In the heart of this formidable river land we tied up to the right or west bank and climbed a steep hill to the largest village in the Wahi Pari, a kainga appropriately called Pari-nui (“Great Cliff”), the headquarters of the Ngati-Ruru, the “Bush-Owls” tribe. They certainly have a secluded home, these human moreporks. The village stands on the hilltop, like an eagle's nest; it is quite 300 feet above the river. So stood most of the healthily-set and easily defended pas of old. This very site was indeed a fortified place in other days. Now the crest of the hill, a space about three hundred yards long and a quarter of that width, has been levelled off to form the marae. At one end of this village assembly ground is the carved meeting-house; at the other end are the dwellings of the principal local people; on one side, on the brink of the steep slope, is a long tent-house for visitors; at the opposite side to that is the dining-hall, with the cooking quarters close handy. A tall flagstaff stands in the middle of the marae. At the back of the hill, convenient to the cooks’ quarters, runs the village water-supply, a clear stream of good water flowing through a gully about thirty feet below the level of the marae. From a well alongside this stream the water was obtained by an ingenious method, borrowed from the pakeha. A wire rope from a post at the kitchen door runs to another at the well below, and along this rope the buckets of water, filled by a lad at the well, are drawn up by means of a travelling block and a light hauling line.