this point any systematic search either for the tender or the mutineers
seems to have been abandoned.

Edwards had now been nine months at sea, and the prospect of the long
homeward voyage round the Cape was still before him. With every league he
had sailed westward the scent had grown fainter, and he was about to pass
the spot from which the mutineers were known to have sailed in the
opposite direction. His course is not easy to explain. To reason that the
tender had fallen to leeward of her rendezvous, and had been compelled to
seek shelter and provisions at one of the islands discovered by Bligh
only two days' sail to the westward, required no high degree of
foresight; and yet Edwards, who must have known the position of the Fiji
islands from Bligh's narrative, deliberately set his course for
Niuatobutabu, two days' sail to the north-west. But, falling to leeward
of it, he made Niuafo'ou, the curious volcanic island discovered by
Schouten in 1616, and never since visited. The prevailing wind making a
visit to Niuatobutabu now impossible, he visited Wallis Island, and then
bore away to the west.

On August 8th, 1791, he made the discovery of Rotuma, whose enterprising
people now furnish the Torres Straits pearl fishery with its best divers.
It is difficult to forgive him for leaving so meagre an account of this
interesting little community of mixed Polynesian and Micronesian blood.
Edwards was probably mistaken in thinking their intentions hostile. Kau
Moala, a Tongan who visited them in 1807, and related his experiences to
Mariner, describes them as always friendly to strangers. Probably they
took the _Pandora_ for a god-ship, and since the Immortals of their
Pantheon are generally malevolent, they left their women behind, and
flourished weapons to scare the gods into good behaviour. In 1807 they
had forgotten the visit, perhaps because it had brought them no calamity
to inspire the native poets. Hamilton relates an incident quite in
keeping with the character of this determined and sturdy little people.
"One fellow was making off with some booty, but was detected; and
although five of the stoutest men in the ship were hanging upon him, and
had fast hold of his long flowing black hair, he overpowered them all,
and jumped overboard with his prize."

The ill fortune that pursued Edwards, that had baulked him of Pitcairn
when it lay within a few hours' sail, that had cheated him at once of the
recovery of his tender