"Nordhoff, Charles & Hall, James Norman - Bounty 03 - Pitcairns Island 1.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hall James)

Pitcairn's Island
Charles Nordhoff & James Normal Hall

To
ELLERY SEDGWICK

THE PITCAIRN COMMUNITY
The "Bounty" Men Their Women
Fletcher Christian Maimiti
Edward Young Taurua
Alexander Smith Balhadi
John Mills Prudence
William McCoy Mary
Matthew Quintal Sarah
John Williams Fasto (later Hutia)
Isaac Martin Susannah
William Brown Jenny

The Indian Men Their Women
Minarii Moetua
Tetahltl Nanai
Taram Hutia
Te Moa
Nihau Hu

The vowels in the Polynesian language are pronounced approximately as in Italian; generally speaking, syllables are given an equal stress. The native names in this book should be pronounced roughly as follows: -

Hu Hoo
Hutia Hoo-tee-ah
Maimiti My-mee-tee
Minarii Mee-nah-ree
Moetua Mo-ay-too-ah
Nanai Nah-nigh
Nihau Nee-how
Tararu Tah-rah-roo
Taurua Ta-oo-roo-ah
Te Moa Tay-moa
Tetahiti Tay-tah-hee-tee


CHAPTER I

ON a day late in December, in the year of 1789, while the earth turned steadily on its course, a moment came when the sunlight illuminated San Roque, easternmost cape of the three Americas. Moving swiftly westward, a thousand miles each hovir, the light swept over the jungle of the Amazon, and glittered along the icy summits of the Andes. Presently the level rays brought day to the Peruvian coast and moved on, across a vast stretch of lonely sea.

In all that desert of wrinkled blue there was no sail, nor any land till the light touched the windy downs of Easter Island, where the statues of Rapa Nui's old kings kept watch along the cliffs. An hour passed as the dawn sped westward another thousand miles, to a lone rock rising from the sea, tall, ridged, foam-fringed at its base, with innumerable sea fowl hovering along the cliffs. A boat's crew might have pulled around this fragment of land in two hours or less, but the fronds of scattered coconut palms rose above rich vegetation in the valleys and on the upper slopes, and at one place a slender cascade fell into the sea. Peace, beauty, and utter loneliness were here, in a little world set in the midst of the widest of oceans -- the peace of the deep sea, and of nature hidden from the world of men. The brown people who had once lived here were long since gone. Moss covered the rude paving of their temples, and the images of their gods, on the cliffs above, were roosting places for gannet and frigate bird.

The horizon to the east was cloudless, and, as the sun rose, flock after flock of birds swung away toward their fishing grounds offshore. The fledglings, in the dizzy nests where they had been hatched, settled themselves for the long hours of waiting, to doze, and twitch, and sprawl in the sun. The new day was like a million other mornings in the past, but away to the east and still below the horizon a vessel -- the only ship in all that vast region -- was approaching the land.

His Majesty's armed transport Bounty had set sail from Spithead, two years before, bound for Tahiti in the South Sea. Her errand was an unusual one: to procure on that remote island a thousand or more young plants of the breadfruit tree, and to convey them to the British plantations in the West Indies, where it was hoped that they might provide a supply of cheap food for the slaves. When her mission on Tahiti had been accomplished and she was westward bound, among the islands of the Tongan Group, Fletcher Christian, second-in-command of the vessel, raised the men in revolt against Captain William Bligh, whose conduct he considered cruel and insupportable. The mutiny was suddenly planned and carried swiftly into execution, on the morning of April 28, 1789. Captain Bligh was set adrift in the ship's launch, with eighteen loyal men, and the mutineers saw them no more. After a disastrous attempt to settle on the island of Tupuai, the Bounty returned to Tahiti, where some of the mutineers, as well as a number of innocent men who had been compelled to remain with the ship, were allowed to establish themselves on shore.