Heaphy. — On Port Nicholson and the Natives in 1839. 37 



The land-slips on the Orongo range, to the eastward of Port Nicholson, 

 were not existing in 1839 ; they are said, and I believe correctly, to have 

 been caused by the great earthquake of 1848. This was thirty-one years 

 ago, and vegetable growth has not yet concealed the clay and sandstone that 

 was then laid bare. As there were no such slips anywhere about Port 

 Nicholson in 1839, it is, I think, a fair deduction that no shake of equal 

 severity had occurred for at least thirty-one years prior to that date. In 

 exploring the country, and whilst encamped on various parts of the Hutt 

 Valley, I had opportunities of remarking the freshets of that river, and am 

 of opinion that they did not rise so fast, or prove nearly so destructive to 

 the banks, as during the last ten or twelve years. 



Natives. 



The Port Nicholson natives, when the 'Tory' arrived here, were a fine 

 specimen of the Maori race. All the men were tried warriors, and had 

 fought successively the Waikato, the Wanganui, and the Wairarapa people. 

 But they occupied rather an inconvenient corner of territory. As long 

 as they could maintain peace with the Ngatitoa at Porirua and Kapiti, and 

 the Ngatiraukawa of Otaki, they were tolerably safe ; but in the event of 

 serious hostilities in the direction of the West Coast, and such hostilities 

 were threatening, the Wairarapa people, whom they had defeated but not 

 subdued, would operate in theh rear, making the position very critical. 



It was this feeliug of insecurity which caused them so readily to sell land 

 to Colonel Wakefield, and to hail the arrival of Europeans. Having deter- 

 mined on the policy to pursue in this matter, Epuui, the Chief, with. his 

 immediate people, behaved with great consistency, and never receded from 

 his bargain, or wavered hi his friendhness to the settlers. There was a 

 singular mixture of amiability and fierceness about these Port Nicholson 

 natives. The circumstances of their position required them always to have 

 arms ready beside them and the war-canoes at hand on the beach, but to 

 the white people they manifested enthe confidence, and exhibited the greatest 

 kindness. When the schooner 'Jewess' was stranded on the Pitone beach, 

 they helped to dig a channel for her to the sea, and eventually, by force of 

 numbers, animated by their war yell and chorus, dragged her untU fairly 

 afloat. At the subsequent upsetting of a passage-boat in the surf at Pitone 

 they risked their own lives — men, women, and children — to rescue the ex- 

 hausted Europeans from the fatal undertow. 



Ere the purchase of the land was well completed then- relatives were 

 treacherously attacked by the Ngatiraukawa in force at Waikanae, and it 

 requh-ed hard fighting, with all the advantages of position, to beat them off. 

 Ere the excitement of this attack had passed away the chief of Waiwhetu, 

 Puakawa, was shot in his potato field by a marauding band from Wairarapa, 



