They made halting-places of the tiny islets which, often uninhabited and far removed from the well-known groups, dot the immense waste of the Pacific at great intervals.

The finding of their stone axes or implements in such desolate spots enables their courses to be traced.

Canoe-men who could voyage to solitary little Easter Island in the wide void towards America, or to Cape York in the distant west, were not likely to find insuperable difficulties in running before the north-east winds to New Zealand from Rarotonga, Savaii or Tahiti.

The discovery in the new land of the jade or greenstone--far above rubies in the eyes of men of the Stone Age--would at once give the country all the attractiveness that a gold-field has for civilized man.
[Footnote 1: S.Percy Smith on _The Geographical Knowledge of the Polynesians_.] The Maori stories of their migration to New Zealand are a mixture of myth and legend.

Among them are minute details that may be accurate, mingled with monstrous tales of the utterly impossible.