172 CHIEF NUTRITIVE PLANTS OF THE TORRID ZONE 



how bad they fared on the distant ocean, the scene of their 

 crimes? It may easily be imagined that government could 

 not allow so gross an outrage to discipline and law to remain 

 unpunished, and thus the " Pandora " was immediately sent out to 

 the South Sea in quest of Christian and his comrades. Fourteen 

 of the rebel band were found in Tahiti, and brought in chains to 

 England, where some of them were reprieved and some hung : 

 others had already died of illness or a violent death; but of 

 Christian, the leader of the mutiny, who, with eight of his fol- 

 lowers and a number of male and female natives, had long since 

 sailed away in the " Bounty," no trace was to be discovered, 

 and many a year had still to pass before the secret of his fate 

 was revealed. 



In lonely majesty Pitcairn Island rises 1046 feet above the 

 unfathomable depths of the South Sea. A furious surf encircles 

 it with a girdle of white foam, which forms a beautiful contrast 

 to the surrounding deep blue waters. There is but one single 

 landing-place, and even this is only practicable in the calmest 

 weather. The northern side of the island is extremely pic- 

 turesque, rising from the sea as a steep amphitheatre, wooded to 

 the very summit with palms, plantains, bread-fruit trees, and 

 majestic banians, and bounded on either side by precipitous cliffs 

 and naked rocks. 



This was the place, still uninhabited by man, which Christian 

 and his comrades chose for their abode : it was here they hoped 

 to realise the dreams which had prompted them to crime. But 

 in their own bosoms they carried along with them the fiend who 

 made a hell out of this paradise. At first Christian succeeded in 

 maintaining some authority over his associates ; but, tormented 

 by the constant fear of detection, he spent many a lonely hour 

 on the summit of a cliff, casting anxious glances over the sea, 

 above whose horizon the pennant of England could at any time 

 arise for his destruction ! 



Soon after the arrival of the mutineers at Pitcairn the 

 '* Bounty " was committed to the flames, lest she should betray 

 their residence ; and thus they condemned themselves to a last- 

 ing exile on a lonely rock, 10,000 miles from their home, their 

 families, or their friends. Soon a bloody feud arose between the 

 mutineers and the Tahitians, who had embarked to share their 

 fortunes, and before a year had passed Christian and four of his 



