FESTIVE OCCASIONS. 167 
the younger women do these honours of their 
island in the most attentive and good-humoure 1 
manner. Here, again, the delicacy and good 
sense of the islanders are to be admired. It 
will be allowed that for husbands and brothers 
to be attending upon their female relatives and 
newly-landed guests, would be a less desirable 
and becoming mode than that at present adopted. 
In March 1850, five passengers of the barque 
Noble, Captain H. Parker, bound from New 
Zealand for California, were left by a mischance 
on Pitcairn ; the vessel from which they had 
landed having been blown off from her place 
near the island during the night. She was 
visible the next morning from the shore ; all the 
people watching her movements with intense 
anxiety. For some reason, however, (probably 
the state of the weather,) when seeming to 
approach the island, she suddenly changed her 
course, sailed away, and left her five passengers 
behind. During the three weeks of their deten- 
tion, which turned out to be a very agreeable 
visit, the strangers, who had no property about 
them but the clothes which they had on, re- 
ceived every mark of sympathy and friendship. 
One of these gentlemen, Mr. Walter Brodie, 
whom Mr. Nobbs entertained as his guest, em- 
ployed himself chiefly in gathering materials for 
an account of the island, and its hospitable in- 
habitants, which was afterwards published, and 
to which allusion has already been made. 
Two of the other guests, the Baron de Thierry, 
and Mr. Hugh Carleton, especially the latter, 
applied themselves to the task of teaching the 
