Captain Pipon takes a more extended view, in his private letter,[37] of the condition of this little society. He observes, that when they first saw the island, the latitude, made by the _Tagus_, was 24° 40' S. and longitude 130° 24' W., the ships being then distant from it five or six leagues; and, as in none of the charts in their possession was any land laid down in or near this meridian, they were extremely puzzled to make out what island it could possibly be; for Pitcairn's Island, being the only one known in the neighbourhood, was represented to be in longitude 133° 24' W.[38] If this new discovery as they supposed it to be, awakened their curiosity, it was still more excited when they ran in for the land the next morning, on perceiving a few huts, neatly built, amidst plantations laid out apparently with something like order and regularity; and these appearances confirmed them more than ever that it could not be Pitcairn's Island, because that was described by navigators to be uninhabited. Presently they observed a few natives coming down a steep descent with their canoes on their shoulders; and in a few minutes perceived one of those little vessels darting through a heavy surf, and paddling off towards the ships; but their astonishment was extreme when, on coming alongside, they were hailed in the English language with 'Won't you heave us a rope now?' The first young man that sprang, with extraordinary alacrity, up the side, and stood before them on the deck, said, in reply to the question, 'Who are you?'--that his name was Thursday October Christian, son of the late Fletcher Christian, by an Otaheitan mother; that he was the first born on the island, and that he was so called because he was brought into the world on a Thursday in October. Singularly strange as all this was to Sir Thomas Staines and Captain Pipon, this youth soon satisfied them that he was no other than the person he represented himself to be, and that he was fully acquainted with the whole history of the _Bounty_; and, in short, that the island before them was the retreat of the mutineers of that ship. Young Christian was, at this time, about twenty-four years of age, a fine tall youth, full six feet high, with dark, almost black, hair, and a countenance open and extremely interesting. As he wore no clothes except a piece of cloth round his loins, and a straw hat, ornamented with black cocks'-feathers, his fine figure and well-shaped muscular limbs were displayed to great advantage, and attracted general admiration. His body was much tanned by exposure to the weather, and his countenance had a brownish cast, unmixed however with that tinge of red so common among the natives of the Pacific islands.