Decline of the Maori Race.

The isthmus of Auckland is one of the most remarkable volcanic districts of the earth. It is characterised by a large number of extinct volcanic cones with craters in a more or less distinct state of preservation, and with lava streams forming extensive stone fields at the foot of the hills, or with tuff-craters surrounding, like an artificial wall, the cones of eruption piled up of scoria and volcanic ash. These cones are promiscuously scattered over the isthmus and the neighbouring shores of the Waitemata and Manukau.

Upon a rectangle twenty miles long and twelve broad, or within a radius of ten miles from Auckland, Hochstetter counted no less than 63 separate points of eruption. Each of these volcanic cones was, some hundred years ago, a fortress terraced by the hand of man, and more than a score of very strong fortresses of this description, varying in height from 150 to 642 feet, were within six miles of the centre of the isthmus.

Maungawhao, now known as Mount Eden, was the highest, and the most important of these fastnesses, occupied by "Nga-iwi," so called from being formed of the scattered remnants of several tribes which had been individually all but exterminated in wars by tribes of other districts, and which thus consolidated for mutual protection. Next in strength was Maungakiekie, now called One Tree Hill, which in 1720 was the fortress of the great chief Kiwi, who ruled in the neighbourhood. In 1740 he fell in battle with invaders from Kaipara, and from this time to the era of colonisation destructive warfare was kept up in the district almost without interruption.

Maungawhao was a pa of extraordinary strength. The sides of the hills were terraced, and high palisades with inner fences, and pits for concealment, rendered each separate terrace a separate fortress. On the northern face, the people had their cultivations in the rich warm scoria soil. Piles of stone still show the division walls of the kumara and taro grounds, and in the caves and crevices of the rock may still be found the bones of the people who lived there. The amount of labour that must have been expended in trenching, terracing, and fencing such a gigantic fortress as this, and all without iron tools, is a proof that the natives were much more numerous in former times than they were when they first became known to European voyagers, even long ere the era of colonisation.

These forts were also of such an extent that, taking into consideration the system of attack and defence used necessarily in those times, they would have been utterly untenable unless held by at least ten times the number of men the whole surrounding districts for two or three days' journey could produce a century ago. And yet, when we remember that in those times of constant war, which include at least the two centuries preceding the arrival of Europeans, the natives always, as a rule, slept in these hill forts with closed gates, bridges over trenches removed, and ladders of terraces drawn up, we must come to the conclusion that the inhabitants of the forts, though so numerous, were merely the population of the country in the close vicinity.

War was indeed the chronic state of the island, war springing from any and every imaginable cause, the most fertile being land and women, but also frequently resulting from violation of the tapu, personal insult, or the mere ambition of a chief. Every offence but the destruction of life had some commercial equivalent, but for murder there was no compensation but the taking of another life, either that of the murderer or one of his tribe.