W. T. L. Travers. — 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 graj^d in the extreme. 

 I was the first EurojDean 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 occasion I was accomj^anied 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 bad 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 gou2^ de main, 



L 



