W. T. L. Taavers.—The Life and Times of Te Rauparaha. 81 
Waipara, where they were joined by the inland party. The inland line of 
march runs through some of the most picturesque country in New Zealand, 
the gorge of the Wairau, especially, being rugged and grand in the extreme. 
I was the first European who ever passed through this gorge, which I did in 
1859 or 1860 for the purpose of determining whether it would afford a 
practicable line of communication between Nelson and Canterbury, and on 
that cozasion I was accompanied by a Ngatitoa man, who had been one of the 
inland war party on the occasion above referred to. Singular to state, 
however, I found, after passing through the gorge, that he had entirely 
forgotten the line of route between Tarndale and the pass into the Hanmer 
Plains, and the season was, unfortunately, too far advanced to permit of my 
attempting to discover it independently. Indeed, my party was snowed up 
for several days, and as we ran some risk of getting short of food for the 
return journey, I was reluctantly compelled to give up the design. This was, 
however, of little importance, as Mr. Weld, now Governor of Western 
Australia, had, a few days before my passage through the upper part of the 
gorge, found his way into Tarndale over the mount near the junction of the 
. Wairau and Kopiouenuku Rivers, and had established the connections 
between that place and the pass known as Jollie’s Pass, leading from 
the Clarence River into the Hanmer Plains. Subsequent explorations of my 
own resulted in the discovery of the country in the Upper Waiauua and the 
line of the Cannibal Gorge, and of a shorter and easier pass from Tarndale 
into the Hanmer Plains, being probably the one used by the native party 
above referred to. 
After the junction of the two bodies Rauparaha proceeded at once . 
. to Kaiapoi for the purpose of attacking the pa. The Ngaitahu were evidently 
quite unprepared for this fresh invasion, a large number of their warriors 
being absent at Port Cooper, whither they had accompanied Taiaroa (father 
of the present member of the House of Representatives of that name), 
who was then the leading chief of that portion of their tribe which occupied 
the country in the neighbourhood of the present site of Dunedin, and who was 
returning home after a visit to his kinsfolk at Kaiapoi. Others of the people 
were engaged in their cultivations outside of the pa, which was, in fact, only 
occupied by a small number of able-bodied warriors and a few of the older 
men, and some women and children. So carefully had Rauparaha concealed 
the approach of his war party that the first intimation which the inhabitants 
of the pa received of it was the sound of the firing as his force attacked the 
people in the cultivations, and the cries of the dying and wounded ; and they 
had barely time to close the gates of the outworks and to man the line of 
defences before a number of the enemy appeared in front of it. The Ngatitoa 
at once sprung to the assault, hoping to carry the defences by a coup de main, 
L 
