The children forthwith agreed amongst themselves that Cook was not only a _tino tangata_, but a _tino rangatira_--a combination of a great chief and a perfect gentleman.

How otherwise could he be so kind to them, and so fond of children, argued these youthful sages?
Then they saw the captain draw black marks on the quarter-deck and make a speech to the natives, pointing towards the coast.

"The goblins want to know the shape of the country," said a quick-witted old chief, and, rising up, he drew with charcoal a map of The Fish of Maui, from the Glittering Lake at the extreme south to Land's End in the far north.

Then, seeing that the goblins did not understand that the Land's End was the spot from which the spirits of the dead slid down to the shades below, the old chief laid himself down stiffly on the deck and closed his eyes.

But still the goblins did not comprehend; they only looked at each other and spoke in their hard, hissing speech.