558 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1959 
board were much discouraged; they therefor thought of returning 
to Tahiti.” 
In one account Jenny speaks of no land being seen throughout the 
period, but in the other of passing “between two mountainous is- 
lands, but the wind was so strong they could not land” (Teehutea- 
tuaonoa, 1819): this would presumably be when returning through 
the Tongan Archipelago, the islands being most probably Hunga 
Ha‘abai and Hunga Tonga, some 30 miles to the north of Tongatapu 
and a bare mile apart. 
Moerenhout, writing of Mangareva Island (300 miles to the north- 
west of Pitcairn) after his visit there in 1834, says: 
The Indians speak of a vessel which long preceded that of Captain Beechey. 
They even show the spot where the ship anchored and remember having had 
a dispute with the crew in which several of the natives were killed. This ap- 
pears the more probable in that, before the arrival of the Blossom, the people of 
Mangareva had a knowledge of iron and cultivated water-melons, which are 
not indigenous to their island (Moerenhout, 1837, vol. 2, pp. 322-823). 
As no one has been reported to have landed at Mangareva before 
Beechey’s visit in 1825 in H.M.S. Blossom,* Hall has posited the sug- 
gestion that the Bounty called there en route to Pitcairn, leaving 
watermelon seeds and iron tools (Hall, 1935, pp. 37-389). If this had 
been so, however, I think that we should have heard of it, if not from 
Jenny then from John Adams, who knew that Beechey was going 
from Pitcairn in the direction of Mangareva and would surely have 
mentioned the fact had he been there himself. The iron and water- 
melon seeds can best be ascribed to the sealers and whalers known to 
have been in the area from 1817, and even earlier. No less than 19 
ships are known to have called at Pitcairn before H.M.S. Blossom, 
while several others were sighted but did not stop: is it reasonable 
then, to suppose that not one ever visited an island so near? 
Much has been conjectured also on the supposed feat of finding 
such an incorrectly charted island as Pitcairn, and some authorities 
claim that Christian must have spent weeks in looking for it. But in 
point of fact, there should have been little difficulty, since Christian 
had only to run along the latitude, which was approximately correct, 
until it was sighted. 
This was on the 15th of January, 1790 ®°; in the evening, when the 
setting sun would have lighted up the heights of Goat-house Peak and 
the Ridge. It was boisterous weather, though midsummer, and the 
seas so rough that it was 3 whole days before they could attempt a 
landing (Teehuteatuaonoa, 1826). 
28 Wilson, of the missionary ship Duff, the discoverer of Mangareva in 1797, only passed 
by the island. 
22 This date is calculated from statements made by Jenny and Adams. The Bounty was 
burnt 8 days later, on January 28. 
