ABSTRACT
When the mutineers and the Polynesians colonised Pitcairn the vegetation was in pristine condition. It had been uninhabited for hundreds of years and had no grazing animals; rats and lizards were the only indigenous quadrupeds, and there was only one species of land bird, a small fly-catcher, so every inch of suitable soil was covered with mature trees, shrubs and grasses according to its location. The Pitcairners, few though they had been, had within some thirty-five years felled most of the useful timber as Beechey records: The toonena is a large tree, from which their houses and canoes are made. The first outside economic interference with the Pitcairn community came, with the best intentions, from Captain Henderson who traded from Calcutta to South America with his ship Hercules. He was one of the earliest seafarers to call at Pitcairn and was so favourably impressed with them that he decided that he would do all in his power to assist them.
