1 10 ADVENTURE IN NEW ZEALAND. Chap. V. 
and were no doubt tempted by the scenes of drunken- 
ness and low debauchery going on in the bays. 
On the 16th, we stood over to Kapiti, leaving the 
Channel with the ebb tide. About four miles N. E. of 
the Brothers, we saw a dangerous rock, looking like a 
boat at a short distance. As we neared the north shore, 
we could distinguish the opening nearly abreast of the 
flat table island of Mana, where a small harbour called 
Porirua indents the wooded hills. These incline in- 
wards from the coast a little to the south of Kapiti, 
and a sandy beach succeeds the rock-bound shore which 
extends from Cape Terawiti. 
As we approached Kapiti, which has a high peak in 
its centre, and is covered with forest to the water's 
edge, we made out some small islands lying off its south- 
eastern extremity. These form a very excellent anchor- 
age for a limited number of ships. A whale-boat from 
the easternmost island soon boarded us ; and the 
" headsman, " or commander of the boat, piloted us into 
an outer roadstead in twenty-two fathoms, which is 
reckoned more convenient for a large ship than the in- 
ner one, as a vessel can more easily get under way in 
case of accident. He told us that a sanguinary battle 
had taken place at a village called Tf^aikanae on the 
mainland, about three miles from our anchorage, the 
same morning. Many of the whalers had witnessed 
the contest from their boats outside the surf. We af- 
terwards gathered the full particulars. The feast to 
which Te JVetu had told us he was going, had taken 
place on Mana, where the funeral obsequies of TVaitohi, 
a sister of Rauperaha, had been celebrated by spme 
thousand natives of different tribes. On this occasion, 
Rauperaha had killed and cooked one of the unfortu- 
nate Rangitane slaves, who brought him tribute from 
the Pelorus ; and had shared the flesh among his most 
