330 ADVENTURE IN NEW ZEALAND. Chap. XV. 
from Captain Wakefield; but at a conference held 
there they said he should not have the plain of TVairau. 
After Captain Wakefield left the conference, Rangi- 
haeata had as usual gone to excite himself with liquor, 
and was heard to say by several of the settlers that 
" he would pung-a-pungy or kill, Wide-awake if he 
"took Tf^airau" But Captain Wakefield, to whom 
this was reported, said Rangihaeata was a mere bully, 
and that his threats were only noisy vapouring. And 
he directed the preliminary survey of the ff^airau plain 
to be proceeded with, in order that it might be ready 
for selection as soon as Mr. Spain should have decided 
upon the claim. The depositions extend over the space 
of time between the 25th of April, when the surveying 
expedition landed at the mouth of the TVairau, and 
the 17th of June, the day of the fatal massacre. 
The following account has been carefully compiled 
from the examination of witnesses before the Welling- 
ton Magistrates, on board the Government brig at 
Cloudy Bay, and afterwards at Wellington; from 
depositions taken at Nelson and at Otaki by Magis- 
trates ; and from accounts published by survivors in the 
newspapers of Wellington and Nelson. 
The lands in the Wairau district were advertised 
for survey by contract, by Captain Wakefield, in March 
1843. The contracting Surveyors, Messrs. Barnicoat, 
Parkinson, and Cotterell, with their men, forming in 
all a party of about forty, started by sea from Nelson 
on the 15th April, and landed on the ff^airau beach 
on Tuesday the 25th. There they found Puaha,* with 
two or three of his followers, who expressed no dis- 
satisfaction at their arrival. There were till then no 
other natives in the valley ; ])ut in the course of two 
or three days a considerable number arrived from dif- 
* The same chief who*^ mild disposition we had admire<l at 
Cloudy Bay in October 1839. See Vol. I, Chap. V, n. 106. 
