pt and sailed away, glad, no doubt,
to leave this vague realm of storm and savages. It says something
for his judgment that amid such surroundings he saw and noted in his
log-book that the country was good. He had called it Staaten Land, on
the wild guess that it extended to the island of that name off the
coast of Terra del Fuego. Afterwards he altered the name to New
Zealand. The secretive commercial policy of the Dutch authorities
made them shroud Tasman's discoveries in mystery. It is said that his
discoveries were engraved on the map of the world which in 1648 was
cut on the stone floor of the Amsterdam Town Hall. The full text of
his log has only been quite recently published. His curt entries
dealing with the appearance of the New Zealand coast and its natives
seem usually truthful enough. The tribe which attacked his boat was
afterwards nearly exterminated by invaders from the North Island.
This would account for the almost utter absence among the Maoris of
tradition concerning his visit. It is noteworthy that he describes
the natives of Golden--or, as he named it, Murderers'--Bay as having
double-canoes. When the country was annexed, two hundred years
afterwards, the New Zealanders had forgotten how to build them.

The Dutch made no use of their Australian discoveries. They were
repelled by the heat, the drought, and the barrenness of the
north-western coasts of New Holland. For a century and a quarter after
Tasman's flying visit, New Zealand remained virtually unknown. Then
the veil was lifted once and for all. Captain James Cook, in the
_Endeavour_, sighted New Zealand in 1769. He had the time to study the
country, and the ability too. On his first voyage alone nearly six
months were devoted to it. In five visits he surveyed the coast,
described the aspect and products of the islands, and noted down a
mass of invaluable details concerning the native tribes. Every one may
not be able to perceive the literary charm which certain eulogists
have been privileged to find in Cook's admirable record of interesting
facts. But he may well seem great enough as a discoverer and observer,
to be easily able to survive a worse style--say Hawkesworth's. He
found New Zealand a line on the map, and left it an Archipelago, a
feat which many generations of her colonists will value above the
shaping of sentences. The feature of his experiences which most
strikes the reader now, is the extraordinary courage and pugnacity of
the n