We left the Okhotsk in September, with twelve hundred and fifty barrels of whale oil and thirteen thousand pounds of bone, besides the sperm we had taken. When it was learned that we were bound home and, presumably, were not to call anywhere, there was discontent and grumbling among the men. The captain was condemned for two reasons. We needed a supply of vegetables and meat, and the men were now so weary of the sea that they wanted shore leave once more. Fancy, then, our satisfaction when word was passed round that the captain proposed to call at Pitcairn Island and remain there for several days. This meant that we would take on board fruit, vegetables, goats, fowl and so forth. When I was a little boy, my father told me all about the mutineers of the _Bounty_, and their residence on Pitcairn Island for nearly twenty years without the world knowing anything about them or they knowing anything about the world. Later I read the story of Fletcher Christian and his companions, and, in my last year in High School, and not long before shipping on the _Seabird_, I wrote a composition on the subject, which I now offer as a schoolboy’s narrative: - - - - - - - - - - - - - - In the latter part of the eighteenth century, a vessel, named the _Bounty_, was sent out from England to Tahiti to obtain young breadfruit plants and carry them to the West Indies. It was thought that their cultivation would produce an excellent article of food for the negroes on the plantations. Of this vessel William Bligh was captain and Fletcher Christian was mate. The voyage was not a pleasant one, and there was great discontent because of the poor food and the cruelty of the captain. The vessel arrived at Tahiti in October, 1788, and remained there several months, while officers and crew were engaged in gathering breadfruit plants and stowing them away on the vessel. On April 4, the vessel set sail. There was no abatement of Bligh’s tyranny, his treatment of Christian being particularly harsh and abusive. The accusations of falsehood and theft, and the recollection of the indignities he had been compelled to bear with patience and forbearance during the voyage forced Christian to mutiny, as he knew that it would be fruitless, as a junior officer, to bring his superior to a court martial. Bligh and eighteen others were put in a boat and cut adrift. A landing was effected by them at an island about thirty miles distant, where one of their number was killed by the natives. Thence they set out on the open sea and, after a voyage of over thirty-six hundred miles, and encountering all kinds of weather, and enduring great sufferings from hunger and thirst, they reached a Dutch settlement on the island of Timor. They eventually reached England.