At first none could stand before him.

He assailed in 1822 two large _pas_ near where the suburbs of Auckland city now spread.

In vain the terrified inmates tried to buy off the savage with presents.

Nearly all were slaughtered or taken, and Hongi left naught in their villages but bones, with such flesh on them "as even his dogs had not required." He invaded the Waikato and penetrated to a famous _pa_--a triple stockade at Mataki-taki (Look-out).

To get there he dragged his war-canoes overland across the Auckland isthmus, straightened winding creeks for their passage, and, when the Waikatos felled large trees across one channel, patiently spent two months in cutting through the trunks.
At length the Look-out fortress was stormed with horrible slaughter.
Defended on one side by a creek, on another by the Waipa river, elsewhere by deep ditches and banks that were almost cliffs, the lofty stronghold was as difficult to escape from as to enter.