FORTRESSES. 
313 
At times, both fleets retired, as at Hooroto \ 
but when victory was evidently in favour of one, 
the warriors in that fleet sometimes swept through 
the other, slaughtering all who did not leap into 
the sea, and swim toward the canoe of some friend 
in the opposing fleet. I have been informed by 
some of the chiefs of Huahine, w T ho have been in 
their battles, that they have seen a fleet towed to 
the shore by the victors, filled with the wounded 
and the dead—the few that survived being inade¬ 
quate to its management. 
When the canoes of a fleet were not fastened 
together, as soon as the combatants perceived 
that they were overpowered, they sought safety in 
flight, and, if pursued, abandoned their canoes on 
reaching the shore, and hastened to their fortress 
in the mountains. 
They did not enclose their temporary encamp¬ 
ments in the open field, but each party considered 
a fortification as a security against invasion, and a 
refuge after defeat in action. 
Their places of defence were rocky fortresses 
improved by art—narrow defiles, or valleys shel¬ 
tered by projecting eminences—passes among the 
mountains, difficult of access, yet allowing their 
inmates a secure and extensive range, and an 
unobstructed passage to some spring or stream. 
The celebrated Pare, in Atehuru, was of this kind; 
the mouth of the valley in which it was situated 
was built up with a stone wall, and those who fled 
thither for shelter, were generally able to repel 
their assailants. 
Sometimes they cut down trees, and built a kind 
of stage or platform called pafata , projecting over 
an avenue leading to the pare; upon this they 
collected piles of stone and fragments of rock, 
