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to ensure a supply of water in the event of this road to the spring being cut off, a number of large canoes were dragged up into the pa, and filled with fresh water, and covered over with matting to prevent loss by evaporation. Ruas and whatas were stored with provisions, and every precaution taken to enable the occupants of the pa to sustain a siege.

The various preparations for defence were barely completed, before the startling intelligence was brought that Rauparaha had invested Kaiapoi with a large military force. The inhabitants of Akaroa and its neighborhood flocked at once into Onawe, and prepared for the worst. Tangatahara was placed in chief command, and under him Puaka and Potahi. They were able to muster about four hundred warriors, most of whom were armed with muskets, the rest having to content themselves with steel hatchets, or the more primitive weapons used by their forefathers. During the six months the siege of Kaiapoi lasted, the occupants of Onawe suffered constant alarms from the reports that reached their ears of atrocities perpetrated by Rauparaha’s foraging parties. This condition of suspense was brought to a close by the capture of Kaiapoi, and the arrival of a party of fugitives with the news of its destruction, and the important intelligence that they had left Rauperaha in the act of embarking his men with the avowed intention of conveying them round to attack Onawe. Every one was now on the alert, and many were in dread expectation of what was to follow. Shortly after receiving this timely warning, the sentinels descried at a very early hour one morning, a large fleet of war canoes pulling up the harbor. Rauparaha evidently purposed to surprise the place, but his design was frustrated by the watchfulness of the defenders. Finding his plan had failed, he retired, ordering part of his force to camp in Barry’s Bay, and part at the Head of the Bay. Ngatitoa