ing experiments on the _ti_
root, succeeded in extracting from it an intoxicating liquor.

After this Quintal also gave his whole time to making the spirit, and in
consequence the two men were constantly drunk, and in one of his fits of
delirium M'Koy threw himself from a cliff, and was instantly killed.
Quintal became more and more unmanageable, and frequently threatened
to destroy Adams and Young--who, knowing that he would carry out his
threat, determined to kill him. This they did by felling him with an axe
as they would an ox.

Thus it was that at last only two men were left on the island, Adams and
Young. The latter, who was of a quiet and studious nature, resolved to
have prayers every morning and evening, and regular services on Sunday,
and to teach the children, of whom there were nineteen, several of them
then being between the ages of seven and nine years. Young, however, did
not live long, but died of asthma about a year after the murder of
Quintal.

[Illustration: Old John Adams teaches the children]

In their beautiful island of the sea, where the lordly banyans grow, and
where the feathery cocoanut palms stand boldly along the cliffs, or here
and there fringe the rocky beach--for in this temperate climate just
without the tropics there are but few trees and vegetables that will not
grow--there, unknown for many years to the world, and far away from its
busy jar and fret, the simple and kindly natures that these children of
Pitcairn Island must have inherited from their Otaheitan mothers were
trained to an almost perfect sense of duty and piety by old John Adams.

With a Bible and Prayer-book to aid him he persevered with his
self-imposed task. It was a task that must often have cost him much
labour and patient study, for though he could read he was not able to
write until he was a very old man.

Though in the eyes of the law his crime can never be wiped out, in the
eyes of humanity, his sincere repentance and long and tender devotion to
his charge--a charge that ended only on the day of his death--will for
ever render the last of the mutineers a character to be remembered with
admiration and respect.

_A RELATION OF THREE YEARS' SUFFERING OF ROBERT EVERARD UPON THE ISLAND
OF ASSADA, NEAR MADAGASCAR, IN A VOYAGE TO INDIA, IN THE YEAR 1686_[35]

WHEN I was a boy, my father, Mr. William Everard, apprenticed me to the
captain of a ship bound for Bombay in India, and thence to Madagascar,
for