island, remaining absent for some years.

honesty and piety of this people, and one of them declared that if any insult were offered to any of them, especially to a female, the offender would not live long after he came on board the vessel. In 1841 influenza broke out, and carried off a tenth of the people. In that year the British ship Curaçoa touched at the island, and the captain, having ascertained the spot where the Bounty had been sunk, succeeded in raising the charred hull; her oaken timbers were sound after a submersion of half a century. The captain was able to tell them of the career of Peter Heywood; and Isabella Christian, the aged widow of the leader of the mutineers, sent a present of tappa to "Peter's wife." She had a perfect remembrance of the young midshipman, whom she had seen at Tahiti. In 1849 the British ship Pandora, Captain Wood, stopped at Pitcairn Island, and the captain wrote a detailed account of his visit, from which we quote a few paragraphs:

"I ran on till very close to the island, which appeared in the moonlight like a high rock with its summit in the clouds, and then hove to. At daybreak I bore up, and at 7 A.M. was near enough to perceive that there was a heavy swell breaking on the rocks. We fired a gun, which soon drew attention; at first a red ensign, and then a white flag was displayed. The white flag is a signal that landing is practicable; and soon two whale-boats were seen coming off. They were laden with men, a fine, hardy, athletic set of fellows as I ever saw, but little tinged with their mothers' blood; those of the third generation are nearly as white as Europeans. Arthur Quintal, the son of the mutineer, a fine, strong-made man of fifty, with an honest, open countenance, was the senior of the party; but a strapping stout fellow, John Adams, was pilot for the time. This berth they take in rotation, each family according to their seniority and that family has the privilege of entertaining the captain while on shore. The way they effect a landing is this: One, whose experience can be trusted, mounts a rock that commands a view of the sea, and watches for the proper moment, when, at a signal from him, the boat, which has been lying as close to the breakers as possible, makes a rush, and by taking one of the less heavy breakers, goes flying in before it, frequently without a stroke of the oars being necessary, except to steer her, till they get within the rocks, when all sharp, it requires skill and experience to get a boat in danger is over. But, as this turn is very narrow and safely; for a trifling deviation on either side would dash the boat to pieces on the rocks. The beach and heights above it were lined with inhabitants, mostly females, with Mr. Nobbs, pastor and teacher, at their Finally, however, the islanders were con-head. All crowded around me, and as I could not vinced that Hill was an impostor, and petition- shake all their hands at once, I thought it better to ed that he might be taken away. In 1838, kiss them, and they appeared to like this well. I soon after six years, a British ship was sent to take found my cap ornamented with a garland of flowers, him to Valparaiso. Who the man was, whence and amidst laughter and jokes we began to ascend the cliffs. This is no easy task even to a strong man, and he came, and what further became of him, no to me it would have been quite impracticable, had not one knows. After Hill's deportation the exiles Mr. Nobbs called to one of the young ladies to come She seized my arm, and carried me up returned, and Mr. Nobbs, by special request of and help me. without the aid of my feet, without any apparent efthe islanders, resumed the exercise of his func-fort on my part. All my officers were similarly treat

tions.

During the following ten years the island was visited more frequently, especially by whalers to procure water and vegetables, for which they bartered articles which the inhabitants needed. Shoes were in special demand; but the women had yet to go barefoot, for ladies' shoes formed no part of the outfit of a whaler. Even the roughest sailors were touched by the

ed, and decorated with garlands not only around their hats but their necks. We marched to the top of the cliff, and there met with the remainder of the community. Among others, I was introduced to the only remaining female of the original Tahitans, who is very old, and has lost an eye, but still continues to walk about. We went to the school-room, which is furnished with cross-benches, fitted with inkstands, etc.; and at the upper end a table and seat for the master, and against the end is the pulpit or readingdesk, for the school-room is the church on Sundays.

Things had not gone well on the island. A severe drought had occasioned almost a famine, and the people for months had been obliged to live on pumpkins, berries, cocoa-nuts, and beans. A few days after his return the influenza broke out, and so rapid was its progress that in a week there were not ten persons capable of attending to their own wants. The population of the island had now increased to 172, of whom 75 were communicants. A succession

ance to the islanders. A party of five gentle- | other domestic accomplishments, without losing men, among whom were Baron Thierry and her pretense to simplicity and modesty." Mr. Carleton, landed from a bark, intending to stay but a few hours. But rough weather came on, and after standing off and on for two days, the vessel sailed away, and the visitors were left behind. Mr. Carleton, who was an accomplished musician, undertook to train a choir, and so apt were his pupils, that in a fortnight they could not only sing the church service, but perform quartettes, glees, and catches. The national anthem, "God Save the Queen," was their special favorite. They have, how-of unfavorable seasons followed, and it became ever, a Pitcairn anthem of their own, composed by Mr. Nobbs, set to the music of "Rousseau's Dream," the first verse of which runs thus:

"Mid the mighty Southern Ocean
Stands an isolated rock,
Blanchéd by the surf's commotion,
Riven by the lightning's shock.
Hark those strains to heaven ascending,
From those slopes of vivid green,
Old and young their voices blending:
God preserve Britannia's Queen !"

apparent that the island could not long support its population. Yet so strong was their attachment to each other that they would not think of emigrating, except as a body, and only to some other island, where they could retain their isolation from the great world.

In 1852 Admiral Moresby, the British commander on the Pacific station, visited the island on a special invitation, signed by the women. His son, Mr. Fortescue Moresby, who became a great favorite with the people, who designated him as "Fortey," wrote a very interesting account of the visit, which is given by Lady Belcher. The Admiral found that the islanders were very anxious that Mr. Nobbs should receive regular episcopal ordination, in order that he might be qualified to administer the sacrament of the Eucharist. He offered to take him to Valparaiso, and to provide him with a passage thence to England. Mr. Nobbs went, accompanied by his young daughter Jane, of whom we shall have a glimpse hereafter, who was to be left at Valparaiso, to be taught some things which she could not learn on the island. Mr. Nobbs reached England on the 16th of October, 1852, and a week after was ordained deacon by Dr. Blomfield, Bishop of London, who a short time after thus wrote of him: "We have all been very much pleased with Mr. Nobbs's good sense and right feeling and genuine simplicity. I earnestly pray that it may please God to continue to him the blessing which has hitherto been vouchsafed to his disinterested and self-denying labors." On the 24th of November he was ordained as priest, and entitled "Chaplain of Pitcairn Island," with a salary of £50 from the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. After preaching once or twice in London, being presented to the Queen, who gave him portraits of herself and the royal family, he set out on his return on the 17th of December, and on the 14th of May, 1853, reached Pitcairn Island. He brought with him his daughter Jane, of whom Mr. Fortescue Moresby writes: "The Admiral was much pleased with the progress made by Jane Nobbs. She has learned to sew neatly, besides