MR. CAELETON'S MUSICAL CLASS. 155 
their island in the most attentive arid good- 
humoured 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 Zea- 
land for California, were left by a mischance on 
Pitcairn ; the vessel from which they had landed 
having been blown off from the island during 
the night. During the three weeks of their de- 
tention, which turned out to be a very agreeable 
visit, the strangers, who had no property about 
them but the clothes which they had on, received 
every mark of sympathy and friendship. One 
of these gentlemen, Mr. Walter Brodie, whom 
Mr. Nobbs entertained as his guest, employed 
himself chiefly in gathering materials for an 
account of the island and its hospitable inhabi- 
tants, 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 
whole of the adult population to sing. Fortun- 
ately, the Baron happened to have a tuning-fork 
in his pocket ; and the people, whose efforts in 
psalmody in church had been noticed as some- 
what imperfect, caught with delight at the idea 
of a little musical instruction. " They proved," 
says Mr. Brodie, "remarkably intelligent, not 
one among the number being deficient in ear, 
