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We buried him on Point Venus, close to where Captain Cook had set up his observatory twenty years before. There was some delay in getting the consent of Teina, the great chief whom the English had believed to be king of Tahiti, and who was the first of the Pomares. At last all was arranged, and the Indians themselves dug the grave, laying it out very exactly east and west. It was not until four o’clock in the afternoon that Old Bacchus was laid to rest, Bligh reading the burial service and a great crowd of Indians—silent, attentive, and respectful—surrounding us. When the captain and the Bounty’s people had gone on board to see to the auctioning of the dead man’s effects, Nelson and Peckover remained on shore, the former still pale and shaken from fish poisoning. The Indians had dispersed, and only the three of us lingered by the new grave, covered with slabs of coral in the Indian style.

Nelson cleared his throat and drew from a bag he carried three glasses and a bottle of Spanish wine. “We were his best friends on board,” he said to Peckover, “you and Byam and I. I think it would please him if we added one small ceremony to the burial service Captain Bligh read so well.” The botanist cleared his throat once more, handed us the glasses, and uncorked his bottle of wine. Then, baring our heads, we drank in silence to Old Bacchus, and when the bottle was empty we broke our glasses on the grave.