Ii.

But when the fight was at its height,
His new device Te Whetu^§ tried.
Up rushed a shouting band outside
The black-charred fence before laid low.
In order good, a double row
They came; each warrior of the first
Poising a plaited green flax-sling
Well wetted in the nearest spring;
And in the sling a red-hot stone,
Which, high above the ramparts thrown,
Should soon make such a blaze outburst
From walls of rush and roofs of thatch
As might the whole defences catch,
And force the stifled foe to fly
The fort he held so stubbornly.
The second rank bore, close behind,
In baskets green, with earth safe-lined,
Of heated stones a fresh supply.
Then, at a signal given, they hurl
A burning volley thick and hot
As soft red lumps of scoria whirl,
In showers from dark abysses shot
By old Vesuvius in his play,
His common freaks of every day,

page 114 When all his lava floods repose:
Or such as o'er his creviced snows
The grander Tongariro^* throws—
While dread reverberations round
His sulphurous crater-depths resound—
When all the solemn midnight skies
With that red beacon of surprise
He startles—seeming from afar
Though low upon the horizon's bound
Sole object in the vault profound!
So baleful glares its fiery shine,
To all the tribes an ominous sign
Of death and wide disastrous war.
—Now, now, alert and active be,
Ye children of the "Sounding Sea!"
Your shifty foes will else make good
The threats ere long that boastful song
Sent echoing late o'er vale and wood!—
Not wholly unprepared they speed
To baulk and baffle if they may
Their fierce assailant's fresh essay.
For they had seen above the green
The smoke of fires lit up when need
Was none of tires for warmth or food;
And soon the project understood.
So all the gourds they could provide
Were ready, every house beside;
And even a large canoe to be
Their tank in this extremity
Hauled up and fitly placed;—all filled
With water from a well, supplied
Itself by channels issuing through
The rock upon the lake, below
Its surface cut; their outlet so
From keenest-eyed besiegers' view
Well hidden by its waters' blue.
And when that shower of firestones red

^* A volcano, 6,500ft. in height, in the centre of the northern island; in active eruption when this was written (May, 1871). [It was Nga-uru-hoe that was in eruption: 7,515ft.]

page break

Ngauruhoe (7,515ft.) from Blue Lake Crater (5,570ft,).

page 115 Came whirling, whizzing overhead,
For this vocation primed and drilled,
All those whom duty did not call
To watch the gates, defend the wall—
The old by age outworn, the young
With sinews yet for fight unstrung.
And young or old, the women too,
With Amohia^* first of all,
Quick to the calabashes flew
Or tottered as they best could do.
And when the slightest whiff of smoke
From any roof or rush-wall broke,
Some hand was prompt the place to drench,
And, ere it spread, the burning quench.