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tions, and, when they were completed, it was found that upwards of four hundred warriors had assembled to take part in it. Taiaroa assumed the command, and, having despatched a portion of his forces by water, he marched up the coast, gaining slight accessions to his numbers at each stage.

On the way an incident occurred which throws some light on the motives which prompted those deeds of apparently senseless barbarity which so often darken the pages of the internal history of Maori tribes. Accompanying Taiaroa's expedition was a chief noted for his harsh and cruel disposition, Te Whakataupoka by name. On reaching Taumutu, this man was with difficulty dissuaded from killing the surviving remnants of the hapus destroyed by Rauparaha, whom he found gathered there. The reason he gave for wishing to perpetrate such a cruel deed was, that all his own friends and relations had been killed in the encounter from which these people had escaped, and he regarded their escape as having been purchased at the cost of those who perished, and therefore demanding the vengeance of surviving relatives. His inhuman proposal was resisted by Tu te hou nuku, the long-lost son of Te Mai hara nui, who had arrived in a whaling ship at Otakou just as the second Oraumoa expedition was leaving, and who, approving of its object, had at once joined it. Tu, unlike his father, was of a merciful and kindly disposition, and bestirred himself to protect the lives threatened with destruction. He sent off at once to Wairewa for his cousin Mairehe (Mrs. Tikao), and the few remaining members of his family still to be found there. On their arrival, Te Whakataupoko found that he could not carry out his sanguinary purpose, as he would have been forcibly restrained from doing any harm to the sacred persons of the Ariki’s family, who formed part of the remnant that escaped from Te Rauparaha, and whose presence