520 
COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL 
considerably over 1000 miles in length, and will never 
be able to do much more than support the small popula¬ 
tion—less than 6000 souls—which inhabits them. Coco¬ 
nuts and pearl-shell are almost their only product, and 
the latter is in many localities beginning to fail. All, or 
almost all, are lagoon islands. 
The Gambier Islands form the S.E. prolongation of 
the preceding. They consist of five high volcanic islets 
inhabited by Eoman Catholic converts, whose numbers 
were increased in 1878 by the immigration of the bulk 
of the inhabitants of Easter Island, 300 in number. The 
most important is Mangareva or Peard Island. 
Pitcairn Island, celebrated as having been colonised by 
the mutineers of the Bounty , lies at the extreme south¬ 
eastern limits of the Low Archipelago, and far out of 
sight of any other land. It is only two miles in extreme 
length, and three-quarters of a mile wide, with a fertile 
volcanic soil, but rocky and mountainous, rising to a 
height of 2500 feet, so that much of its surface must be 
too precipitous for cultivation. It is situated in 25° 3' 
S. lat., or just beyond the southern tropic, and has a fine 
climate, producing many tropical fruits and vegetables. 
It was in 1790 that nine British sailors, six Tahitian 
men, and twelve women arrived at this speck in the 
ocean. By discord and murder they were reduced in ten 
years to one man—an English sailor named Adams— 
the Tahitian women, and nineteen children. The story 
of how this ignorant English sailor suddenly rose to the 
responsibilities of his position, and trained up this little 
community to habits of industry and morality, and the 
practice of true religion, is one of the most wonderful 
and encouraging episodes in the social history of mankind. 
The little colony was first discovered in 1808 by an 
American ship, the Topcize , which brought the news to 
