Coral Island. Page 92.
Thus each one does its appointed work, laying unseen the foundations of a new land, for the coral growth is still spreading and rising higher and higher, till at length the waves begin to feel its resistance, and to break in white foam around its crests.
Its history, when it has once risen above the reach of the tides, is like that of the volcanic islands. The insects die, and the bare grey rock is left, that God’s servants, the waves and winds, may fulfil His will, until in His own good time the coral island becomes lovely and fertile, fit for the dwelling-place of those who should be God’s best servants—the men whom He has made for His glory, and for whose redemption His Son came down to die. It is sad to think how often man, to whom God has given the most, is the least ready to use these gifts for his Maker’s glory, so that instead of these lovely islands being always full of His praise, they are often homes of sin and of unhappiness, as indeed it was at first with Pitcairn, the history of which we now give.
Far away from any other land, in the midst of the South Pacific Ocean, there is a little island, a mere speck in the sea, for it is not six miles across at its widest point. A passing ship might leave this tiny island unnoticed, save for the lofty cliffs and precipices which guard its shores, running down to the white waves, ever curling and breaking at their feet. Yet it was not a mere rock, inaccessible and barren; for when once a boat has safely won its way through the breakers, and the sailor has climbed the rocks which, steep above steep, stand like a wall before him, he is rewarded by the sight of lovely valleys, of forests of fruit-bearing palms, and of green, fresh-springing plants: a little fairy land, a new paradise seems hidden here from the eye and the foot of man.
It is called Pitcairn’s Island, and was discovered more than a hundred years ago by a passing ship. It was uninhabited, and no one set foot on it again, till in 1789 a small ship might have been seen approaching its shores, as if she would seek an anchorage in that dangerous, rocky bay.
The ship is called the Bounty, and carries for her crew nine English seamen, and some colored men and women, natives of Tahiti, an island at which the Bounty had been recently anchored.
There is no captain on board, though the first mate, Fletcher Christian, seems to take his place and to direct the course of the ship; but his words are few, and his face is sad, as if some past trouble or sin weighed on his heart, and, when he is not obliged to be active, he sits gazing listlessly over the water, looking for he knows not what.
It would be a long and sad story to tell how that ship came to be thus cruising in the wide Pacific. Months before, Fletcher Christian and some of the sailors of the Bounty had mutinied; had put their captain, who by his harsh and unjust treatment had provoked their anger, into the ship’s launch with eighteen of the crew, leaving them thus to reach home or to die on the ocean.