Upon the Isthmus of Auckland, of yore. 
Maunga Wao (now Mount Edne) as ancient Maori Pah. 
at a considerable distance. Upon those terraces double rows of 
stockades were planted in olden times, and deep holes dug, cov- 
ered with branches, reed, and ferns, like wolf-traps, for the 
purpose of insnaring the assailing foes. Other pits less deep, con- 
nected by subterraneous passages from above and below, and hav- 
ing ingeniously concealed outlets, served the defenders of the fort 
as secret paths and hiding-places, or as ambuscades, from which they 
sallied forth upon the assailants; and in a third sort of holes in 
the ground they had their provisions stored away. The observer 
is justly struck with astonishment on seeing, how ingeniously and 
practically the Maoris had planned their forts, and what colossal 
works they were capable of executing with extremely rude and 
defective instruments of wood and stone; with wooden spades, with 
hammers, chisels and axes of stone, and with knives wrought of 
muscle-shells. Behind all those palisades and ditches encircling the 
slope of the mountain, high on the top lived the chief with his 
family and the nobles of his tribe. 
Now-a-days the houses and huts are destroyed; the last vestige 
of the stockade has disappeared; the Maori-castle is in ruins. And 
as the crater on the top has remained as it were a scar of the 
