Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 86.djvu/126

122 the inquisition. It was the tropic heat, the infection of the mosquito-haunted swamp, and the demoralizing contact with tropical populations that conquered Spain, not the fleets of the English, for it was years after the tragedy of her great AramadaArmada [sic] that Spain's greatest things in art and literature appeared.

Indeed, England herself narrowly escaped the same fate which would have been hers also had she succeeded in supplanting the Spaniard on the mainland of tropical America. Unable to accomplish this, she was perforce obliged to colonize in the neglected north, and the bleak shores that gave her first adventurers so inhospitable a welcome in time became centers of civilization, advancing her culture and her empire over the sea.

Cook returned to Tahiti in 1773 and again for the last time in 1777, and then for eleven years the Island saw no European vessels until October, 1788, when the cry "Ephai! ephai!!" (A ship, a ship!!) echoed along the rocky shores. It was the Bounty under Lieutenant William Bligh, R.N., and her mission was to gather young bread-fruit trees in order to introduce this coveted plant into the British West Indies.

Bligh, although a brave and efficient navigator, made himself odious to both his officers and his men, his conduct being that of an irritable, selfish, suspicious tyrant, and much as his men feared him, they hated him even more.

Yet for nearly six months, during which the ship lay moored in Matavai Bay, there was solace for her crew in the wanton pleasures of the tropic isle, and when on the 4th of April, 1789, the anchor rose for the Bounty's last farewell, many a heart was aching under the sailor's blouse and many a dark-eyed maiden watched weeping from the shore.

If Bligh's ugly temper had been trying in the past, it became even more annoying after he left Tahiti. On the 27th of April when off the Tongan Islands, he burst forth into a tirade of abuse, unjustly accusing his officers, and especially his first mate, Mr. Christian, of petty thefts of food.

Throughout the night the Bounty lay upon a calm and glassy sea, her sails flapping to the long, low, ceaseless heave of the Pacific, and young Christian, burning under his wrongs, paced hotly on his watch while the ship and all on board lay sleeping.

In the gray of the listless morning before the glaring eastern sun had shown upon the sea, his resolve was taken and the die of Britain's most noted mutiny was cast. Hastening to the forecastle his word was as a spark to gunpowder to the repressed spirits of the crew. Amid deep muttered cursings, the gun chest was torn apart, and Bligh awakened to be led upon deck, his hands tied behind his back. The ship was in dire disorder with mutineer sentinels standing before the cabin doors