1824.

In 1824 the three tribes were living at TeRehu(Low and Motion's), and had also a settlement at Kumeu, the head of the Waitemata river, visiting as before Okahu and Auckland. The whole of the Ngatiwhatua tribes assembled, for some object not told, at Aotea, on the banks of the Kaipara, and immediately afterwards many of Te Taou and Ngaoho settled at Okahu.

In the early part of this year a party of Waikato chiefs, headed by Te Kanawa and Te Kati, visited the Bay of Islands to make peace with Ngapuhi. After the usual speeches, peace was made, and one of the chief women of Ngapuhi, Matire Toha, was betrothed to Te Kati, who was Potatau's brother, as a pledge of peace and permanent friendship. The Waikato party, accompanied by the bride and sixty Ngapuhi chiefs under Rewa and others, started away from the Bay by the direction of Hongi to return the visit of the Waikato chiefs, and to complete the peace by formally reinstating the tribes of Waikato in their usual residences. When the party arrived at Takapuna they were met by Apihai at the head of all Te Taou Ngaoho, and Te Uringutu, who treated them courteously and supplied them with food from Okahu, where at that time they were sojourning. The Taou took the Ngapuhi party up the river to Ongarahu, where they entertained them for three days. The Ngapuhi party then went to Te Whau, dragged their canoes over the neck of land into the Manukau, and thence, pursuing the route formerly traversed by Hongi, they passed up the Waikato. At Weranga o Kapu, an island in the Waikato river below Tuakau they saw a party of Ngatipaoa, under Kohirangatira and Paraoarahi, living in a pa; and, arriving at the pas of the Waikato on the Mangapiko river, a branch of the page 71Waipa, they there found another party of Ngatipaoa, part of the survivors of the original inhabitants of Mauinaina. The Waikato chiefs of the pas were Te Kanawa and Te Roherohe, and the chief of Ngatipaoa refugees Te Rauroha. The Ngapuhi chiefs remained two years at this place and then returned to their own country. At the end of the year 1824, Te Taou and Ngaoho were living at Te Rehu, at Horotiu (Queen-street), and some at Okahu. Most of these facts I have taken from the statements of Matire Toha and Ruka Turua, one of a Waikato tribe and the other of Ngapuhi, independent witnesses who have no claim to the estate under investigation and no interest in the matter.