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were very strong, and that they were defended by a great many friends of the “Chips” party, he thought it better to extend his patriarchal forgiveness.

“Chips lived at Mohaka for many happy years. He had plenty of work, for the stations along the coast wanted whaleboats to ship off their wool to the small craft that used to come to fetch it, and the small vessels also wanted repairing. His family increased rapidly, and the pa as a whole was very prosperous. The Natives, however, had one fear—they were on bad terms with the Uriwera tribe, that lived further inland, in a wild and almost inaccessible country, and were afraid of being taken by surprise. Some of them used to sleep in a pass some distance from the pa every night, in order to give warning of their enemies’ approach, and the pas were strongly fortified. A few white people were now living on the Mohaka, and when the news came of the Maori war in the North, and the Waikatos announced their intention of killing the Queen’s Maories and whites along that part of the East Coast, Government put up a substantial block-house at the mouth of the Mohaka, and sent some ammunition there, and a few troopers to defend it. There were two pas, both well fortified. As is the Maori custom, they were perched on the highest ground in the neighborhood. One was on the edge of a cliff more than four hundred feet high, the other was on an eminence surrounded by comparatively level ground, and as they had plenty of guns, the Natives deemed themselves impregnable. The Waikatos, however, never came, the troops were withdrawn, and the block-house was left in charge of the Maoris, who buried most of the powder. The news of Te Kooti’s return from the Chathams, and the massacre at Poverty Bay, reached them, but they never dreamed of his visiting their locality, and the fears of the Uriweras had died out, so that no precautions were