“Te Waitere.”

Another great and tireless traveller and teacher was the Rev. John Whiteley, whose New Zealand career began in 1832. His work at his station on the south side of Kawhia endeared him to the Maoris and every pakeha traveller who passed that way in the years before the wars found a welcome under the missionary roof. His tragic end in 1869 is an unhappy chapter in our history. The Ngati-Maniapoto from Mokau who wiped out the pakehas at Pukearuhe Redoubt had not intended to kill the revered missionary whom they met on the road after they had killed the Gascoignes. His death was an unpremeditated act, a killing of which they repented immediately afterwards, for it so affected them that they broke off their expedition southward from Pukearuhe and returned to the Mokau. Their leader, Wetere te Rerenga, and most of the others, had been taught by the man they murdered. Long after the war, when at Mokau Heads, I became acquainted with two of the men who, as young and eager Hauhaus, had been in that war-party. They considered they were within their rights in destroying the Government outpost and its few occupants, the Gascoigne family, it was a legitimate act of war; but they both disclaimed any share in killing their good missionary “Te Waitere.”