Militia and Maori auxiliaries from the Hutt in August, 1846. This force occupied the pa on the 1st August, Governor Grey arriving there in the afternoon of the same day, accompanied by Captain Stanley, of the “Calliope.”

The post was situated on the spur on which the church stands at Paua-tahanui, just above the creek, and above the bridge. A rude sketch of the Maori pa appeared in a Wellington paper of that time, but the reproduction of the stockade is decidedly eccentric. A sketch in the writer's possession is much more reliable. The name Matai-taua is one of the few local names of which we know the origin. This pa was built by the Rangihaeata when he retired from Motu-karaka some months before. When the Imperial troops advanced from Paremata fortress to join the Militia and Maori contingent in the advance up the Horokiri Valley Lieutenant De Winton occupied the pa as a military post. On the 10th August he was reinforced by a detachment of police under Sub-Inspector Strode. In October, 1846, we find that the post was garrisoned by three officers and one hundred men of the 65th Regiment. These officers were Captain R. Newenham, Lieutenant T. F. Turner, and Assistant Surgeon T. E. White.

In 1848 Captain Russell and a detachment of the 58th occupied the post. They were engaged in roadmaking. The post was finally abandoned in 1850. Apparently the 58th advanced to this post in 1847, for a traveller passing down the coast in that year describes it as follows:—

“The strong pa of Pawhatanui (?) belonging to Rangihaeata, Rauparaha's fighting-man, had been seized the year before by our forces, and was now occupied by a detachment of the 58th. I stopped at the blacksmith's outside the pa to have the horse shod, before taking him on the hard metalled road into Wellington. During the process an officer happened to pass. We entered into conversation, and the result was that Captain R., the officer in command of the detachment (for he it was), invited me to pass the night at the pa. Mounting the hill on which it stood, we entered the gate.

“The strong palisade, about 15 ft. high, which surrounded the original pa, remained undisturbed, but nearly the entire space within was now occupied by neat wooden huts, painted blue and shingled. Captain R., with his wife, a lieutenant and the assistant surgeon, with their wives, and an ensign, formed the society of the pa, and a very lively and agreeable society it was. The ladies were all young and pretty, and on the best terms with each other; Mrs. R., with her frank gaiety, being the life and soul of the little party. As for the officers, they did not, with the exception of Captain R., get through their time so easily—in fact they were mortally bored. What, indeed, had they to do? The doctor, in that provokingly salubrious climate, had no patients to cure, and the subalterns, since the Maori war was over, had none but routine duties to perform, which on detachment service are usually light enough. There was no hunting, and nothing to shoot but parrots, pigeons, and tuis. However, they did what they could; they fished and boated, pulled down almost daily to Paremata Point, where there was a detachment of the 65th, to compare notes with the major and the ensign, the latter of whom ingeniously contrived to kill a good many hours in the education of a talking tui, and laid schemes for obtaining leave to go to Wellington, which was another London or Paris to an unfortunate subaltern buried in the bush at Pawhatanui.”