FACTS, HINTS, AND GEMS.

THE CHILDREN'S CORNER.

The Children's Corner.

ABOUT MISSIONARIES.

Boys and girls should learn to love and help in the good work of missions to the heathen, and then when they become men and women, they will love and support it more and more.

Why should we love and support it? Because it is the greatest work and the best work in the world. Inventing machinery-making railroads -and a thousand other things

are all very good in their places, but they are not worth naming when compared with going to teach the poor dark barbarous heathen the knowledge of the great God, and the love of Jesus Christ whom he has

sent to save us.

See the missionary leaving England and all his friends and comforts. He goes to the naked African roaming over his hills and valleys like the wild beasts around him. He collects a few of these scattered savages. He tells them wonderful things! They knew not God-had not heard of his word-never kept a sabbath-never saw a book-knew nothing of the world in which they lived-and as they were, their fathers had been for ages. See them again-taught by the missionary, they have built houses, and they have clothing, and books, and schools; and they meet on the sabbath for worship and prayer! Is not this a great work, then, to turn the savage into a man, the barbarian into a christian! The missionaries are doing this great work. Help them. You may belp them. Children may help them. Hundreds of pounds are given every year by childrengiven in farthings, halfpennies, and pennies, perhaps, but they soon make pounds-hundreds of pounds. Little reader, do what you can, all you can

PRAYER FOR THE HEATHEN.

O'ER the realms of pagan darkness | May the heathen, now adoring
Let the eye of pity gaze;
See the kindreds of the people
Lost in sin's bewildering maze:
Darkness brooding

Idol gods of wood and stone,
Come, and, worshipping before him,
Serve the living God alone:

O'er the face of all the earth.

Light of them that sit in darkness,
Rise and shine; thy blessings
bring:

Light to lighten all the Gentiles;
Rise with healing in thy wing:
To thy brightness

Let all kings and nations come.

Let thy glory

Fill the earth as floods the sea.

Thou, to whom all power is given,
Speak the word; at thy command
Let the company of heralds

Spread thy name from land to
land:

Lord be with them,
Alway, to the end of time.

AND THE

PITCAIRN'S ISLAND,

MUTINEERS OF THE BOUNTY.

If we look on a map of the world, and closely examine it, we shall observe in the vast Pacific Ocean a number of litte spots at varicus distances from each other. These indicate islands; and one of the smallest is that of Pitcairn. It is a mere rock, scarcely so large as Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens; and we may well wonder how it is capable of resisting the mighty waves of so large a sea. Easily, indeed, would a ship, not knowing its exact position, miss it. Though insignificant in point of size, however, there are few spots whose associations are more interesting; and we shall detail as many particulars of these as we have space for.

In the year 1787 his Majesty's ship, the Bounty, was fitted out by the English government, the command being given to Lieutenant Bligh, to proceed to the South Sea Islands for plants of the bread-fruit tree, with a view to their transference and culture in the West Indies, to serve for food for the slaves in those colonies. The voyage was attended with many difficulties and dangers; but, at length, having made good the passage round the Cape of Good Hope, and visited Van Dieman's Land and New Zealand, the ship arrived safely at Otaheite, anchoring in Matavai Bay on the 26th of October, 1788.

The voyagers were received with kindness by the natives, who asked after Captain Cook, Sir Joseph Banks, and others who had visited them some years before. After passing about six pleasant months on the island, and having collected the plants, the Bounty put to see again in April, 1789. The ship next arrived off Tofoa Bay, and here a dreadful mutiny broke out among some of the ship's officers and men, with Fletcher Christian, the master's mate, at their head.

It is very difficult at this distance of time to judge of the real motives which actuated these men in their evil designs. Whether the tyranny of Bligh originated the disaffection, or whether the crew, thinking they were beyond the danger of discovery and punishment, were disposed to seize the opportunity of becoming their own masters, can only be conjectured. Bligh affirms that the disaffected wished to return to Otaheite, and again lead the agreeable kind of life they had passed on that island; while the mutineers allege ill-usage. The writer has it from one who afterwards sailed under him, that Bligh

No. 97.

73

PITCAIRN'S ISLAND,

was a severe officer, and possessed of very high notions of discipline.

Having rapidly arranged their plan, the mutineers, early on the 29th of April, got at the arms, under pretence of requiring a gun to shoot a shark which was astern of the ship. At the dawn of day they roughly awoke Bligh, who, starting up in amazement on seeing men about him armed with cutlasses and pistols, called out lustily for assistance. On his demanding what they meant, "Hold your tongue, sir, or you are a dead man this instant," was the answer which he received. The mutineers now, with oaths and violence, tied his hands behind his back, not giving him time to dress, and forcing him to the deck in his shirt, kept him under guard behind the mizenmast. The boatswain and others having been compelled to hoist out the launch, Bligh and eighteen men were forced to go into her, and were quickly towed astern of the ship by a rope.

This party of men thus cast adrift on the wide ocean in an open boat-though supplied with a few provisions—were soon in a most miserable situation. Their sufferings have formed the subject of volumes; and we must, from want of space, dismiss this part of the subject with the observation, that, by a merciful Providence, Bligh and eleven men out of the eighteen arrived at Portsmouth in March, 1790, having survived the most incredible hardships that the annals of voyages furnish.

Nothing more was heard of Fletcher Christian and his party until twenty years afterwards, when Sir Sidney Smith, then commander of the Brazil station, informed the Admiralty that the ship Topaz, of Boston, United States, on landing at Pitcairn's Island had found an Englishman named Alexander Smith, the only person remaining of nine that had found their way thither in the Bounty. Smith, otherwise John Adams, related that after having put Bligh into the boat, Christian, with the other mutineers, had gone to Otaheite; that each had taken an Otaheitan wife, and then proceeded to Pitcairn, where they made good a landing, and had afterwards broken up the Bounty.

No further notice was taken of the island or its inhabitants, however, till 1814, when his Majesty's ships Briton and Tagus, being in search of an American ship of war which had been seizing some of our whaling vessels, arrived at Pitcairn. As. the real position of the island was ascertained to be far distant from that in which it had been laid down in the charts, the commanders of the ships, Sir G. Staines and Captain Pipon, seem

AND THE MUTINEERS OF THE BOUNTY.

to have still considered it as uninhabited, and they were not a little surprised on approaching its shores to behold plantations regularly laid out, and huts, or houses, nearly constructed. When about two miles from the landing-place, some natives were observed bringing down their canoes on their shoulders, dashing through a heavy surf, and paddling off to the ships; but the astonishment of the sailors was unbounded when they heard the natives, on approaching the ships, call out in the English language," Won't you heave us a rope, now?"

The first man who got on board, however, soon proved who they were. His name, he said, was Thursday October Christian (he was born on a Thursday in October), the son of Fletcher Christian, the chief of the mutineers. He was then about twenty-five years of age, a fine young man about six feet high, his hair deep black, and his countenance open and interesting. His only dress was a piece of cloth round his loins, and a straw hat ornamented with the black feathers of the domestic fowl. "With a great share of good humour," says Captain Pipon, "we were glad to trace in his benevolent countenance all the features of an honest English face. I must confess," he continues, "I could not survey this interesting person without feelings of tenderness and compassion." He was accompanied by a youth named George Young.

If the astonishment of the captains was great on hearing themselves saluted in English, their surprise and interest was not a little increased on Sir Thomas Staines taking the youths below, and setting before them something to eat, when one of them, placing his hands together in a posture of devotion, distinctly repeated, "For what we are going to receive, the Lord make us truly thankful." Indeed, religion and its observances were strictly regarded by the whole island. A Bible--and only one-had been saved from the Bounty; and this was treasured among the descendants of the mutineers as a most sacred trust.

The two captains afterwards went ashore, and were met in a most cordial manner by the settlers, among whom was John Adams, one of the surviving mutineers. Being once assured that the visit was of a peaceful nature, it is impossible to describe the joy these poor people manifested on seeing those whom they were pleased to consider their countrymen. Yams, cocoa-nuts, and other fruits, with fine fresh eggs, were laid before them; and John Adams, who was the patriarch of the island, would have killed and dressed a hog for his visitors, but the time would not allow them to partake of the intended feast.