130 BRITON AND TAGUS. 
marks of a more advanced age than that which 
he had attained. He is mentioned in Bligh's 
description, as very much pitted with the small- 
pox, and tattooed on his body, legs, arms, 
and feet. 
As the real position of the island was ascer- 
tained to be far distant from that in which it 
had been usually laid down in the charts, and 
as Sir T. Staines and Captain Pipon seem to 
have still considered it as uninhabited, they 
were not a little surprised, on approaching its 
shores, to behold plantations regularly laid out, 
and huts or houses more neatly constructed than 
those of the Marquesas Islands. When about 
two miles from the landing-place, some natives 
were observed bringing down their canoes on 
their shoulders, dashing through a heavy surf, 
and paddling off to the ships ; but the astonish- 
ment of our sailors was unbounded on hearing 
one of the natives, on approaching the ship, 
call out in the English language, " Won't you 
heave us a rope, now?" 
The first man who got on board the Briton 
soon proved who they were. His name, he said> 
was Thursday October Christian, the first born 
on the island,* son of Fletcher Christian. He 
was then about twenty-five years of age, a fine 
young man, about six feet high, his hair deep 
black, his countenance open and interesting, of 
a brownish cast, but free from all that mixture 
of a reddish tint which prevails on the Pacific 
islands; his only dress was a piece of cloth 
* He was born on a Thursday in October. 
