Rapa : the Forgotten. 
3 21 
and remained there for twenty-four hours or 
more. It lies south of that lovely and fertile 
group of islands called by Matte Brun the 
“Austral Isles,” and by the natives themselves 
Tubuai, the name of the principal island of the 
cluster. (This island, Tubuai, was the first place 
chosen by Fletcher Christian, the leader of the 
Bounty mutiny, for a refuge after he had set 
Bligh adrift, but the natives resisted the occu¬ 
pation of their country so fiercely that the 
mutineer abandoned the fort he had constructed 
and returned to Tahiti again.) Vancouver was 
the first to discover the group, and sighted 
Rapa on December 22, 1791, and his vivid 
description of the strange race of savages in¬ 
habiting the island, and the mingled emotions 
of astonishment, admiration, and fear with 
which they regarded him, his crew, and every¬ 
thing on board his ship was read with the 
greatest interest by many people in England, 
whose curiosity had been whetted by the dis¬ 
coveries of Wallis and Cook in the South 
Seas. 
During the few years that the Sydney-Panama 
mail service was continued, Rapa and its people 
were often heard of. Travellers spoke in terms 
22 
