156 STRENGTH AND ACTIVITY, 
be got off in no other way ; and in this manner 
we procured several tuns of water, without a 
single cask being stove." 
The Rev. Wm. Armstrong, formerly Chaplain 
at Valparaiso, and since resident in New Bruns- 
wick, in a letter to the author from Valparaiso, 
dated October, 1849, stated that an English 
man-of-war, the Pandora, had lately arrived 
direct from Pitcairn, and that the commander, 
Lieut. Wood, arid the officers, had given the 
most pleasing account of the happy state in 
which the little community were living. They 
were described as a remarkably strong and 
healthy people. For instance, a young woman, 
eighteen years of age, had been accustomed to 
carry on her shoulders a hundred pounds weight 
of yams over hills and precipitous places, and 
for a considerable distance, where one unaccus- 
tomed to such exercise would scarcely be able 
to scramble. A man, sixty" years old, with ease 
carried the surgeon of the Pandora up a steep 
ascent from the landing-place, where he had 
himself in vain attempted to mount, the ground 
being very slippery from recent rains ; and 
the officer being a large man, six feet high, 
rendered it the more surprising. Indeed, Lieut. 
Wood said he was himself borne aloft in the 
arms of a damsel, and carried up the hill with 
the utmost facility. 
From the date of the first intelligence re- 
specting the inhabitants of Pitcairn, there has 
been no variation in the character given of them. 
As they were, in those two great essentials of 
human happiness, purity and peace, when Sir 
