LETTER FROM ADMIRAL MORESBY. 223 
four-fifths of them so ill. We visited each house 
and spoke a word of comfort here and there to 
those most desponding. Tea was their great 
want, and they seemed so thankful for the little 
I took for them ; some immediately made a large 
kettle full, and said they felt better. Mr. Nobbs, 
Reuben, and Jane, were nearly the only ones 
entirely free from sickness ; showing that the 
strong food they had been living on was their 
medicine ; for the poor islanders, famine-struck 
and weak, had no strength left to resist the 
disease. At 4 P.M. on Sunday, we were com- 
pelled to leave them once more ; and so all our 
distress came over again, because we left them 
all ill, and were anxious for their future state. 
" Now we are fairly off, I suppose. Never 
more shall I see Pitcairn ; but if I never see it, 
I can never forget it. To me it will ever be 
the gem of all the places I ever have seen, or 
shall see, in the varied roamings of a sailor's 
life." 
Admiral Moresby, in a letter of the same 
date, on his passage in the Portland, from Pit- 
cairn to Lima, wrote as follows : 
" Our voyage to Pitcairn was long thirty 
days ; but with Mr. Nobbs, Reuben, and Jane 
on board, we had a pleasant time. Sad was the 
first appearance of the Islanders, for hunger 
had nearly worn them to the bone. Our arrival 
was most opportune, and our re-appearance still 
more so." 
