HONGI. 
515 
making that an excuse for his ambitious designs. In the 
beginning of 1827 Hongi plundered and burned the Wes- 
leyan Station, which had been commenced at Wangaroa 
a year or two before ; he told the Missionaries, “ Your 
Chiefs have fled ; all the people have left the place, and you 
will be stripped of all your property before noon ; therefore, 
instantly begone ! 99 
It appears, however, as if this were to be the termination 
of his success ; his only redeeming act had been the preser- 
vation of those who came to raise his countrymen ; — imme- 
diately he put forth his hand to injure them, he fell ! On 
his way to Wangaroa the usual incantations were had re- 
course to, his tohunga inspected the liver of birds, but the 
omens were unfavorable, all prognosticated evil, so that 
Hongi' s wife advised him to proceed no further, but he was 
not to be frightened by such things ; even his superstitious 
feelings could not restrain him, he went and encamped before 
the pa. After seizing all the enemy's canoes, who, alarmed, 
privately retired, the pa was taken possession of, and the re- 
treating enemy followed and overtaken in a wood between 
the Hokianga. and Wangaroa. He killed or dispersed 
“ the man-eating tribes," as he termed those who cut 
off the Boyd, although the epithet was, perhaps, far more 
applicable to himself, for he appears to have surpassed all 
who had gone before him in the number of human bodies 
he and his followers had devoured, twenty only of “ those 
man-eaters 39 escaped ; they glutted themselves with the 
slain, sparing neither woman, nor even child ; the remnant 
of his enemies fled to Hunahuna, a village near the Maunga- 
muka, where they made a stand, Hongi, who had ensconced 
himself behind a tree, stepped forward to take aim, when a 
ball struck him : it broke his collar-bone, passed in an 
oblique direction through his right breast, and came out a 
little below the shoulder-blade, close to the spine. This 
terminated his fearful career, for though he lingered a full 
year, the wound never healed, when he breathed, the air 
escaped through the orifice with a hissing sound, which he 
made a subject of merriment. 
l l 2 
