W. T. L. Travers.— The Life and Times of Te Rauparaha. 35 
draining are still traceable, and hundreds of large kumera pits are to be seen 
on the tops of the dry hills all over the northern part of the North Island. 
These pits, in the greatest number, are found in the centre of extensive 
tracts of uncultivated country, whose natural productions would now scarcely 
sustain a dozen inhabitants. The extent of the ancient culiivations with 
which they are connected is clearly traceable, and what is more remarkable, 
and undoubtedly indicates the former existence of a large population, is that 
tracts of land of what the natives consider, as a rule, to be of very inferior 
quality, were formerly cultivated, leading to the inference either that the 
population was fully proportioned to the extent of available land, or that 
these inferior lands were cultivated in consequence of their vicinity to some 
stronghold, or position. of greater consequence, in the eyes of the natives, than 
the mere fertility of the surrounding country. ‘These kumera pits,” says Mr. 
Manning, “being dug generally in the stiff clay on the hill-tops have, in most 
cases, retained their shape perfectly, and many seem as fresh and new as if 
they had been dug but a few years. They are oblong in shape, with the sides 
regularly sloped. Many collections of these provision stores have outlived 
Maori tradition, and the natives can only conjecture to whom they belonged. 
Out of the cenire of one, which I have seen, there is now growing a kauri tree, 
one hundred and twenty feet high, and out of another a large totara. The 
outline of these pits is as regular as the day they were dug, and the sides have 
not fallen in in the slightest degree ; from which, perhaps, they have been 
preserved by the absence of frost, as well as by a beautiful coating of moss, by 
which they are everywhere covered. The pit in which the kauri grew had 
been partially filled up by the scaling off of the bark of the tree, which, falling 
in patches, as it is constantly doing, had raised a mound of decaying bark 
round the root of the tree.” 
Mr. Manning points out, as further evidence of the former existence of a 
large population, that each of the hill-forts referred to contained a considerable 
number of houses. Every native house, as we know, has a fire-place composed 
of four flattish stones or flags, sunk on their edges into the ground, in which a 
fire is made to heat the house at night. Now, in two of the largest hill-forts 
he examined (though for ages no other vestige of a house had been seen) there 
remained the fire-places—the four stones projecting, like an oblong box, slightly 
above the ground ; and their position and number clearly denoted that, large 
as was the circumference of the huge volcanic hill which formed the site of the 
fortress, the number of families inhabiting it, required the strictest economy of 
room. The houses had been arranged in streets, or double rows, with paths 
between them, except in places wheré there had been only room, on a terrace, 
for a single row. The distances between the fire-places proved that the houses 
in the rows must have been as close together as it was possible to build them ; 
