Note 206 — Chapter XI
Reading edition
In speaking of a type as more or less recent than another, it must be recollected that I am not speaking of chronological order, but of the order of development. For aught we know, the story of the Marquis of the Sun may as a matter of date be actually older, could we trace it, than the far more archaic story of Tawhaki. But the society in which it took shape was more advanced than that disclosed in the Maori legend.