Kapiti, in Cook’s Strait, containing, as it does, barely 5000 acres, is the smallest of the three island sanctuaries, but unlike the other two it has made some figure in New Zealand history. In the blood-stained years before annexation it was seized by the noted marauder Rauparaha, whose acute eye saw in it a stronghold at once difficult to attack, and excellently placed for raids upon the main islands, both north and south. From Kapiti, with his Ngatitoa warriors and his fleet of war-canoes, he became a terror to his race. His expeditions, marked with the usual treachery, massacre, and cannibalism of Maori warfare, reached as far south as Akaroa in Banks’ Peninsula, and indirectly led to the invasion of the Chathams, and the almost complete extirpation of the inoffensive Moriori. Rauparaha’s early life might have taught him pity, for he was himself a fugitive who, with his people, had been hunted away first from Kawhia, then from Taranaki, by the stronger Waikato. He lived to wreak vengeance--on the weaker tribes of the south. No mean captain, he seems only to have suffered one reverse in the South Island--a surprise by Tuhawaiki (Bloody Jack). Certainly his only fight with white men--that which we choose to call the Wairau massacre--was disastrous enough to us. In Kapiti itself, in the days before the hoisting of the Union Jack, Rauparaha had white neighbours--I had almost said friends--in the shape of the shore whalers, whose long boats were then a feature of our coastal waters. They called him “Rowbulla,” and affected to regard him with the familiarity which breeds contempt. On his side he found that they served his purpose--which in their case was trade--well enough. Both Maori and whaler have long since passed away from Kapiti, and scarce a trace of them remains, save the wild goats which roam about the heights and destroy the undergrowth of the forest. The island itself resembles one side of a high-pitched roof. To the west, a long cliff, 1700 feet high, faces the famous north-west gales of Cook’s Strait, and shows the wearing effects of wind and wave. Eastward from the ridge the land slopes at a practicable angle, and most of it is covered with a thick, though not very imposing forest. Among the ratas, karakas, tree ferns and scrub of the gullies, wild pigeons, bell-birds, tuis, whiteheads, and other native birds still hold their own. Plants from the north and south mingle in a fashion that charms botanists like Dr. Cockayne. This gentleman has lately conveyed to Kapiti a number of specimens from the far-away Auckland isles, and if the Government will be pleased to have the goats and cattle killed off, and interlopers, like the sparrows and the Californian quail, kept down, there is no reason why Kapiti should not become a centre of refuge for the rarer species of our harassed fauna and flora. [Illustration: THE BULLER RIVER NEAR HAWK’S CRAIG]