nd
wonderful bloom.

The check caused by the Rotorua-Thames (or "bonnet") war was but of
short duration. Long before its close, Chapman was back at Rotorua, with
Morgan as his colleague. They built a new station on the island in the
lake (Mokoia), and here their families and their wardrobes were in
peace. Before long every village round the lake had its raupo chapel;
and Chapman himself pressed on southward to Lake Taupo, where the
effects of his labours will meet us later on.

In the same year (1838) Brown and Wilson re-occupied Tauranga, which
soon became a particularly powerful centre. Not only were the
catechetical classes large and enthusiastic, but the native teachers
itinerated through the villages of the district, and a party of fifteen
set off on a missionary tour to Taupo and Cook Strait. The history of
this bold undertaking is hard to discover, but local traditions seem to
show that these dimly-remembered pioneers must have descended the
Wanganui River, and that at least one must have penetrated as far south
as Otaki.

From Tauranga also an occasional visit was paid to Matamata, which was
not again to become the residence of a white missionary. But it had
Tamihana Waharoa with his model _pa_, and its graveyard contained the
grave of Tarore, "who, being dead, yet spake." Her father, Ngakuku, did
not indulge in useless grief, but in 1839 accompanied Wilson from
Tauranga along the Bay of Plenty to Opotiki near its eastern end, and
there they founded a station amid a people more savage than any yet
encountered. Yet even these accepted the new teaching with eagerness. A
curious evidence of this was given by a deputation which came one day to
Opotiki from a village 30 miles in the interior. The object of these
strangers was not blankets or powder, but simply to ask the white man
whether the words of the burial service might be read over the
unbaptised!

Outside the region of the "bonnet" war, changes also were in progress.
The tribes were moving toward the coast, and their teachers found it
wise to follow. The Puriri station was for this reason broken up, and
two new ones established on the Hauraki Gulf--Fairburn settling at
Maraetai, and Preece near the mouth of the Thames. Hamlin, too,
abandoned his post at Mangapouri, and sailed down the Waikato to its
mouth. Proceeding northwards to the Manukau Harbour, he found there the
Rev. R. Maunsell already established. They worked together for three
years; then Mau