A romantic desert island... Who first saw and went ashore on Christmas Island will never be known. Where these people came from and when is conjecture though we are almost certain they were Polynesians. Seafarers, either castaways, hopeful colonizers, passers-by, or perhaps all of these, were the first to land there probably as early as the eighth or ninth century A.D. Random voyagers travelling north or south between Hawaii and the Marquesas may have used Christmas as a reference island and thus would in all likelihood have steered to the east. Others may have island hopped through Palmyra,...