Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1881-10-26
MuTIaRRRB,
MANNER or LIVING ON AN IeLAsD,

wish William Black could have seen
iiOsalind Young, who supplied the inter
esiing article on tho Pitcairn Island,
recently published, ~ I saw her four
years ago, A tall. straight, black
haired, brOwn'eyei, brown skinned
Young woman, with hare head and bare
feet aud ankles, standing on the beach
Of her native island waiting for our boat
TO make u landing In The surf, Her
long hair was tossed and tangled by the
wind, which swept her light calico skirt
lightly against her 1.-THE, graceful form,
! knew Just ~ much abOnt her history
~ anyone else, and that, thought, was
all there was to know, She was the
descendant of an English sailor one Of
the mutineera Of tho ship Bounty, and
his Oiaheitean wife, Sho was 20 years
old, and hal lived all Of her life on Pit
cairn Island, excepting the two years
passed on Norfolk Island, 10 which all
Of the Pitcairn Islanders had emigated
when she was baby, This was about
all that history told Of her. and her
strange people, hut knew more, the
captain Of our ship had visited the island
once, and told mo that this llosalind
Young was very clever was teacher OF
music aud the ordinary grammar school
branches to the island children that
she had never seen q white young lady;
had only such ideas Of the world outside
Of her little South Pacific island IN she
could gather from the miscellaneous
collection OF books, papers and maga'
zines lot ut long intervals by passing
ships, Surely, then, thought ] knew
all that could DO OF any interest In the
history Of such an unoyentiul life, But
when our boat neared tho surf and | saw
tho strange girl standing there and look
ing at me with perfectly honest wonder.
! began to think OF her in very differ.
cnt way. Her situation was 40 unlike
anything else in the world that there
was nothing offered TO my mind giving
n hint how to greet her or how to con.
slider her. II she had only been semi.
barbarian, ! thought for the moment
that sho would have been more interest
ing. But she was .devout Christian,
and intelligent at that, knowing ever 10
much more about the Bible than did,
lut she had never seen regularly.or.
dained minister, was utterly unacquaint.
cd with missionary work, and had no
conception OF what church society
was. Looking across the line Of white
surf that separated us, saw her stand
ing like statue on washed rock,
holding her tangled hair back from her
eyes with bronzed hand, her bare feet
half buried in the seamoss that covered
the rock. / saw, too, that she was be.
ginningto look just little shy, and my
feminine intuition told mo that she was
for the first time beginning to realize
the difference between her and the rest
of civilized womanhood in the matter OF
dress.
Just as our boat touched the beach
and n stalwart islander had lifted me in
his arms beyond the line of wet sand,
Rosalind stepped behind some of the
older women with exactly the same ex'
preston of doubling wonder young
child will suddenly turl from the re-
proach Of n man whose friendly ap-
lations are not quite understood. She
greeted me, and from that moment
talked freely and unaffectedly with me.
/ had intended to ask her II thousand
questions that had occurred to me while
l watched her across the surf. Did she
want to see the world Had she any
longings for the joys of shopping? Il
thought to establish by this last quest
ion the fact that the desire for shopping
was Il natural and not a cultivated one);
had she formed any idea, independent
of her reading, of what people in the
great cities are like? Bat somehow
there was an air about her that repelled
any thought of such questions. soon
began to realize that here was woman
of education and refinement, who had
only such notions of the world as chill
dren have of the fairy-land-a place in
whose existence they firmly believe,
but never expect to see (; the wonders of
which possess only such abstract inter-
est as lies in the fact that they furnish
material for beautiful and strange stor-
les.
She was busy, happy and contented in
the little dot of surf.fringed land Of
which, by the way, she was very proud,
and lovingly spoke of as "our beautiful
island home" The last thought with
her, as indeed with all the islanders, is
the strangeness of their life and situ-
alton. The third, fourth and fifth gen.
erations removed from the mutineers
and their island wives, who settled upon
Pitcairn nearly 100 years ago, are now
living upon the island.
The elders follow the example of the
original Young and Adams, but endeav-
or to preserve no traditions of the trag
ic early history of the island but teach
instead strict moral precepts, the SER
vices of the Church of England, and
habits of frugality and industry. A
hundred years of this has left the minds
of the generation to which Rcsalind be-
longs clear of even inherited ideas of
the world outside, and imbued them
with thorough, unquestioning content
ment with the life they find about them.
The quaint mannerisms of speech and
droll Ito us) line of topics chosen for
conversation by Rosalind are fairly rep
resented in the article she furnished. 1t
was because she did not know in what
light she would appear most interesting,
that she considered her position natur-
al one, and had no idea that any of her
personal thoughts and impressions and
the manner of life on the island would
be most interesting that she prefers to
talk about the births, marriages and
deaths, the condition of crops and the
prospects of another vessel stopping at
the island. Those are the subjects that
most interest them, and ingenuously
they think will most interest others. I
stayed only few hours on the island,
and in that time learned the family his,
tory of nearly the entire population.
numbering about eighty.-Er.