W. T. L. Travers.—The Life and Times of Te Rauparaha. 43 
Island, its entrance is somewhat impeded by sand-banks. The entrance is 
narrow, but inside the Heads the waters spread out for many miles in length 
and width, having numerous navigable channels leading to a series of small 
rivers, which flow into the harbour from the eastward. At full tide, this sheet 
of water is extremely beautiful, surrounded, as it is, with picturesque scenery, 
which attains its highest effect at the north-east end, in the neighbourhood of 
the Awaroa River. -Rock masses, assuming the forms of towers and castles, 
occupy its shores, whilst the gullies and valleys of the streams which fall into 
it contain tracts of fertile and highly cultivated soil. The character of the 
landscape continues the same far up the slopes of the surrounding mountains, 
the name of the “Castle Hills” having been given to them in allusion to the 
masses of white limestone which emerge, in huge castellated forms, from the 
forest with which these mountains are generally clothed. 
Between Kawhia and the Waipa valley, a little to the northward of the 
former, is the beautiful Pirongia mountain, “an ancient, dilapidated volcano,” 
whose many peaks and ravines afford a grand spectacle when bathed in the 
mellow light of the setting sun ; whilst the soil on its slopes, derived from the — 
decomposition of the trachytic rock of which it is composed, is of the most 
fertile kind. The climate of the whole district is delightful, the orange and 
the lemon yielding their fruit with a luxuriance unsurpassed even in the 
delicious valleys of Granada. The seaward aspect of the mountain chain to 
which I have alluded, as well as the slopes of the Pirongia, are, however, 
densely wooded, rendering travelling through this country toilsome and 
difficult. At the time I speak of, the Ngatimaniapoto occypied the country 
lying along the coast to the northward, whilst the Waikato tribes, of whom 
Te Wherowhero was the head chief, claimed the principal part of the valley of 
the Waipa, and of the country extending to the inner shores of the Manukau. 
To the eastward, beyond the range shutting in the Waipa valley on that side, 
and stretching from Otawhao to Maungatautari, lay the possessions of Ngati- 
raukawa proper, comprising some of the most fertile and beautiful country in 
the North Island. The Ngatituwharetoa, or Taupo tribes, under the leader- 
ship of Tukino Te Heuheu, one of the greatest of the old New Zealand 
chieftains—a man of gigantic stature and commanding presence, and whose 
deeds still form the theme of many a wild tale—clustered round the shores of 
Lake Taupo, and the spurs of Tongariro. As is well known, Te Heuheu met 
his death by an awful catastrophe in 1846, his village, Te Rapa, having been 
overwhelmed during the night by a huge land-slip, under which he and his 
six wives, with upwards of fifty other persons, were buried alive. 
_I have thought it necessary to mention the tribe of this chief amongst the 
others above referred to, for although he took a comparatively trifling part in 
the events in which Te Rauparaha himself was concerned, his friendship and 
