The Three Kings mark a point in our history. It was on the 5th of January that Tasman discovered them. So he named them after the three wise kings of the East--Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar. The Great King, the largest of them, is not very great, for it contains, perhaps, six or seven hundred acres. It is cliff-bound, but a landing may usually be made on one side or the other, for its shape resembles the device of the Isle of Man. Into one of its coves a cascade comes down, tumbling two hundred feet from a green and well-timbered valley above. Tasman saw the cascade; and as the _Heemskirk_ and her cockle-shell of a consort were short of fresh water, he sent “Francis Jacobsz in our shallop, and Mr. Gillimans, the supercargo,” with casks to be filled. When, however, the two boats neared the rocks, the men found thereon fierce-looking, well-armed natives, who shouted to them in hoarse voices. Moreover, the surf ran too high for an easy landing. So the Dutchmen turned from the white cascade, and pulled back to Tasman, who took them aboard again, and sailed away, to discover the Friendly Islands. Thus it came about that though he discovered our country, and spent many days on our coasts, neither he nor any of his men ever set foot on shore there. Did Francis Jacobsz, one wonders, really think the surf at Great King so dangerous? Or was it that good Mr. Gillimans, supercargo and man of business, disliked the uncomfortable-looking spears and _patu-patu_ in the hands of the Rarewa men? Tasman, at any rate, came to no harm at the Three Kings, which is more than can be said of all shipmasters; for they are beset with tusky reefs and strong currents. A noted wreck there was that of the steamship _Elingamite_, which went down six years ago, not far from the edge of the deep ocean chasm where the submarine foundations of New Zealand seem to end suddenly in a deep cleft of ocean.