After the mutineers had turned Captain Bligh and his loyal crew-members adrift in a 24-foot boat in mid-ocean, they knew that they could never see their homeland again and that the Royal Navy would do its best to hunt them down. After a number had landed in Tahiti and stayed there, Fletcher Christian, their leader, finally settled in remote Pitcairn Island with his handful of followers plus six Polynesian men and a dozen Tahitian women. The Bounty was burned in case any passing ship spotted her, and the men and women settled down to build houses or shelters, raise some crops and propagate children. Drunkenness, quarrels and mutual violence soon thinned their number and when the settlement was discovered by an American ship 20 years later, only one of the original mutineers remained alive. Their offspring, however, remained to populate the island and to lead peaceful, orderly lives: an absorbing read.