The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1928, Page 4

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4 THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.
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with the mutiny and that the rest desired to break
away. So it was decided that the ship return to
Tahiti, where those who wished to leave the ship
could do so; their number was sixteen. Only nine
chose to stay with the Bounty. It was now in
September, 1789, almost five months after the
seizure of the ship.

Christian and his eight companions, before they
left Tahiti, invited some native women to a fare-
well banquet and then suddenly put to sea, keeping
them and six native men on board. At Christian’s
suggestion they then set out to find Pitcairn Island.
For twenty years all on board were lost sight of as
completely as though they had been swallowed up
by the ocean, and only one of the mutineers ever
thereafter saw a human being except his companions.

For about two months the mutineers cruised
about in search of Pitcairn Island. When they
finally discovered it, they landed at its northwestern
extremity, in a little bay, which they gave the name
Bounty Bay. They next took everything they
thought to be of value to them from the ship and
set it on fire, sinking the charred remains in twenty-
five fathoms of water. That part of the island
which could be cultivated was parceled out in equal
shares among the white men, the six native men
getting nothing. Evidently they were regarded as
so many slaves. The island was found to have
luxuriant growths of palms, and the settlers soon
learned that bananas, pine-apples, yams, sweet pota-
toes, and oranges could be grown in abundance.
Of Pitcairn Island it was literally true what the
poet writes : —

Where every prospect ator |
And only man is vile.

The restless waters that beat unceasingly against
the rocky shores of the island were no more tur-
bulent than the evil passions that surged in the
hearts of the men who had there sought a refuge,
and who were soon to change this earthly paradise
into a hell.

The tents in which they first lived soon gave
place to wooden houses. The land was cleared and
cultivated, but in clearing the land, they were care-
ful to leave a row of trees between their homes and
the sea, to conceal the houses from the view of any
passing ships. They also left a cluster of trees at
the mouth of a cave far up the mountainside, as
they proposed to hide there if they should be dis-
covered and pursued. In this cave Christian spent
much of his time gazing over the waste of water,
watching in continuous dread for the appearance
of a sail, and reading a Bible and a prayer-book

_ that had been pavaeee from the ship.

For two years everything went on very peace-
fully. The plants and seeds which they had brought
from Tahiti grew wonderfully and provided them
with the necessary food. Then the wife of Williams
fell from a high rock and was killed while collecting
birds’ eggs. Williams demanded that one of the
natives turn over his wife to him, and when the
native objected, Williams simply appropriated her.
This high-handed act led the native men to conspire
to kill all the white men. They probably would
have succeeded in carrying out their plot if the
women had not divulged the plot by singing the
words, Why does the black man sharpen his ax?

To kill white men.

Hearing these words repeated in song again and
again, Christian soon suspected their meaning, and
seizing his gun, he went in search of the native men.
Finding one of them, he discharged his gun at him,
which was loaded only with powder, to show him
that the plot had been discovered. The native men
fled to the woods and soon begged for pardon, which
was granted them on condition that they kill the
two ringleaders. It sounds almost incredible that
the one man who was killed, the husband of the
woman whom Williams had taken, was murdered
by this woman herself.

After the murder of the two ree there was
a kind of peace on the island for two years. How-
ever, matters were far from being what they
should be. The character of the inhabitants pre-
cluded this. Desperate men, such as the mutineers
were, and their savage wives could not long live in
amity and tranquillity. The men often quarreled
among themselves and frequently mistreated their
wives. The minds of the men were in a state of
constant dread because they feared that their place
of concealment would be discovered. The monotony
of their lives affected their nerves, homesickness and
a longing for the companionship of people such as
they had once lived among made them dissatisfied
with their lot; to this was added remorse for their
past crimes and dread of the retribution which they
felt would surely come. The low sensual pleasures
in which they had indulged they found to be as
unsatisfactory as is salt water to the thirsty man.
They had fled from their fellow-men, but they found
that they could not flee from their own guilty
consciences.

Quintal and McCoy, two of the mutineers, were
always drunk, having succeeded in distilling an in-

toxicating liquor from the roots of the ti-plant, .

and their abusive treatment of the natives prompted
these to try once more to murder all the whites.

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