The abandoned captain and officers drifted for weeks through uncharted, shark-infested waters. They circumvented a dangerous coral shoal to land on what appeared to be a fertile uncharted island, only to be driven from there by the cannibalistic inhabitants. After a time their supplies ran short, and they subsisted on turtle, sun-dried fish—and saved the raindrops for water.
Bligh was stricken with a peculiar malady from the strain and exposure. His officers had to save his life because he alone knew how to navigate, and that little cutter had to make some port soon, or their goose was cooked. They didn’t dare land on any of the islands that weren’t charted because they might run into a nest of cannibals again.
Nowadays we have charts and surveys of the islands, but in 1789 a lot of these atolls were never heard of.
They had to get some fresh water and food for Bligh or he’d die on them, so one night the officers put into an atoll island and stole fresh fruits and coconuts to nourish him. Weeks drifted into months and at the end of five months they reached New Guinea, a distance of three thousand five hundred miles from where they were set adrift. From New Guinea they secured passage on a trading schooner to Australia. Lieutenant Bligh lost no time in informing His Majesty of their predicament. Some time later he was rewarded by being appointed Governor of New South Wales.
Indignant upon learning of the mutiny of his sailors, King George ordered H.M.S. Pandora sent to the scene of the rebellion.
In the meantime the Bounty was cruising around the South Seas looking for a place to land and at the same time avoid capture. Fourteen of the Bounty crew who had mutinied went ashore at Tahiti and took up native lives in preference to being “stretched by the neck” by His Majesty’s officers if they were caught. Besides, those fourteen men preferred a life among beautiful native girls to that of hard work on shipboard. They used poor judgment, however, for the officers of the Pandora found them and took them prisoners. They were chained like dogs to the stanchions of the ship, and put on rations of bread and water. The Pandora set sail for England where a death penalty would have been dealt to the mutineers, but she struck a submerged coral reef and became a total wreck. That reef is now known as Pandora Reef on the charts. While the Pandora was smashing to pieces on the sharp reef, the officers tried to get away, but they made no attempt to free the prisoners from their chains and they left them to a miserable slow death. They didn’t give them the fighting chance that the mutineers had given Bligh and his men.
Christian had sailed the Bounty to Ruratu. His men grew so restless and lonely, that he advised them each to take to himself a native wife. Fascinated by the white skin of the sailors, their peculiar clothing and strange language, the young native girls looked upon them as gods, and showered gifts of fruit and flowers upon them. Mr. Christian, acting in the capacity of minister, conducted the ceremony, and each man became a husband to a native girl.
The Chief of Ruratu had a daughter Loa-Lea of unusual beauty who offered herself to Christian. This so angered the old Chief that he was planning to exterminate every white man of the crew, along with their native wives who had set a bad example for his Loa-Lea. His plans were frustrated in their inception because Loa-Lea loved the Lily-Man, or “he of the white skin” as she termed Christian, because he treated her with such kindness—such respect. To be treated with deference was a new experience to her, for native women have little or no importance in a tribe other than as creatures of convenience and producers of sons.
Loa-Lea brought news of her father’s plan to exterminate them to her “lily-man,” and Christian secretly departed in the night with all his men, their native wives and Loa-Lea, whom he married.
Christian had heard that the seas were being combed for them, and so he sailed far to the westward to escape His Majesty’s forces. Just as our ship was heading now, the Bounty was heading. Fifteen hundred miles south of the Equator and about the same distance west of the coast of South America, they came upon an uninhabited island.