Page:Paine--Lost ships and lonely seas.djvu/211

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FOUR THOUSAND MILES
175

alive and ready to be patched up and set on his feet again.

Bligh had no idea where the Dutch settlements were, so he held on along the coast, past very lovely landscapes of mountain, woodland, and park-like spaces. Coming to a large bay, he tacked in and saw a little village of thatched huts. Natives paddled out to meet the boat and told the party where to find the Dutch governor of Timor. In the next harbor they discovered two square-rigged vessels, so they hoisted the union jack as a distress-signal, and anchored off the fort and town of Coupang. This was the end of their troubles. Bligh bought a small schooner from the courteous Dutch governor, and so carried his men to Samarang, where they found passage to Batavia, and were sent home in a Dutch East Indiaman.

It was Conmiander Bligh himself who took to England the first tidings of the mutiny of the Bounty, which aroused great popular interest and indignation. In 1790 he published an account of his sufferings and the heroic voyage to Timor, and in response to the public clamor the Admiralty speedily fitted out the frigate Pandora to hunt down Fletcher Christian and his fellow-criminals and fetch them home for trial and punishment. The voyage of the Pandora resulted in tragic ship-