t by the
refusal of the natives, who were anxious to keep them in Tahiti, to
victual the ship for so long a voyage. There were no casks on the
schooner for storing water. Morrison, Heywood and Stewart had planned an
escape from Tubuai in the _Bounty's_ boat, but, fortunately for
them--since the attempt would have been certain death--their plan was
discovered and frustrated by the other mutineers.

[38-1] Oliver, master's mate; Renouard, midshipman; James Dodds,
quartermaster; and six seamen.

[40-1] Oatafu, one of the Union Group, discovered by Commodore Byron in
1765. If the mutineers had settled there they would have starved, for
there is neither food nor water. Since Byron's discovery a native
settlement has been made from Bowditch Island (Fakaago), and the people,
about 100 in number, live on fish, pandanus, and water caught in holes
cut on the lee side of the cocoa-palms.

[40-2] The northernmost island of the Cook Group, discovered by Bligh,
April 11, 1798, a few days before the mutiny. In 1823 John Williams, the
missionary, heard at Rarotonga a native tradition of Bligh's visit. The
natives heard the first rumours of a world beyond their own from two
Tahitian castaways who had seen Captain Cook, and had with them an iron
hatchet obtained from the _Resolution_. They represented the strange
beings who traversed the ocean in vast canoes, not lashed with sinnet nor
furnished with outriggers, as impious people who laughed at the tabu, and
even ate of the consecrated food from the Maraes. They were like the
gods; if they were attacked they blew at their assailants with long
blow-pipes (pupuhi) from which flames and stones were belched. Such were
the Tute (Cooks). Thereafter, having need of iron (kurima) and other
wonders current in Tahiti the men of Aitutaki prayed to their gods to
send the Tute to their island with axes and nails and _pupuhi_, and this,
according to an old priest, was their prayer. "O great Tangaroa, send
your large ship to our land: let us see the Cookees. Great Tangiia, send
us a dead sea, send us a propitious gale, to bring the far-famed Cookees
to our land, to give us nails and iron and axes; let us see these
outriggerless canoes." And with the feast presented with the prayer were
promises of greater feasts so soon as their prayer was answered. The gods
heard them. A few months later the Cookees came. The great ship did not
anchor, but one of the natives took his courage in both hands, and went