This last story is, I should think, doubtful, for as the whole island was but one large slave-pen, there could be no object in keeping victims shut up in a yard. The same story has been told of Rauparaha’s treatment of the islanders of Kapiti. But Kapiti is but a few miles from the main shore, and one of his destined victims, a woman, is said to have swum across the strait with her baby on her back. The unhappy Moriori had nowhere to flee to, unless they were to throw themselves into the sea. The white traders and sealers on the coast were virtually in league with their oppressors. The only escape was death, and that way they were not slow to take. Chroniclers differ as to the precise disease which played havoc with them, but I should imagine that the pestilence which walked among them in the noonday was Despair. At any rate their number, which had been 2000 in 1836, was found to be 212 in 1855. The bulk of the race had then found peace in the grave. It is a relief to know that the sufferings of the survivors had by that time come to an end. Long before 1855 the British flag had been hoisted on the Chathams and slavery abolished. After a while the New Zealand Government insisted upon a certain amount of land being given back to the Moriori. It was a small estate, but it was something. The white man, now lord of all, made no distinction between the two brown races, and in process of time the Maori, themselves reduced to a remnant, learned to treat the Moriori as equals. These better days, however, came too late. The Moriori recognised this. For in 1855, seeing that their race was doomed, they met together and solemnly agreed that the chronicles of their people should be arranged and written down, so that when the last was dead, their name and story should not be forgotten. The conquering Maori themselves did not fare so much better. They stood the test of their easy success as badly as did Pizarro’s filibusters in Peru. They quarrelled with their friends, the white traders and sealers, and suffered in an unprovoked onslaught by the crew of a certain French ship, the _Jean Bart_. Then two of the conquering clans fell out and fought with each other. In the end a number of them returned to New Zealand, and the remainder failed to multiply or keep up their strength in the Chathams. In the present day Moriori and Maori together--for their blood has mingled--do not number two hundred souls. [Illustration: WAHINE’S CANOE RACE ON THE WAIKATO]