required to pass under the hurdles and send their canoes over them. One man negotiated the first hurdle successfully, but his opponents were so close together at that point that they piled up in one tangled heap. While they were extricating themselves the first canoe got well away, and won.
There were two war-canoe races, three canoes competing in each. Two of the canoes were eighty feet long, and were advertised to carry thirty-six men. The smallest canoe carried twenty men. The courses were three miles long and both events were handicaps. The first race was the Ngaruawahia Handicap, in which the smallest canoe was given three hundred and fifty yards' start; the Te Waonui a Tane's crew of thirty-two was allowed one hundred and ten yards' start of the Tangitekiwi, the scratch canoe, which carried thirty-six men.
The bows of the canoes were boxed In and when the crews were seated, their gunwales were a very few inches above water. In the centre of the largest canoes stood a feather-bedecked captain, who, from a slightly raised platform, prepared to flourish his arms, to cut the air with his taiaha (sword), and to shout and chant encouragement to the paddlers.
As the canoes started they were followed by a fleet of small steamers and launches loaded to capacity with excursionists. As they moved swiftly down the Waikato, they were hailed by excited Maoris ashore. These vied with the canoe captains in the fervor of their
