Though in time they forgot the way to "Hawaiki," and even at last the art of building double-canoes, yet they never wanted for pluck or seamanship in fishing and voyaging along the stormy New Zealand coasts.

And this is the truth that shines out as we watch the voyagings of humanity from the "wide, grey, lampless depths" of time.

Mere reporting won't do in literature, nor the records of easy voyaging through perilous seas.

The situation had in one minute changed from tranquil voyaging to deadly peril.