Te Amio-Whenua.
1821-1822.

Events were crowding on the heels of one another at the end of 1821 so rapidly and so numerously that it is difficult to sustain their sequence in an intelligible manner. Hence it becomes necessary to leave Te Rau-paraha and his people engaged in the work of house building and cultivating at Ure-nui, whilst we describe the doings of a great taua, or war-party, of Ngati-Whatua, of Kaipara, under the chiefs Apihai-Te-Kawau (the principal leader), Awa-rua, his son Totara-i-ahua, Te Tinana, Uru-amo, Pa-te-oro, Tama-hiki, and Ha-kawau; Waikato of Waikato under Te Kanawa, Awarua, Rehurehu, and othors; Ngati-Tipa of Lower Waikato under Kuku-tai and Tupaea; Ngati-Mania-poto under the veterans Tu-korehu and Pura; a few of Ngati-Maru and Ngati-Paoa of the Thames under Te Rau-roha; and also a few of Te Arawa. This expedition numbered, all told, six hundred wariors and was called" Amio-whenua, or "round about tho land."

The early part of this expedition is fully detailed in "Wars of the Northern against the Southern Tribes," p. 93, et seq., but it has nothing page 354to do with the West Coast history, of which we are now treating. The latter part, however, is very intimately connected with Taranaki. After passing through Roto-rua, Hawke's Bay, and Wairarapa, the taue came out on to Cook's Straits at Port Nicholson.

The news of the expedition, however, had preceded it all along the coast, so that when the taua reached Cook's Straits they found nothing but empty pas, or, more likely, villages, for there are few pas along the southern coasts. The Mua-upoko of Otaki, Waikanae, etc., and Rangi-tane of Manawa-tu, etc., had nearly all taken refuge on Kapiti Island, thus leaving no canoes by which the taua could get at them. No doubt, these people had no very pleasant recollection of the last northern raid under Tu-whare, Patu-one and Te Rau-paraha in 1819-20 (sec Chapter XII.). No one was found at Porirua, but a few refugees were discovered at Horo-whenua safely ensconced in the island pas on the lake, at whom the taua were obliged to look in vain, for they had no canoes by which to reach them.