88 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



Arriving at Waikanae, as we did, just after the action terminated, it may 

 be interesting to notice what occurred. Tlie Waikanae pa stood on the 

 sand-hills, behind the beach, and may have contained about 350 natives, 

 of whom about 200 were fighting men. The attack had been made just 

 before daylight on a small outpost of the pa, where a boy noticing a strange 

 native peering into the whare seized a gun and shot the intruder dead, 

 thereby giving the alarm and arousing the inmates of the larger pa. The 

 attacking party now surged against the stockade of the main village, but 

 were fiercely resisted. Spears were thrust through the fences, and men shot 

 down in the act of surmounting them, but no entrance gained. Then the 

 fight would lull for a time, to be resumed outside in rough "scrimmaging," 

 as the whalers called it, amongst the sand-hills, 



Te Eauparaha, the great Ngatitoa chief, watched the fight. He professed 

 friendship for the Waikanae natives, but had come over from Kapiti Island 

 to assist the Ngatiraukawa with his advice, rather than materially. He was 

 seen by the people within the pa, and a quick rush out was made to capture 

 him. The Ngatiraukawa interposed and sacrificed themselves to save him. 

 The fighting Avas here hand to hand, but Te Eauparaha escaped, only how- 

 ever by swimming oft' to his canoe, which was moored outside the surf. We 

 met him ere he arrived at his island, which was distant about three miles 

 from Waikanae. He looked crest-fallen, but was composed and self- 

 possessed, and more than usually friendly in manner. 



On Te Eauparaha's departure the Ngatu'aukawa became dispirited, and 

 carrying off their wounded, retreated rapidly along the beach towards their 

 fortified pa at Otaki. The doctors of our expedition immediately proceeded 

 to the assistance of the wounded. We entered the pa about three hours 

 after the fight was over. The chief, killed by a musket-ball, lay in state 

 on a platform in the large enclosure; his hair was decorated with huia 

 feathers, a fine kaitaka mat was spread over him, a greenstone vieri was in 

 his hand, with the leather thong around his wrist ; his spear and musket 

 were by his side. The bodies of slain persons of inferior rank were lying in 

 the verandas of their respective houses, each covered with the best mat, 

 and with the personal weapons conspicuously placed beside. 



Around the bier of the chief the people of the pa were standing in a 

 circle, performing the tangi; the women, and several of the men, had 

 divested themselves of clothing down to the waist-belt, and were bleeding 

 profusely from a series of cuts inflicted in the ecstasy of their grief. It was 

 not for the chief only that the tangi was proceeding, each person there had 

 some near relative lying dead within a few feet of where they stood, and 

 the cold and x^lacid face in their midst was only the objective embodiment 

 of their mourning. Several of those m the circle were themselves desper- 



