TE HEUHEU. 
321 
together with nearly sixty of his tribe. An unusually rainy 
season occasioned a large land slip on the side of the Kaka- 
ramea, the mountain at the back of the Rapa, about two 
miles’ distance from his residence. This took place nearly 
2000 feet above the level of the lake, at the gorge of a little 
Alpine valley, through which a considerable stream flowed, 
which, being thus dammed up, in three days formed a large 
and deep lake, which burst its barriers, and, with irresistible 
torce, swept rocks, trees, and earth with it into the lake. The 
little settlement was buried with all its inhabitants, excepting 
a few solitary individuals, who, aroused from their sleep by the 
warning roar of the approaching avalanche, fled to the neigh¬ 
bouring hills, and escaped. One of the survivors states, that 
Te Heuheu arose from his bed, (it was about three in the 
morning,) and exhorted a Chief who was his guest to flee, but 
both remained. He said it was a taniwa,* who was angry 
with him for having omitted his usual offerings. He, there¬ 
fore, immediately made an offering of food, and commenced a 
supplicatory prayer to the angry god, and whilst thus engaged 
was overwhelmed. The once fruitful valley of Te Rapa was 
buried, in many places more than twenty feet deep ; its houses 
and groves were swept away, and nothing was left to mark 
that it had once been the abode of man, but a solitary swinging- 
pole, called a morere, which, with a few feet of green sward 
around it, singularly enough escaped. 
Te Heuheu’s brother caused the body of the Chief to be 
exhumed. Nearly one hundred natives were thus employed, 
but the task would have been hopeless, had not the flood 
formed a deep channel near his house, under the ruins of 
which he was found. 
When I read the burial service over the spot where the 
pa stood, accompanied by Wiremu Tauri, my head teacher, 
even then the mud was so soft that we sunk in it nearly 
ancle deep. It was a solemn moment; an entire village laid 
buried beneath us, with all its inhabitants—the young, the 
old, the infant, and the hoary-headed—all in one awful mo¬ 
ment were deeply entombed. It was night when the accident 
* A fish god, supposed to reside in lakes, rivers, and under mountains. 
Y 
