at the Roman Catholic end of the settlement. The Wairarapa Maori were also disturbed, and some of the settlers in that district had asked that blockhouses be erected there, though curiously enough the sheep-run men, the most isolated and exposed of the settlers, did not sign the petition. The Wairarapa Maori strongly objected to soldiers being sent to their district, and, as a matter of fact, none were sent.

Rumours of Maori raids in 1860 led to the erection of two blockhouses near Wellington, the one herein described and another near the bridge at the Lower Hutt. A number of Volunteer corps were also formed, and these became numerous in the land. The blockhouses were not actually utilized as refuges, simply because those raids never came off The Wairarapa Maori never became openly hostile. They probably remembered the answer given by a local chief to Te Rangihaeata in 1846, when the latter wanted Wairarapa to join him in a raid on Wellington—“Kei a wai he tahurangi maku?” (With whom is a tahurangi for me?) Tahurangi was the Maori name of the old-fashioned red blankets. The wise chief knew that to slay the pakeha would be to cut off the supply of European products, hence the red blanket saved Wellington. The memory of those old-time fears and dangers has passed away now, and no one worries about Maori raids.

The following is taken from the New Zealand Spectator, of Wellington, for the 5th September 1860:—