ISLANDS OF OENO AND ELIZABETH. 103 
Young, M'Coy, Adams, and Quintal, were 
left alive, the women of the place were seen 
with the five skulls of the murdered white 
men, and were compelled, after some diffi- 
culty, to give them up to be buried. 
In that year the state of the island had 
become so intolerable to the women, that they 
resolved to brave the perils of the sea, rather 
than remain. They had accordingly prepared 
to set off secretly in a boat, which, fortunately 
for them, upset in launching ; as the men who 
had built it probably intended it should do ; 
and the women, foiled in their attempt to get 
away, again settled down in their sad and 
unwelcome home. Whither they had pro- 
posed to go, it is impossible to say. The 
nearest island to Pitcairn, nearly ninety miles 
to its north, is Oeno, of coral formation, 
a barren place, most difficult of access. The 
approach is so bad, owing to the reefs of coral 
encompassing the lagoon which surrounds 
the island, that when Captain Beechey, in 
December 1825, attempted to land, the boat 
was broken to pieces. Lieut. Edward Belcher 
narrowly escaped with his life, and a young 
lad of the party was drowned. 
