He ran on northward, merely catching glimpses, through scud and cloud, of the North Island.  Finally, at what is now North Cape, he discerned to his joy a free passage to the east.  He made one attempt to land, in search of water, on a little group of islands hard by, which, as it was Epiphany, he called Three Kings, after Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar.  But the surf was rough and a throng of natives, striding along, shaking spears and shouting with hoarse voices, terrified his boat’s crew.  He gave up the attempt 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