From Rauparaha's Day.

Otaki is the most historical place on the coast. The rail-line keeps to the east side of the “pakeha-Maori” town. Here a large section of the Ngati-Raukawa tribe has lived for about a century, ever since the great fighting migration southward from the Waikato.

There are carved houses in the old settlements, and there is a partilarily interesting church, the old Maori whare kara-kia, called “Rangi-atea.” The name is a poem and a history in itself, for it embodies a memory of the ancient home of the race in the Eastern Pacific, Rangiatea is synonymous with Ra'iatea Island, near Tahiti; and the name was given to a sacred altar of the Tainui migration. The church, built nearly eighty years ago, has a European exterior, but the interior is Maori architecture adapted to church needs. Mastlike round totara pillars, 40ft. high, support the massive ridge pole. These whole tree trunks were cut at Ohau by Maori artisans and floated by river and sea to Otaki. The ridge pole and rafters are painted in Native scroll patterns. Opposite the church stands a monument to the great Rauparaha; he died here in 1849, and was buried on Kapiti Island.

There is a Maori college of historic association near “Rangiatea.” It dates back to the days of Bishop Octavius Hadfield, one-time Primate of New Zealand. Hadfield settled here in 1839 as a young missionary, and acquired great influence among the Maoris. The land for the Native school was given by the Ngati-Raukawa tribe. Selected boys from Rarotonga and other South Sea islands as well as Maoris are educated here.

Waikanae, “Mullet River,” the next station, is a pretty place, with its mingling of indigenous vegetation and exotic trees and flowers. The steep-wooded foothills of the Tararua Range rise close to the line.

Another pretty place on this part-wooded littoral between mountains and sea is Para-paraumu—a name, by the way, very much mangled in European pronunciation. Many Wellington people have summer-time bungalows and camps here.