Bakstow. — Our Earliest Settlers. 431 



house, whilst hundreds of infuriated savages danced a war-dance in front. 

 Next he had his cattle killed. The wretched slaves brought from maraud- 

 ing expeditions were killed and cooked as near as possible to his house, the 

 heads placed upon, and the viscera thrown over, his fence. At one period 

 he attempted to rescue these unfortunates by exchanging them for blankets 

 or axes, but he found it impossible to provide for them afterwards ; besides 

 which the natives imposed upon him by making the necessary fire, shouting 

 and yelling over the bound body of a young girl, as if just about to immo- 

 late her, and when his feelings of humanity were so wrought upon that he 

 could not refrain from redeeming the captive at the cost of nearly his last 

 blanket, he found himself jeered at, — the pretended victim being one of their 

 own people. 



The most powerful chief in near proximity to them was Tareha, after 

 whom the eastern branch of the Eerikeri estuary, known on the charts as 

 Mongonui, was usually termed by old settlers " Tareha's Eiver." This 

 man was a monster both in size and cruelty. I never saw him, but knew 

 well his son and successor Wi Kingi Tareha, who, when he first paid me a 

 visit, came crawling on his hands and knees, his legs refusing to bear the 

 weight of his body. On a later occasion, when he wished to point out the 

 site of a piece of ground near Eussell which I had been instructed to have 

 purchased, though he had only half a mile of nearly level ground to tra- 

 verse, he used two stout young fellows as human crutches, one under each 

 arm. In height he stood between 6 feet 1 inch and 6 feet 2 inches, and 

 weighed about 36 stone ; yet I am told that he was a mere chicken to his 

 father, who, having upon one occasion been hoisted on board a whale ship, 

 after having devoured a leg of pork and drunk a bucket of the cook's slush, 

 consented, for a consideration in tobacco, to allow himself to be weighed. 

 A seat was fitted for him, and, the steelyards having been attached to a 

 tackle, he was raised up ; but, alas ! ineffectually, as the steelyards were only 

 graduated to 600 lbs., and were inadequate to perform the requisite opera- 

 tion. I have heard many wonderful stories of his voracity, but of his 

 cruelty I had one from an eye-witness. Tareha was sitting on a large 

 stone with a small fire in front of him, when he called for some water ; the 

 calabash was empty, and, as he only drank water from a spring a mile 

 away, he told a woman near to fetch some. She made the excuse that she 

 was nursing a child. " Give it to me," said the savage. When the woman 

 returned with the water the monster was munching the arms of the child, 

 which, after dashing upon the stone, he had frizzled upon the fire before 

 him. 



To escape some of their miseries the members of the Mission got houses 

 built at Tepuna on the land which they had bought, and where Hohaia 



