532 



HISTORY OF THE SEA. 



and ninety-nine in all, the oldest man being sixty-two, and th*. 

 oldest woman eighty. Charles Christian is the grandson ot 

 Christian the ringleader. Their new home contains about four, 

 teen thousand acres, and is well watered, fertile, and healthy, 

 the soil producing abundantly both European and tropical fruits, 

 vegetables, grains, and spices. The history of the present 

 colony, the offspring in the third generation of European 

 fathers and Tahitian mothers, is as remarkable as any tale in 

 romance or any legend in mythology. 



In the year 1790, — to return to chronological order, — the 

 British Government determined to make one more attempt to 

 discover a channel of communication between the Atlantic and 

 Pacific to the north of the American continent, and selected to 

 command the expedition Lieutenant George Vancouver, who 

 had accompanied Cook on his second and third voyages. He 

 was raised to the rank of captain and placed at the head of 

 an expedition consisting of the sloop-of-war Discovery and the 

 armed tender Chatham. He left Falmouth on the 1st of April, 

 1791 ; and, as the Admiralty had designated no route by which 

 to proceed to the Pacific, he decided to go by way of the Cape 

 of Good Hope. He arrived here without adventure in July, 

 and, late in September, struck the southern coast of New Hol- 

 land at a cape to w T hich he gave the name of Chatham, from the 

 President of the Board of Admiralty. 



The two vessels coasted to the eastward, surveying the in- 

 dentations and giving names to all points of interest. A harbor 

 being discovered, it received the name of King George the 

 Third's Sound, and Vancouver took possession of the land in 

 the name of his Gracious Majesty. A wretched hovel, three 

 feet high, in the form of a bee-hive cut through the centre from 

 the apex to the base, and constructed of slender twigs, here 

 revealed the presence of inhabitants ; while the singular appear- 

 ance of the trees and the vegetation, which had evidently under- 

 gone the action of fire, — the shrubs being completely charred 



