Читать книгу Mutiny on the Bounty. Historical Novel онлайн

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Nelson was pointing ahead to a break in the line of reef. “Captain Cook nearly lost his ship yonder,” he said, “when the current set him on the reef during a calm. One of his anchors lies there to this day—there where the sea breaks high. I know this part of the island well. As you can see, Tahiti is made up of two lands, connected by the low isthmus the Indians call Taravao. This before us is the lesser, called Taiarapu or Tahiti Iti; the great island yonder they call Tahiti Nui. Vehiatua is the king of the smaller one—the most powerful of the Indian princes. His realm is richer and more populous than those of his rivals.”

All through the afternoon we skirted the land, passing the low isthmus between the two islands, coasting the rich verdant districts of Faaone and Hitiaa, and toward evening, as the light breeze died away, moving slowly along the rock-bound coast of Tiarei, where the reef ends and the sea thunders at the base of cliffs.

There was little sleeping aboard the Bounty that night. The ship lay becalmed about a league off the mouth of the great valley of Papenoo, and the faint land breeze, wandering down from the heights of the interior, and out to sea, brought with it the sweet smell of the land and of growing things. We sniffed it eagerly, our noses grown keen from the long months at sea, detecting the scent of strange flowers, of wood smoke, and of Mother Earth herself—sweetest of all smells to a sailor. The sufferers from scurvy, breathing deep of the land breeze, seemed to draw in new life; their apathy and silence left them as they spoke eagerly of the fruits they hoped to eat on the morrow, fruits they craved as a man dying of thirst craves water.