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But, nevertheless, the memory of Bligh's heroic courage and forethought in his wonderful boat voyage from the Friendly Islands to Timor a distance of 3618 miles is for ever emblazoned upon the naval annals of our country, and the wrong he did in connection with the tragedy of the Bounty cannot dim his lustre as a seaman and a navigator.
Yet the number of emigrants who have sought its shores is comparatively small, and these arrivals were almost exclusively of the labouring classes, attracted by the extraordinarily high rates of wages, and were chiefly absorbed by mechanical employments. The numbers landed in 1853 were 3762, and, in 1854, 3618.
Before the establishment of telegraphic communication between China and Russia, imperial couriers, carrying important despatches from Peking, often made the distance between Irkutsk and St. Petersburg 3618 miles in sixteen days, with two hundred and twelve changes of horses and drivers.
It appeared scarce credible to ourselves that, in an open boat and so poorly provided, we should have been able to reach the coast of Timor in forty-one days after leaving Tofoa, having in that time run, by our log, a distance of 3618 miles; and that, notwithstanding our extreme distress, no one should have perished in the voyage.
In an overloaded and open boat, on the shortest allowance of provision compatible with existence, through calm and tempest, heat and cold, exposed to the attacks of cannibals and to the reproaches of worn-out and mutinous men, he traversed 3618 miles of ocean in forty-one days, and brought himself and his followers to land, with the exception of one man who was killed by the natives.
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