Читать книгу Mutiny on the Bounty. Historical Novel онлайн

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Since that morning, so many years ago, I have sailed all the seas of the world and visited most of the islands in them, including the West Indies, and the Asiatic Archipelago. But of all the islands I have seen, none approaches Tahiti in loveliness.

As we drew nearer to the land, with the rising sun behind us, there was not a man on board the Bounty who did not gaze ahead with emotions that differed in each case, no doubt, but in which awe and wonder played a part. But I am wrong—there was one. Toward six bells, when we were only a few miles off the southern extremity of the island, Old Bacchus came stumping on deck. Standing by the mizzenmast, with a hand on a swivel-stock, he stared indifferently for a moment at the wooded precipices, the waterfalls and sharp green peaks, now abeam of the ship. Then he shrugged his shoulders.

“They’re all the same,” he remarked indifferently. “When you’ve seen one island in the tropics, you’ve seen the lot.”

The surgeon went stumping to the ladderway, and, as he disappeared, Mr. Nelson ceased his pacing of the deck to stand at my side. The botanist was a believer in exercise and kept his muscles hard and his colour fresh by walking two or three miles on deck each morning the weather permitted.