Heapay.—On Port Nicholson and the Natives in 1889. 87 
The land-slips on the Orongo range, to the eastward of Port Nicholson, 
were not existing in 1839; they are said, and I believe correctly, to have 
been caused by the great earthquake of 1848.. This was thirty-one years 
ago, and vegetable growth has not yet concealed the clay and sandstone that 
was then laid bare. As there were no such slips anywhere about Port 
Nieholson in 1889, it is, I think, a fair deduction that no shake of equal 
severity had occurred for at least thirty-one years prior to that date. In 
exploring the country, and whilst eneamped on various parts of the Hutt 
Valley, I had opportunities of remarking the freshets of that river, and am 
of opinion that they did not rise so fast, or prove nearly so destructive to 
the banks, as during the last ten or twelve years. 
Natives. 
The Port Nicholson natives, when the ‘ Tory' arrived here, were a fine 
specimen of the Maori race. All the men were tried warriors, and had 
fought suecessively the Waikato, the Wanganui, and the Wairarapa people. 
But they occupied rather an inconvenient corner of territory. As long 
as they could maintain peace with the Ngatitoa at Porirua and Kapiti, and 
the Ngatiraukawa of Otaki, they were tolerably safe; but in the event of 
serious hostilities in the direction of the West Coast, and such hostilities 
were threatening, the Wairarapa people, whom they had defeated but not 
subdued, would operate in their rear, making the position very critical. 
It was this feeling of insecurity which caused them so readily to sell land 
to Colonel Wakefield, and to hail the arrival of Europeans. Having deter- 
mined on the policy to pursue in this matter, Epuni, the Chief, with his 
immediate people, behaved with great consistency, and never receded from 
his bargain, or wavered in his friendliness to the settlers. There was a 
singular mixture of amiability and fierceness about these Port Nicholson 
natives. The circumstances of their position required them always to have 
arms ready beside them and the war-canoes at hand on the beach, but to 
the white people they manifested entire confidence, and exhibited the greatest 
kindness. When the schooner ‘Jewess’ was stranded on the Pitone beach, 
they helped to dig a channel for her to the sea, and eventually, by force of 
numbers, animated by their war yell and chorus, dragged her until fairly 
afloat. At the subsequent upsetting of a passage-boat in the surf at Pitone 
they risked their own lives—men, women, and children—to rescue the ex- 
hausted Europeans from the fatal undertow. 
Ere the purchase of the land was well completed their relatives were 
ajreacherously attacked by the Ngatiraukawa in force at Waikanae, and it 
required hard fighting, with all the advantages of position, to beat them off. 
Ere the excitement of this attack had passed away the chief of Waiwhetu, 
Puakawa, was shot in his potato field by a marauding band from Wairarapa. 
