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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 13, Issue 6 (September 1, 1938)

The Old Cabbage-Tree

The Old Cabbage-Tree.

The palisade which once surrounded the enclosure has long disappeared. Timber stumps and butts visible in the high earth wall and on the edges of the ditch are the remains of a heavy growth of manuka timber, cleared away by the Maori owners of the pa reserve. The parapets, however, remained in an almost perfect condition when I searched out the place, and made the sketch here reproduced of an enormous old ti tree, sturdy veteran of many branches, growing in the main gateway, facing west. Te More Takuira, the head man of Raupo-roa told me, as we sat on the edge of the trench, it was originally one of the stakes of the fence, a young tree cut down, sharpened at the butt and driven into the ground. It took root and flourished to become the solitary remnant of the tall stockade in which it was planted seventy years ago.

The ground on the west face of the work is thickly covered with the depressions indicating kumara and potato pits, the food stores of the garrison. On the south, the narrow side, about thirty yards from the gateway, there is a shallow uneven trench, running across the face of the pa and nearing it as it approaches the river. This was where the Hauhaus dug themselves in after the failure of their first effort against the fort. In the rear wall there are two openings, gateways which gave access to the river. Within the walls the parapet is three to five feet above the general level of the ground of the ditch, so well preserved by its olden growth of manuka and fern, and now securely protected from cattle by a barbed-wire fence, is above four feet in width and of equal depth.