At New Zealand, in like manner, nothing was known of what they were doing. At St. John's College, Auckland, we quite accidentally fell in with two young well-grown men, who we were told were Pitcairn Islanders in the course of education for missionaries. There was in their faces a mild, half-melancholy expression; they spoke perfectly good English, but in the most ordinary conversation used Scriptural phraseology. It was known that when he began to instruct the younger members of the community Adams possessed
only a Bible and some religious books. Thus they not only were instructed in the Book of books, but even in ordinary life the biblical phraseology and peculiarity of expression still clung, even to the fourth generation.
During our visit to Tahiti we heard one day that the schooner Louisa, Captain Stewart, had just arrived from Pitcairn Island, whither he had transported a number of its former inhabitants from Norfolk Island. We resolved to get speech with this gentleman, in order that we might gather from his own lips the details of his voyage. It so chanced that he stayed in the house of an English settler, who had let to us a small palm-hut during our stay at Papeete. We very soon struck up an acquaintance. Captain Stewart, a genuine Englishman in appearance, character, and expression, explained to us in brief terms that he had at their own cost transported a number of the Pitcairners from Norfolk Isle to their old home, and, during the voyage, which lasted some weeks, had kept a pretty full journal. "But," continued the truth-loving captain, "I am not at present in a position to give you any circumstantial details respecting them. Business compels me to go over to the island of Eimeo, and by the time I return hither the Novara will be well on her way to Valparaiso. I am likewise bound, however, for the west coast of South America, in fact to Valparaiso, and shall probably arrive there a few weeks after you. I promise you, during my voyage thither, to jot down the most important data I can recall respecting these islanders, and they shall be placed at
your disposal immediately on my arrival in Valparaiso." We thanked Captain Stewart for his kindness, and we parted with a vigorous "shake hands" of genuine English cordiality.
The reader will see in the subsequent chapter how honourably the worthy skipper kept his word. Two months later, after we had sailed over 5220 nautical miles, we were handed the promised information; but to preserve uniformity we shall present the reader at once with this comprehensive sketch of the present state of Pitcairn and its amiable inhabitants, as furnishing the latest particulars of the islanders, which are now for the first time published in Europe.
"Captain Stewart had been in communication with the inhabitants of Pitcairn in November, 1858. Landing at Norfolk Island, in the course of a voyage in the South Sea, the community chartered his schooner to convey certain of their number back to Pitcairn Island. They declared they had only quitted Pitcairn in consequence of the glowing description given them of Norfolk Island. Instead of the promised superabundance, they could only by dint of severe labour provide themselves with the ordinary necessaries of life. Their staple of food was sweet potatoes and a small quantity of meat, in fact, a single bullock, which by permission of Government they slaughtered once a week, and the flesh of which served the entire community.
"Besides all this, the rudeness of the climate did not seem to suit them, and diseases seemed to become more and more frequent among them. In fact, it turned out that the natural
advantages of Norfolk Island had been persistently overrated by early visitors, the consequence being that the poor Pitcairners found themselves woefully disappointed in the expectations they had formed of their sojourn in this terrestrial paradise.
"The scenery of the island is everywhere lovely, and the peculiarity of its vegetation, especially when seen from seaward, exercises a kind of fascination over the beholder; but the ground, which is the most important consideration for the settler, who is bound to the soil, not by the sublime and beautiful, but by the useful, is very far from being fertile, and the sole descriptions of produce extensively raised are maize and sweet potato. Wheat and barley are so exposed to frost and mildew that only one crop out of several proves remunerative, and the potato makes so small a return, in consequence of the amount of seed and labour required, that it is only cultivated as a rarity. Even the commonest vegetables are scanty and of poor quality, and under these circumstances it is at least probable that the cultivation formerly carried on by the English convicts and criminals, in which the results would naturally exceed expectation, had led to the mistaken idea that Norfolk Island was fertile. It is about 9000 English acres (14 English square miles) of superficial area, of which about 1500 acres only are cleared, and but one half of that, or one-twelfth of the whole, suitable for cultivation.
"It is just possible to land on either the south or north sides, if the water be smooth; the little village is situated near