Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora Part 5

Mitre Island, 11 49' 00" 190 04' 30"

Cherry Island, 11 37' 30" 190 19' 30"

Pitt's Isle (South Point), 11 50' 30" 193 14' 05"

Wells Shoal on reef, 12 20' 00" 202 02' 00"

Cape Rodney, 10 03' 32" 212 14' 05"

Mount Clarence between the two Orayas.

Cape Hood, 9 58' 06" 212 37' 10"

Look Out Shoal.

Stoney Reef Islands.

Murray's Islands, 9 57' 00" 216 43' 00"

Wreck Reef.

Escape Key, 11 23' 00"

Entrance Key, 11 23' 00"

EDWARD EDWARDS.

A LIST of 14 pirates, belonging to H.M.S. late ship _Bounty_, taken at Otaheite.

Joseph Coleman.

Peter Haywood.

Michael Byrne.

James Morrison.

Charles Norman.

Thomas Ellison.

Thomas M'Intosh.

William Muspratt.

Thomas Burkitt.

John Millward.

George Stewart, } Richard Skinner, } D/d drowned August 29th 1791.

Henry Hillbrant, } John Sumner. }

EDWARD EDWARDS.

FOOTNOTES:

[30-1] They sighted Easter Island on March 4th, 1791, Ducie's Island on the 16th, Hoods' Island on the 17th, and Carysfort on the 19th. The lat.i.tude and description of Ducie's Island leaves little doubt that it was the first island discovered by Quiros on January 26th, 1606 and called by him Luna Puesta. It appears as Encarnacion in Espinosa's chart.

Quiros thus describes it: "A buen juzgar dista de Lima ochocientas leguas: tiene cinco de boj, mucha arboleda y playas de arena, y junto a tierra fondo de ochenta brazas." Had Edwards but sailed due west from Ducie Island he must have sighted Pitcairn and discovered the hiding-place of Fletcher Christian's ill-fated colony.

[31-1] An American vessel.

[33-1] Morrison was Boatswain's Mate of the _Bounty_. He had previously served as midshipman in the navy, and by talent and education he was far above the station he held in Bligh's ship. It was he who planned and directed the building of the fast-sailing little schooner which acted as the _Pandora's_ tender, was the first vessel to anchor in Fiji, and made the record pa.s.sage from China to the Sandwich Islands. Morrison was chaplain as well as foreman to the little band of shipwrights. On Sundays he hoisted the English colours on a staff and read the Church Service to them. He kept a journal, not only throughout the _Bounty's_ cruise, but during his sojourn with the mutineers in Tahiti, and, though it is not explained how he contrived to preserve it through the wreck of the _Pandora_ and the boat voyage, there can be no doubt that it was a genuine doc.u.ment. At Captain Heywood's death it pa.s.sed with his other papers to his daughters. This journal has been annotated and corrected by another hand, probably Heywood's own, but without material alteration of the sense. It is filled with acrimony against Bligh from the outset of the _Bounty's_ cruise, and the form of the entries shows that it was intended to be the basis for laying serious charges against him when the ship was paid off. It is needless to add that it does not spare Edwards in respect of his treatment of his prisoners.

[36-1] The _Pandora_ found one of them at Palmerston Island.

[37-1] Executed at Portsmouth.

[37-2] Pardoned.

[37-3] Acquitted.

[37-4] Drowned in the wreck of the _Pandora_.

[37-5] Morrison said that his plan was to reach Batavia in time to secure a pa.s.sage home in the next fleet bound to Holland, and that the return to Tahiti was occasioned, not by any distrust of his talents, but by the refusal of the natives, who were anxious to keep them in Tahiti, to victual the ship for so long a voyage. There were no casks on the schooner for storing water. Morrison, Heywood and Stewart had planned an escape from Tubuai in the _Bounty's_ boat, but, fortunately for them--since the attempt would have been certain death--their plan was discovered and frustrated by the other mutineers.

[38-1] Oliver, master's mate; Renouard, midshipman; James Dodds, quartermaster; and six seamen.

[40-1] Oatafu, one of the Union Group, discovered by Commodore Byron in 1765. If the mutineers had settled there they would have starved, for there is neither food nor water. Since Byron's discovery a native settlement has been made from Bowditch Island (Fakaago), and the people, about 100 in number, live on fish, panda.n.u.s, and water caught in holes cut on the lee side of the cocoa-palms.

[40-2] The northernmost island of the Cook Group, discovered by Bligh, April 11, 1798, a few days before the mutiny. In 1823 John Williams, the missionary, heard at Rarotonga a native tradition of Bligh's visit. The natives heard the first rumours of a world beyond their own from two Tahitian castaways who had seen Captain Cook, and had with them an iron hatchet obtained from the _Resolution_. They represented the strange beings who traversed the ocean in vast canoes, not lashed with sinnet nor furnished with outriggers, as impious people who laughed at the tabu, and even ate of the consecrated food from the Maraes. They were like the G.o.ds; if they were attacked they blew at their a.s.sailants with long blow-pipes (pupuhi) from which flames and stones were belched. Such were the Tute (Cooks). Thereafter, having need of iron (kurima) and other wonders current in Tahiti the men of Aitutaki prayed to their G.o.ds to send the Tute to their island with axes and nails and _pupuhi_, and this, according to an old priest, was their prayer. "O great Tangaroa, send your large ship to our land: let us see the Cookees. Great Tangiia, send us a dead sea, send us a propitious gale, to bring the far-famed Cookees to our land, to give us nails and iron and axes; let us see these outriggerless canoes." And with the feast presented with the prayer were promises of greater feasts so soon as their prayer was answered. The G.o.ds heard them. A few months later the Cookees came. The great ship did not anchor, but one of the natives took his courage in both hands, and went off in his canoe. He brought back strange tales of what he had seen. It was a floating island; there were two rivers flowing on it (the pumps), and two plantations in which grew taro and sugar-cane and bread-fruit, and the keel sc.r.a.ped the bottom of the sea, for he dived as deep as he could go without finding it.

Williams has fallen into two errors in his account (p. 171). In the same breath he claims for himself the discovery of Rarotonga, in 1823, and announces this to have been a visit of the _Bounty_ after she was taken by the mutineers, _i.e._ in April, 1789. Rarotonga was, in fact, discovered by the ship _Seringapatam_ in 1814, though Williams may have been the first to land. The tradition must have referred to Bligh's visit to Aitutaki before the mutiny when the decks were enc.u.mbered with bread-fruit, for we know that the first thing the mutineers did after setting their captain adrift was to throw all the bread-fruit plants overboard, and that they steered direct for Tahiti.

[42-1] Discovered by Cook in his second voyage. There are nine small islands connected by a reef, covered with trees, but dest.i.tute of water.

[43-1] Sufficient for thirty days at most. In the face of the danger of parting company, with the _Pandora_ overloaded with stores, and the tender too feebly manned to wait at so dangerous a rendezvous as the Friendly Islands, Edwards showed very little foresight in neglecting to provision the tender for an independent voyage. His neglect nearly cost the crew their lives.

[44-1] See p. 126.

[46-1] Fakaafo or Bowditch Island, whence the present permanent inhabitants migrated.

[46-2] Nukunono, a new discovery, another of the Union Group. It was surveyed by the American Exploring Expedition in 1840, and was found to be 7-2/10 miles long, N. and S., and 5 miles E. and W.

[48-1] The actual position is 95' S. Lat.i.tude and 17138' W. Longitude.

[49-1] Savaii in the Samoa Group. If not the 'Beauman' Islands seen by Roggewein in 1721, they were discovered by Bougainville in 1768 and visited by La Perouse in 1787. Freycinet also visited them before Edwards.

[49-2] Mata-atua Harbour. There is no river there except after heavy rain.

[49-3] He had a finger cut off in mourning for Finau Ulukalala, who must have died in 1790.

[50-1] La Perouse and Kotzebue call it Pola.

[50-2] Upolu on which is Apia, the present capital of Samoa.

[50-3] Upolu is the native name, but it has been called Ojalava, Oahtooha, Ojatava, and Opoloo by different navigators, who may have taken the names of villages or districts to mean the whole island. The population exceeded 20,000 at the beginning of last century.

[50-4] Turmeric powder, never a mark of distinction, was besmeared over nursing mothers, chief women at the feasts connected with p.u.b.erty, and persons concerned in certain other ceremonies.

[51-1] Bougainville sighted Upolu on May 5th, 1760. A thick fog which came on that afternoon, and lasted all the following day, prevented him from approaching it, and from seeing Savaii, which he would have seen on May 7th in clear weather. La Perouse coasted along its southern sh.o.r.e on December 17th, 1789. Unfortunately, smarting from the ma.s.sacre of de Langle and his boat's crew at Tutuila, he was in no mood for communicating with the natives, and he did not anchor.

[51-2] See p. 12.

[52-1] Fatafehi is the hereditary t.i.tle of one of the spiritual chiefs of Tonga. He had no executive authority, but his wealth, derived from his lands and the offerings to which he was ent.i.tled, gave him considerable influence. The complicated hierarchy of spiritual chiefs in Tonga was a continual puzzle to Cook. Fatafehi at this time was an ornamental personage, inferior in dignity to the Tui Tonga, and in power to Tukuaho, who wielded the authority of his father Mumui, the Tui Kanakubolu. The Toobou (Tubou) mentioned here was the deputy of the tyrant Tukuaho, who, eight years later, was to pay the penalty of his crimes in the Revolution of 1799. Hamilton mentions that the tradition of Tasman's visit in 1642 was still preserved.

[54-1] Among the people who boarded the ship from Tofoa Lieut. Hayward recognized some of those who attacked Bligh's boat four days after the mutiny, and murdered Quartermaster Norton, but solicitude for the crew of the tender, which might call there, prevented Edwards from punishing them as they deserved. No doubt, both at Tofoa and Namuka, the natives would have attempted to take the ship had they thought success possible as, we now know, they had planned to capture Cook's ships, and as they actually did capture the privateer _Port-au-Prince_ in 1806 at Haapai. In 1808 William Mariner, one of the survivors of that ill-fated ship, who has left behind him the best account of a native race that exists probably in any language, was led by the strange native account of Norton's murder, to visit his grave. The natives a.s.serted that Norton was killed by a carpenter for the sake of an axe which he was carrying; that his body was stripped and dragged some distance inland to a _Malae_ where it lay exposed for three days before burial; and that the gra.s.s had never since grown upon the track of the body nor upon its resting-place on the _Malae_. Mariner found a bare track leading inland from the beach and terminating in a bare patch, lying transversely, about the length and breadth of a man. It did not appear to be a beaten path, nor were there people enough in the neighbourhood to make such a path. Probably it was an old track, long disused and forgotten, for by such natural causes is man's belief in the supernatural fed.

[55-1] The Vavau Group, called by the natives Haafuluhao, which then as now, owed spiritual allegiance to Tonga.