88 Transactions.— Miscellaneous. 
Arriving at Waikanae, as we did, just after the action terminated, it may 
be interesting to notice what occurred. The Waikanae pa stood on the 
sand-hills, behind the beach, and may have contained about 350 natives, 
of whom about 200 were fighting men. The attack had been made just 
before daylight on a small outpost of the pa, where a boy noticing a strange 
native peering into the whare seized a gun and shot the intruder dead, 
thereby giving the alarm and arousing the inmates of the larger pa. The 
attacking party now surged against the stockade of the main village, but 
were fiercely resisted. Spears were thrust through the fences, and men shot 
down in the act of surmounting them, but no entrance gained. Then the 
fight would lull for a time, to be resumed outside in rough “ scrimmaging,” 
as the whalers called it, amongst the sand-hills. 
Te Rauparaha, the great Ngatitoa chief, watched the fight. He professed 
friendship for the Waikanae natives, but had come over from Kapiti Island 
to assist the Ngatiraukawa with his advice, rather than materially. He was 
seen by the people within the pa, and a quick rush out was made to capture 
him. The Ngatiraukawa interposed and sacrificed themselves to save him. 
The fighting was here hand to hand, but Te Rauparaha escaped, only how- 
ever by swimming off to his canoe, which was moored outside the surf. We 
met him ere he arrived at his island, which was distant about three miles 
from Waikanae. He looked crest-fallen, but was composed and self- 
possessed, and more than usually friendly in manner. 
On Te Rauparaha’s departure the Ngatiraukawa became dispirited, and 
carrying off their wounded, retreated rapidly along the beach towards their 
fortified pa at Otaki. The doctors of our expedition immediately proceeded 
to the assistance of the wounded. We entered the pa about three hours 
after the fight was over. The chief, killed by a musket-ball, lay in state 
on a platform in the large enclosure; his hair was decorated with huia 
feathers, a fine kaitaka mat was spread over him, a greenstone meri was in 
his hand, with the leather thong around his wrist; his spear and musket 
were by his side. The bodies of slain persons of inferior rank were lying in 
the verandas of their respective houses, each covered with the best mat, 
and with the personal weapons conspicuously placed beside. 
Around the bier of the chief the people of the pa were standing in a 
circle, performing the tangi; the women, and several of the men, had 
divested themselves of clothing down to the waist-belt, and were bleeding 
profusely from a series of cuts inflicted in the ecstasy of their grief. It was 
not for the chief only that the tangi was proceeding, each person there had 
some near relative lying dead within a few feet of where they stood, and 
the cold and placid face in their midst was only the objective embodiment 
of their mourning. Several of those in the circle were themselves desper- 
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