The breadfruit, too, yielded to the general decline, and splendid trees that once bent beneath their wealth of fruit, began to decay, and failed gradually to produce fruit, until they ceased almost entirely. Other fruit trees were more fortunate and did not suffer as much as the food-producing plants. Around the entire island, along the _edge_, or precipice, where once had flourished a thick growth of stunted, hardy trees, could now be seen bare, barren soil, free to be washed away by heavy rains. During this period, when the island was undergoing such a change, it was subject to frequent seasons of drought. The water supply daily diminished, and the springs that in former years had been ceaselessly flowing now dried up, with but two exceptions. Such was the condition of Pitcairn Island when the request from Norfolk Island that the community might remove thither was sent. But the conditional proposition was not accepted, and it was never again renewed. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER XVIII. WRECK of the CORNWALLIS THE CLOSING months of 1873, and almost the entire year of 1874, was the period when, more than any other, the island suffered from the effects of drought. As ships, the only means of communication possible with the outside world, very seldom called at the island during the years that followed the arrival of both parties from Norfolk Island, the inhabitants seemed to occupy a little world entirely by themselves, and might have remained in their remote isolation for an indefinite time were it not that an unlooked-for event happened, which led to the little island’s receiving much attention from many who until now had never known of its existence, and to the reviving again of the interest shown by those who in former years proved themselves true friends. Toward the close of January, 1875, the Liverpool ship _Cornwallis_, of the firm of Balfour, Williamson & Co., homeward bound from San Francisco, came in sight. The captain in his boyhood had read the story of the mutineers of the _Bounty_ and their subsequent settlement of the isolated rock, and decided that he would make a call at the place where, just eighty-five years before, Christian and his guilty party had landed. Taking with him his apprentices, they left the ship in charge of the first officer, and came ashore in their own boat, accompanied by some of the island men who had gone off to the ship.