TRANSACTIONS 
NEW ZEALAND INSTITUTE 
? 
TOTA 
I.—MISCELLANEOUS. 
Art I.— On the Life and Times of Te Rauparaha. 
By W. T. L. Travers, F.L.S. 
[Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 21st August, 4th September, 2nd, 9th, 
and 30th October, 1872.1 
CHAPTER I, 
THE position occupied by the great chief Te Rauparaha in connection with the 
establishment and earlier progress of the New Zealand Company’s settlements 
in Cook Straits, would alone justify us in recording-all that can still be learnt 
of the career of this remarkable man; but when, in addition to the interest 
which his personal history possesses for us in this respect, we find that he took 
a very important part in the events that occurred in these Islands between the 
years 1818 and 1840—leading as they did to an immense destruction of life 
amongst the then existing population, and to profound changes in the habits and 
character of the survivors—it becomes important, for the purposes of the future 
historian of the Colony, that we should preserve the most authentic accounts 
of his career, as well as of that of the other great chiefs who occupied, during 
the period in question, positions of power and influence amongst the leading 
New Zealand tribes. As with Hongi, Te Waharoa, and Te Wherowhero in the 
North, so Te Rauparaha in the South carried on, during the interval referred 
to, wars of the most ruthless and devastating character, undertaken partly for 
purposes of conquest, and partly for the gratification of that innate ferocity 
for which the New Zealanders have long been remarked. His own immediate 
tribe, the Ngatitoa, though insignificant in point of numbers, when compared 
with most of the leading tribes of the North Island, had long been celebrated 
for their prowess as warriors ; and the reliance they placed upon the sagacity 
