Chap. III. UlSTORY OT TE-AWA-TTL gf 
owners of that district, and who piloted the Pelorus 
in her trips about the Strait. We had read an ac- 
count in the papers, just before we left England, of 
the discovery by this vessel of a large river and fine 
district opening into Cloudy Bay ; and we were anxi- 
ous to examine it for ourselves. It turned out that 
this was the Ohiere river, which flows into Admi- 
ralty and not Cloudy Bay, and was christened after 
the brig by the officers. 
During the next four days we had ample opportuni- 
ties of observing every thing remarkable at Te-awa-iti 
and its neighbourhood, and of learning many particu- 
lars of its first foundation and subsequent history. 
The above-named John Guard was the first who 
entered the south-eastern mouth of the channel, two 
miles east of our present anchorage, in a small sealing 
vessel. This was in 1827. Having been driven in by 
a gale of wind, he built a house, and carried on sealing 
and whaling, with great risk and annoyance from the 
natives, and no great profit for a long while. The na- 
tives, in a constant state of war (for this was just at 
the epoch of Rauperahas invasion), were so ill-pro- 
vided with potatoes or indeed any kind of provisions, 
that our adventurers subsisted for some time on whale's 
flesh and wild turnip-tops ; and often, for want of work- 
men and tools, they could not save the oil, having no 
casks, and kept only the bone, which they sold on the 
rare occasions when they could find a market on board 
vessels from Sydney. The Ngahitau tribe, in their 
predatory incursions, frequently destroyed their houses 
and all their property, along with that of the natives. 
One old hand, now in Te-awa-iti, had had his house 
burnt down no fewer than four times. 
Since 1831, however, when whaling-ships began to 
resort to Cloudy Bay, Sydney merchants worked the 
