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“It can’t be much over two miles long, sir, if that; and about half as wide. What do ye think, Will?”

“Aye, it’s about that,” the gardener replied. “There’s a fine grove of breadfruit on the shelf of land ye can see from here, sir, but I’m as glad we brought some young trees with us. We’ve varieties I didn’t see, here, in looking about this morning.”

“Have you found any evidence that people have been here before us?”

“To say the truth, sir, I never even thought of that,” Brown replied.

“Ye don’t mean white men, Mr. Christian?” Smith asked.

“No. We are the first, I am sure, who have ever landed here; but Maimiti thinks Indians have once inhabited the place.”

“If they did, it must have been long ago. Never a trace did we see of anything of the kind.”

Christian now turned to Minarii, addressing him in the native tongue. “Minarii, is it possible, do you think, that Maoris have ever visited this land?”

“É,” he remarked, quietly. “There has been a settlement here, where we now are. It is the place that would have been chosen for a village, and that great banyan tree has been planted. The breadfruit as well.”