f, for it was an immensely
profitable business, and he could, if he wished, sell the oil to the
American ships instead of taking it to Port Jackson. The natives here in
those days were a very wild set, but they really had a great friendship
and respect for my husband; and when they learnt that he intended to
settle among them permanently they were delighted beyond measure. They
at once set to work and built us a house, and the chief and my husband
exchanged names in the usual manner.

"My first child was born on the island whilst my husband was away on a
voyage to Port Jackson, and, indeed, of my four children three were born
here. When Robert returned in the _Taunton_ he brought with him a cargo
of European stores and comforts for our new home, and in a few months
we were fairly settled down. From the first American whaleships that
visited us he bought two fine whaleboats and all the necessary gear,
and then later on engaged one of the best whalemen in the South Seas to
superintend the business. In the first season we killed no less than six
sperm whales, and could have taken more, but were short of barrels. The
whaling station was at the end of the south point of the harbour, and
when a whale was towed in to be cut in and tried out the place presented
a scene of great activity and bustle, for we had quite two hundred
natives to help. Alas, there is scarcely a trace of it left now! The
great iron try-pots, built up in furnaces of coral lime, were overgrown
by the green jungle thirty years ago, and it would be difficult even to
find them now.

"The natives, as I have said, were very wild, savage, and warlike; but
as time went on their friendship for my husband and myself and children
deepened, and so when Robert made a voyage to Port Jackson or to any of
the surrounding islands I never felt in the least alarmed. I must tell
you that we--my husband and myself--were actually the first white people
that had landed to live on the island since the time of the _Bounty_
mutiny, when Fletcher Christian and his fellow mutineers tried to settle
here. They brought the _Bounty_ in, and anchored her just where your own
schooner is now lying--opposite Randle's house. But the natives attacked
Christian and his men so fiercely, and so repeatedly, though with
terrible loss to themselves, that at last Christian and Edward Young
abandoned the attempt to found a settlement, and the _Bounty_ went
back to Tahiti, and finally to Afita, as th