W. T. L. Travers.—The Life and Times of Te Rauparaha. 83 
the lagoon yielded large supplies of eels, so that the defenders ran little risk of 
being obliged to surrender on account of famine, whilst the besiegers, on the 
other hand, were compelled to depend on foraging parties for supplies, and 
frequently ran short. of provisions. Indeed, the difficulty of feeding his men 
was the chief cause which led to the adoption of a plan of attack which, so far 
as I am aware, was then adopted for the first time in Maori warfare. A 
council of war having been held, it was determined to sap up to the two out- 
works, and as soon as the head of the sap had been carried up to them, to pile 
up in front of them immense quantities of dried brushwood, which were to be 
set on fire when the wind blew in the direction of the pa, and to rush it so 
soon as the palisading had been burned down. This plan was carried out, 
and the two lines of sap exist to this day, and are as well carried out as if 
done by the most experienced European engineers. At first Rauparaha 
suffered considerable loss, for the enemy, foreseeing that the pa must be taken 
if this plan of operation was successfully carried out, made the most strenuous 
efforts to prevent it, but having been defeated in every encounter, and 
Rauparaha having taken precautions to prevent future loss, they allowed the 
saps to be pushed close up to the outworks. So soon as the besiegers, 
however, had piled the brushwood in position it was fired by the people of the 
pa, the wind at the time blowing from the north-west; but a sudden change 
occurring, both the outworks, as well as the general line of defences, were 
soon enveloped\in a mass of flame and smoke, from which the defenders were 
compelled to retreat. When the palisading had thus been destroyed, the 
Ngatitoa rushed through the burning ruins, and a general massacre ensued. 
Many endeavoured to escape by swimming across the lagoon, and some few 
succeeded in doing so, whilst others were interrupted by bodies of Ngatitoa 
detached for that purpose. The slaughter was tremendous, whilst numbers of 
prisoners also fell into the hands of the victors. Some conception may be 
formed of the numbers slain and eaten, when I mention that some time after 
the settlement of Canterbury the Rev. Mr. Raven, Incumbent of Woodend 
near the site of the pa in question, collected many cartloads of their bones, and 
buried them in a mound on the side of the main road from the present town 
of Kaiapoi to the north. Ghastly relics of these feasts still strew the same 
ground, from which I myself have gathered many. 
Having thus captured the main stronghold of the Ngaitahu, Rauparaha 
sent detached parties of his warriors to scour the plains as far south as the 
kaia, as well as to ravage the villages on the peninsula, by whom 
hundreds of the unfortunate people were slaughtered ; after which he made 
his way back to the shores of Cook Strait, and from thence to Kapiti, laden 
with spoil, and accompanied by large numbers of captives, some of whom 
were kept in slavery, whilst others were used in the ordinary manner in the 
festivities by which his triumph was celebrated. 
