summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
authornfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org>2025-01-22 04:12:30 -0800
committernfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org>2025-01-22 04:12:30 -0800
commitf98881eb7dfde48b23f872b2fb44cd7f75fc8cbb (patch)
tree6deb55930350f922e8f876b88d3adfd92da88fdd
parentcf9040eddb748197dcc73080e6c4c155dd1cd590 (diff)
NormalizeHEADmain
-rw-r--r--.gitattributes4
-rw-r--r--LICENSE.txt11
-rw-r--r--README.md2
-rw-r--r--old/67490-0.txt4349
-rw-r--r--old/67490-0.zipbin93975 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--old/67490-h.zipbin5254829 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--old/67490-h/67490-h.htm5450
-rw-r--r--old/67490-h/images/front.jpgbin473164 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--old/67490-h/images/frontispiece.jpgbin134286 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--old/67490-h/images/initial-a.pngbin3402 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--old/67490-h/images/initial-f.pngbin3299 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--old/67490-h/images/initial-i.pngbin2789 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--old/67490-h/images/initial-l.pngbin2690 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--old/67490-h/images/initial-o.pngbin2916 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--old/67490-h/images/initial-r.pngbin2975 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--old/67490-h/images/initial-t.pngbin2649 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--old/67490-h/images/p016-1.jpgbin177535 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--old/67490-h/images/p016-2.jpgbin154583 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--old/67490-h/images/p024-2.pngbin7087 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--old/67490-h/images/p024.jpgbin197497 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--old/67490-h/images/p025-1.jpgbin189524 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--old/67490-h/images/p025-2.jpgbin223568 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--old/67490-h/images/p033-1.jpgbin63753 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--old/67490-h/images/p033-2.jpgbin50345 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--old/67490-h/images/p033-3.jpgbin53597 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--old/67490-h/images/p033-4.jpgbin44370 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--old/67490-h/images/p040.jpgbin128030 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--old/67490-h/images/p041.jpgbin158511 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--old/67490-h/images/p048.jpgbin248475 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--old/67490-h/images/p054.pngbin34237 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--old/67490-h/images/p056-1.jpgbin157564 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--old/67490-h/images/p056-2.jpgbin155193 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--old/67490-h/images/p057-1.jpgbin148422 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--old/67490-h/images/p057-2.jpgbin152814 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--old/67490-h/images/p060.pngbin128761 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--old/67490-h/images/p071.pngbin182975 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--old/67490-h/images/p072-1.jpgbin116828 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--old/67490-h/images/p072-2.jpgbin134915 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--old/67490-h/images/p073-1.jpgbin145177 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--old/67490-h/images/p073-2.jpgbin130111 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--old/67490-h/images/p074-1.pngbin14368 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--old/67490-h/images/p074-2.pngbin20790 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--old/67490-h/images/p081-1.jpgbin122349 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--old/67490-h/images/p081-2.jpgbin121354 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--old/67490-h/images/p088-1.jpgbin207993 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--old/67490-h/images/p088-2.jpgbin189713 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--old/67490-h/images/p089-1.jpgbin143346 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--old/67490-h/images/p089-2.jpgbin168873 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--old/67490-h/images/p091.pngbin51855 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--old/67490-h/images/p096-1.jpgbin142608 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--old/67490-h/images/p096-2.jpgbin162624 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--old/67490-h/images/titlepage.pngbin23910 -> 0 bytes
52 files changed, 17 insertions, 9799 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d7b82bc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+*.txt text eol=lf
+*.htm text eol=lf
+*.html text eol=lf
+*.md text eol=lf
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..66efed8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #67490 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/67490)
diff --git a/old/67490-0.txt b/old/67490-0.txt
deleted file mode 100644
index 146ef7e..0000000
--- a/old/67490-0.txt
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,4349 +0,0 @@
-The Project Gutenberg eBook of The old frontier: Te Awamutu, the
-story of the Waipa Valley, by James Cowan
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
-most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
-of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
-will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
-using this eBook.
-
-Title: The old frontier: Te Awamutu, the story of the Waipa Valley
-
-Author: James Cowan
-
-Release Date: February 24, 2022 [eBook #67490]
-
-Language: English
-
-Produced by: Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed Proofreading
- Team at https://www.pgdp.net/ for Project Gutenberg (This
- file was produced from images generously made available by
- The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
-
-*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLD FRONTIER: TE AWAMUTU,
-THE STORY OF THE WAIPA VALLEY ***
-
-
-
-
-
- THE OLD FRONTIER
- TE AWAMUTU
- THE STORY OF THE WAIPA VALLEY
-
- The Missionary The War in Waikato
- Early Colonization The Pioneer Farmer
- The Soldier Life on the Maori Border
- and Later-Day Settlement
-
-
- By
- JAMES COWAN, F.R.G.S.
-
-
- Published by The Waipa Post Printing and Publishing Company, Limited
- Te Awamutu, New Zealand
- 1922
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-PREFACE
-
-
-This sketch of the history of the Waipa district centreing in Te
-Awamutu has been written especially with a view to interesting the
-younger generation of colonists, and the now large population on both
-sides of the old Maori border, in the uncommonly dramatic story of the
-beautiful country in which their homes are set. The original settlers
-to whom many of the events here described were matters of personal
-knowledge are fast passing away, and a generation has arisen which has
-but a vague idea of the local history and of the old heroic life on the
-Waipa plains. The book is designed to convey accurate pictures of this
-pioneer life and the successive eras of the missionary and the soldier,
-and to invest with a new interest for many the familiar home
-landscapes.
-
-Much of the information given herein is published for the first time,
-and therefore should be of special value to students of New Zealand
-history. For the story of missionary enterprise the writer has drawn on
-a MS. journal written by the Rev. John Morgan, the first civiliser of
-the Waipa country; for the military history use has been made of an
-exceedingly readable MS. narrative left by the celebrated Major Von
-Tempsky, of the Forest Rangers. For the rest, it has been a peculiar
-pleasure to the writer, as one bred on the old Aukati border, to recall
-scenes in a phase of life which has passed away for ever.
-
- J. C.
-
- Wellington, N.Z.,
- September, 1922.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CONTENTS
-
-
- Page
-CHAPTER I.—TOPOGRAPHICAL AND LEGENDARY 7
-
- The beautiful Waipa country. The garden lands of Te Awamutu and
- Rangiaowhia. Hills of the Maori border. The cone of Kakepuku.
- Ancient fortresses. Maori tribes of the Waipa basin.
-
-CHAPTER II.—THE MISSIONARY ERA 11
-
- In cannibal days. Rev. B. Y. Ashwell the first missionary in Te
- Awamutu. A feast on human flesh in Otawhao pa. End of the
- inter-tribal wars. Rev. John Morgan comes to Te Awamutu. His useful
- mission work. How Mr Morgan sowed the good seed.
-
-CHAPTER III.—PLOUGH AND FLOUR-MILL 14
-
- Mr Morgan introduces English methods of agriculture. Maori tribes
- become industrious farmers. The coming of the wheat. Large
- cultivations at Te Awamutu, Rangiaowhia, Kihikihi, and Orakau.
- Grinding the wheat. The first flour-mills. Mr Morgan’s narrative.
- Clatter of the water-mill in many Maori settlements. Exporting
- wheat and flour to Auckland. Rangiaowhia flour sent to England. Sir
- George Grey’s practical sympathy with the Maori.
-
-CHAPTER IV.—THE GOLDEN AGE BEFORE THE WAR 18
-
- Te Awamutu and Rangiaowhia in 1852. Mr Heywood Crispe’s
- description. A land of corn-fields and fruit-groves. The
- peach-groves of Rangiaowhia. Visit to the large Maori village. Old
- King Potatau. Hochstetter’s view in 1859.
-
-CHAPTER V.—JOHN GORST AT TE AWAMUTU 23
-
- Mr Gorst as Magistrate and Commissioner. The educational
- institution at Te Awamutu. A newspaper established. Rewi’s raid on
- the “Pihoihoi Mokemoke.” Mr Gorst leaves Waikato. Te Awamutu
- re-visited. The last canoe voyage.
-
-CHAPTER VI.—THE WAIKATO WAR, 1863–64 35
-
- Fighting on the Waikato. British and Colonial troops invade the
- Waipa country. Paterangi and Waiari. The Forest Rangers. Von
- Tempsky’s narrative of the war. Bishop Selwyn at the Front.
-
-CHAPTER VII.—THE CAPTURE OF RANGIAOWHIA 40
-
- Von Tempsky’s story. A summer morning invasion. Skirmishing through
- the village. Siege of a Maori whare. Colonel Nixon shot. Dramatic
- death of an old warrior. Heroic little garrison annihilated.
-
-CHAPTER VIII.—THE ENGAGEMENT AT HAIRINI 48
-
- Sharp action at Hairini Hill. Field Artillery shells the Maori
- lines. A great bayonet charge. Defeat of the Maoris. Work of the
- Forest Rangers. Looting Rangiaowhia village. Comedy at the Catholic
- Church. Von Tempsky and an Imperial Colonel. The return to Te
- Awamutu. A curious spectacle. “Those rascally Rangers have got all
- the loot!”
-
-CHAPTER IX.—THE INVASION OF KIHIKIHI 55
-
- Rewi Maniapoto’s headquarters. British force occupies Kihikihi
- village. Burning of the council house. Von Tempsky’s night
- expedition. A fruitless march. Harmless skirmishing. Redoubt built
- at Kihikihi. Te Awamutu the army’s headquarters. The first
- expedition to Orakau.
-
-CHAPTER X.—THE BATTLE OF ORAKAU 59
-
- Most memorable battle in New Zealand’s history. Brigadier-General
- Carey’s expedition. Von Tempsky’s narrative. Animated description
- of the siege. Work of the Forest Rangers. Heroism of the Maori
- garrison. The last day. A break for freedom. The soldiers in
- pursuit. Maori narratives. The reply to General Cameron’s message.
- Incidents of the siege.
-
-CHAPTER XI.—CAMP LIFE AT TE AWAMUTU 79
-
- The troops in winter quarters. Description of camp life. The
- soldiers’ whares. The house-opening dance. Sawyers near
- Rangiaowhia. The 65th, a model regiment. Soldiers become
- capitalists. Looting the Maori horses. The romance of Ariana. The
- hunchback and his flute. A militiaman’s heart and hand, and
- Ariana’s scorn.
-
-CHAPTER XII.—PIONEER LIFE ON THE OLD FRONTIER 84
-
- Perils of the King Country border. An unknown, sullen land. Picture
- from the north side of the Puniu. The pioneer settlers’ life in the
- Seventies. The peach-groves of Orakau. A chain of blockhouses and
- redoubts. The murder of Timothy Sullivan. Grave danger of another
- war. Te Awamutu Cavalry Volunteers. Patrolling the out-settlements.
- The return of peace. When Tawhiao came out. “The King of the
- Cannibal Islands.” The peace-making dance in Kihikihi. The capture
- of Winiata. Mahuki’s raid on Alexandra. Peaceful pakeha conquest of
- the King Country.
-
-CHAPTER XIII.—KIHAROA THE GIANT 96
-
- A Folk-Tale of the Maori Border. The “Giant’s Grave” at Tokanui.
- Fortified hills of “The Three Sisters.” The story of an invasion.
- An army in ambush. The battle of Whenuahou. The death of Kiharoa.
- Matau, the Giant of the Wairaka.
-
-APPENDICES 101
-
- Maori place names. The capture of Winiata. Mr Hursthouse’s
- adventure in the King Country. Mahuki’s raid on Alexandra, and his
- capture. The King Country railway.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-THE OLD FRONTIER
-
-
-CHAPTER I.
-
-TOPOGRAPHICAL AND LEGENDARY.
-
-
-For landscape interest conjoined to the traditional and historic I know
-of no part of New Zealand more attractive than the zone along the old
-frontier line of the Waipa country of which Te Awamutu may be described
-as the metropolis to-day. Beauty of physical configuration! fertility
-of soil, poetic Maori folklore, memories of the heroic pioneer days,
-tales of sadness and glory of the war years—all these elements combine
-to invest the border line of the Waipa and the Rohepotae with a
-singular value, above all to those who have had the fortune to be
-reared on this well-favoured land. The physiographic charm of the
-country on the north side of the Puniu and the east side of the Waipa
-River is produced by the gently-rolling lie of the land with its
-countless sheltered valleys and its well-sunned slopes, with its
-leisurely-winding streams, with here and there a small lake; the old
-Maori garden lands of Te Awamutu, Rangiaowhia, Kihikihi, and Orakau,
-now covered with pakeha farms and tree-groves, with fat flocks and
-herds, and wearing all the aspect of a comfortable countryside enriched
-by the tillage of two generations of white farmers. The south side of
-the old Aukati line, more recently broken in from the wilderness of
-fern and tutu, is even more promising as a land of fat stock and good
-crops, of dairy herds and meat; and it is singularly interesting to the
-physiographer and the geologist. Pirongia, Kakepuku, the tattooed cone
-of Kawa, the fort-scarped “Three Sisters” of Tokanui, Tauranga-Kohu and
-its neighbour hills, the Maunga-tautari Ranges, curve sicklewise along
-the old-time frontier, a romantically-shaped ceinture of volcanic
-saliencies which seem to mount guard like giant sentries over the
-Rohepotae, just as they formed a belt of fiery lava mouths and cones in
-the remote geological past. Kakepuku, a Ngauruhoe in miniature, is a
-peak to hold the eye for many a mile. I came to look on that lone
-mountain with very much the kind of affection in which it is held by
-the Maori people who live around its base, whose local folklore and
-poetry enshrine many a reference to Kakepuku. The fair blue hills of
-boyhood! Once upon a time when we rode in daily from the other side of
-Kihikihi to school at Te Awamutu the uplift of Kakepuku, looming a few
-miles across the valley to the westward, seemed an enchanted mountain,
-holding infinite suggestion of mystery and adventure. Pirongia is twice
-its altitude, building up a noble rugged western skyline, but
-Kakepuku’s indigo-blue cone, with the crater hollow scooped out of its
-top, was the peak to capture the imagination. On clear days as we
-viewed it from the Kihikihi hills every line of the deep ravines which
-scored its sides stood up as bold and sharp as the singularly scarped
-terraces of Kawa’s nippled hill. Kakepuku almost seemed shaped and hewn
-from the landscape by the hands of veritable mountain gods, so regular
-and symmetrical its outline. Truly a picture mountain. Moreover, it was
-our weather glass. When Kakepuku put on his fog-cap, and the mists
-filled the long-dead crater of the volcano and crept down the upper
-slopes, the countryside knew that rain was at hand. The other
-mountains, such as Pirongia, might cloud themselves with mist and the
-sign go unheeded, but Kakepuku’s tohu-ua never failed. Then there is
-the curious nature-myth which tells how gently-rounded Kawa was
-Kakepuku’s wife, a story told with much circumstantial detail by the
-old Maoris of the Waipa and the Puniu, a story over-long to be told
-here with its tale of battle between the jealous Kakepuku and that
-mountain Lothario Karewa—now Gannet Island, off Kawhia; one which seems
-dimly to reveal the geological past of these volcanic peaks. [1]
-
-This singular beauty of landscape setting cannot but enhance the love
-of one’s native land in those whose lives are cast within sight of the
-mountains and hills of the border. The Maori loved the country, albeit
-he made comparatively little use of it, with an intensity which not
-many pakehas realise. There is a song of Ngati-Maniapoto often chanted
-in the old days when a fighting column paraded in the village marae
-before setting out on the warpath. The chief, facing the parade of
-warriors, uplifted his taiaha and shouted as he pointed to the blue
-mountain looming near:
-
-
- Ko whea, ko whea—
- Ko whea tera maunga
- E tu mai ra ra?
-
- (“What is yonder mountain soaring high above us?”)
-
-
-And with one voice the warriors yelled, as they burst into the
-ferocious stamp and weapon-thrusting of the tutu-ngarahu or peruperu
-dance:
-
-
- ’Tis Kakepuku!
- ’Tis Pirongia!
- Ah, ’tis Kakepuku!
- Ah, draw close to me,
- Draw close to me,
- That I may embrace thee,
- That I may hold thee to my breast!
- A—a—ah!
-
-
-A similar chant, applying to Mount Egmont, was used by the Taranaki
-Maoris. In each case the mountain was regarded as a lover, and
-symbolised nationality and clanship, and a reference to it never failed
-as a patriotic stimulus.
-
-Now the ancient owners of the Waipa and Puniu plains are but a remnant
-and their tales and songs are but the faintest memory; but the old
-volcano-gods remain, graceful nature-carved monuments, and their poetry
-no less than their beauty of form should inspire even the
-matter-of-fact pakeha with something of the Maori love and veneration
-for the high places of the land.
-
-The ancient Maori story of the Waipa plains and downs, as preserved by
-the word-of-mouth historians, the old men of the tribes, is a record of
-land-seeking, exploration, and place-naming by the chiefs who came in
-the Tainui canoe, and by Rakataura the priest; then a succession of
-tribal feuds and wars, raids, pa-buildings and pa-stormings, ambush,
-massacre, slave-taking, and man-eating. That warrior tale need not be
-gone into here; we take up our story of Te Awamutu with the first
-introduction of the pakeha interest, and in truth the place was savage
-and rough enough then. Here and there, on the well-settled lands
-to-day, one finds relics of the old cannibal era, when every tribe’s
-hand, and often every little hapu’s, was against its neighbours. Round
-about Te Awamutu, even, the lines of ancient trenched forts remain,
-particularly on the banks of the Mangapiko, where the numerous crooks
-and elbows of the river provided pa sites readily made formidable
-strongholds. The celebrated Waiari, a few miles from Te Awamutu and a
-mile from Paterangi, is an example. Another excellent specimen of Maori
-military engineering is an old earthwork called Tauwhare, on the
-Mangapiko, a mile south of Mr Harry Rhodes’ “Parekura” homestead; this
-is distinguished by a series of enormously deep trenches and high
-parapets, on the cliffy verge of the river. These forts on the
-Mangapiko belonged to the Ngati-Apakura tribe. But the King Country, on
-the south side of the Puniu River, is the land for hill-forts. Every
-cone, big or little, is trenched and scarped; every eligible
-river-elbow has its double or triple earthwork. Even on the very top of
-Mount Kakepuku, crowning the ancient crater rim, are the ruins of two
-fortresses of the Ngati-Unu tribe.
-
-Te Awamutu was inhabited, when the first pakeha ventured into these
-parts, by the Ngati-Ruru, a section of the great Waikato tribe.
-Rangiaowhia was peopled by two other large Waikato clans, Ngati-Apakura
-and Ngati-Hinetu. Ngati-Maniapoto held all the Puniu country and the
-land to the southward; their northern outpost was Kihikihi. The Orakau
-district was held by the Ngati-Raukawa and a hapu of Waikato called
-Ngati-Koura.
-
-
-
-
-NOTES.
-
-The terms “King Country,” “Rohepotae,” and “Aukati” require a little
-explanation for those who are unacquainted with the origin of the
-phrases.
-
-The King Country, embracing a vast area of territory south of the Puniu
-River and west of the Upper Waikato, with the Tasman Sea as the western
-boundary, was so called because the Maori King Tawhiao with his
-adherents took refuge there in 1864 after being dispossessed of
-Waikato. For some years Tawhiao’s headquarters were at Tokangamutu,
-close to the site of the present town of Te Kuiti. The name Te Kuiti is
-an abbreviation of Te Kuititanga, meaning “the narrowing in,” a
-designation given by the Kingites in reference to the conquest of
-Waikato and the consequent hemming in of the Maoris in the country
-south of the Puniu.
-
-“Rohe-potae” means a circular boundary line, literally a boundary
-resembling a head-covering. The term was applied to the King Country in
-the early Eighties by Wahanui and his fellow-chiefs, when defining the
-area within which no pakeha surveys or land-buying or leasing would be
-permitted.
-
-“Aukati” means a line which may not be passed; a frontier or pale. It
-was particularly applied by the Kingites to the northern border of the
-King Country, the Government’s confiscation boundary; pakeha trespass
-over this line was forbidden.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER II.
-
-THE MISSIONARY ERA.
-
-
-It was the Rev. B. Y. Ashwell who chose the site of the mission station
-at Te Awamutu. This was in 1839. He had made a missionary
-reconnaissance of Upper Waikato with a view to establishing a station
-among the savage cannibals of the district, great warriors and
-apparently irreclaimable man-eaters, and in July of 1839 he returned to
-Otawhao to carry on the mission. Among Ngati-Ruru there were some who
-had already gained an inkling of the Rongo-Pai, the Good News, from
-native teachers, but the majority were pagan. Shortly after his arrival
-a war party of Ngati-Ruru, who had been away with Ngati-Haua and other
-tribes raiding the Arawa country, returned from the Maketu and Rotorua
-districts, under their chiefs Puata and Te Mokorou. The party was laden
-with human flesh; there were, as Mr Ashwell recorded, sixty pikau or
-flax baskets packed with the cut-up remains of their slaughtered foes.
-Then came a fearful feast on cooked man (kai-tangata).
-
-Mr Ashwell induced many of Ngati-Ruru to leave Otawhao and establish a
-Christian pa, which was built on the ground now occupied by the old
-mission station and the Church of St. John’s.
-
-Mr Ashwell’s establishment of the mission station at Te Awamutu marked
-the end of the cannibal wars and the periodical fighting expeditions of
-Waikato in the Rotorua and Bay of Plenty districts. The grim old
-warrior Mokorou became a follower of the missionary, and was baptised
-by the name of Riwai (Levi). Most of the people by this time had become
-tired of wars; there was a general longing for a more settled state of
-life and a desire to obtain pakeha commodities other than weapons and
-munitions of war. So Mr Ashwell soon had large and eager congregations,
-and his preaching of the Rongo-Pai fell on willing ears.
-
-But it was Mr Ashwell’s successor, the Rev. John Morgan, who truly
-civilised this Upper Waikato. Mr Ashwell had confined his teachings to
-the spiritual side. Mr Morgan took a more expansive view of his mission
-and his responsibilities. He introduced English methods of agriculture,
-brought in English fruit trees, taught the natives to grow wheat, and
-to grind it in their own water-mills. He it was who by his precepts and
-personal example made the natives of Te Awamutu, Rangiaowhia, Kihikihi,
-and Orakau a farming and fruit-growing people, with the result that
-long before the Waikato War adventurous travellers to this district
-found to their astonishment a series of eye-delighting oases in the
-wilds, with great fields of wheat, potatoes, and maize, and dwellings
-arranged in neat streets and shaded by groves of peach and apple-trees;
-each settlement with its water-driven flour-mill procured by the
-community and busily grinding into flour the abundant yield of the
-cornfields.
-
-Mr John Morgan was a missionary of the London Mission Society, and had
-had some years’ experience of the hazards of Christianising work on the
-Waihou, at Matamata, and at Rotorua. He and his brave wife lived in the
-midst of alarms, and more than once had to abandon their stations. In
-the most dangerous period of their life at Rotorua they had to take
-refuge, with the Rev. Thomas Chapman, of Te Ngae, on Mokoia Island, in
-the middle of the lake. After this sort of missionary pioneering it
-must have been a vast relief to Mr Morgan to receive orders in 1841 to
-take over the newly-established station at Te Awamutu. Here he carried
-on for more than twenty years, the religious teacher and counsellor and
-technical instructor for half a score of tribes in the Waipa basin. “Te
-Mokena” was in an infinite variety of ways the benefactor of his Maori
-flock; never did a missionary take a more liberal view of his duty to
-the native. In the later troubled days, when the war was looming and it
-was desirable that the Government authorities should be informed of the
-exact political conditions among the Maoris, he kept Governor Grey
-correctly advised of the views and intentions of the Kingites, and so
-came to be called “the watchman of the Waikato.”
-
-At Wharepapa, the site of a one-time large Maori village on the south
-side of the Puniu, a few miles from Waikeria, I heard the story of
-“Mokena” and the “missionary grass.” Here Mr Morgan had a little native
-church in the days before the war, and on his travels from Te Awamutu
-through the Maori country he did not confine his sowing of the good
-seed to the Gospel brand. On his rides from kainga to kainga he took
-his dog, and to the dog’s neck was tied a little bag filled with
-English clover-seed and grass-seed, which was allowed to drop out a
-seed at a time by a tiny hole.
-
-In this way the pioneer missionary scattered seeds of civilisation
-which spread over many a part of this wild countryside. To this day in
-some of these old villages there is a beautiful sward that goes back to
-the good parson of Te Awamutu, and to Wharepapa not many years since
-the natives used to go for the seed of the “mission grass,” esteemed
-alike by Maori and pakeha for its making of pasture.
-
-“Mokena’s” fame hereabouts rests more, perhaps, on his thoughtful
-grass-sowing for future generations and on his practical teaching of
-English agriculture than on his preaching of the Faith to the
-Ngati-Maniapoto and Ngati-Ruru of the days before the War.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER III.
-
-PLOUGH AND FLOUR-MILL.
-
-
-An illuminating account of the growth of agricultural enterprise among
-these Upper Waikato people and the position about 1850 is contained in
-an unpublished manuscript journal written by the Rev. John Morgan. [2]
-The missionary prefaces the narrative of the temporal side of his
-labours at Te Awamutu with the statement that wheat was introduced
-among the natives chiefly by the missionaries. The Ven. Archdeacon
-Williams encouraged its cultivation in his district of Waiapu, East
-Coast. “It was small in quantity,” said Mr Morgan, “for it was
-contained in a stocking, but it was sown and re-sown, and at the
-present time the increase from the little seed contained in a stocking
-is being sent by the natives to the Auckland market. Much is also
-ground by the Maoris in steel mills for their own use.
-
-“Shortly after the formation of the Otawhao (Te Awamutu) station,” the
-missionary’s story continued, “in consequence of the difficulty of
-obtaining supplies of flour from the coast I procured some seed wheat.
-After the reaping of the first crop I sent Pungarehu, of Rangiaowhia, a
-few quarts of seed. This he sowed and reaped. The second year he had a
-good-sized field. Other natives now desired to share in the benefit,
-and the applications for seed became so numerous that I could not
-supply them all, and many obtained seed from Kawhia and Aotea (West
-Coast), where wheat had been introduced either by the Wesleyan
-missionaries or the settlers.
-
-“As a large quantity of wheat was now grown at Rangiaowhia, and the
-natives had not purchased steel mills, I recommended them to erect a
-water-mill. At the request of Kimi Hori, I went to the millwright who
-was then building a mill at Aotea. In March, 1846, the millwright
-arrived, and I drew up a contract for the erection of a mill at a cost
-of £200, not including the carriage of timber, building of the mill
-dam, and the formation of the watercourse, all of which were performed
-by the natives themselves. Seven men were set to work, the natives
-promising to pay the first £50 instalment within a very short time.
-Instead of leaving immediately for Auckland with pigs to raise the
-required amount, they began to take up their potatoes and then the
-kumara to store them for winter use. They then promised to leave for
-town as soon as the crops were secured. An invitation, however, arrived
-from Maketu, and the entire tribe left Rangiaowhia to partake of a
-feast at that place, the millwright threatening to give up the
-contract. On their return they accepted a second invitation, and went
-to another distant village. It was with the greatest difficulty that I
-now detained the millwright. In this manner four months passed away.
-The millwright demanded compensation for loss of time, and a chief
-agreed to give him a piece of land of about 200 acres, but for which no
-Government grant has as yet been made. Still the natives delayed. The
-required sum (£200) was large for a tribe of New Zealanders to raise.
-The Aotea mill was now useless, and many feared that this (Rangiaowhia)
-would also be a failure, and there were several Europeans who had come
-up to trade in pigs who from interested motives freely gave their
-opinion that the whole scheme would fail. In this way two months passed
-away, and it required many personal visits to Rangiaowhia—first, to
-persuade the millwright, who was several times on the point of leaving,
-to remain, and, secondly, to urge the natives to take their pigs to
-town. At length they started. In a few weeks the £50 was raised, and
-paid into my hands to be paid to the millwright. After this I had no
-more trouble. The work went forward while the money was being
-collected, and the last instalment of £50 being paid into my hands, I
-had the pleasure of handing it to the millwright the day the work was
-completed.”
-
-This water-driven flour-mill, it may be explained here, was built at
-Pekapeka-rau, the lower part of the swampy valley between Hairini Hill
-and Rangiaowhia, through which a watercourse flows toward the
-Mangapiko. Here a dam was constructed, and a lagoon was formed; the
-water collected here turned the mill-wheel.
-
-Later, another mill was constructed, on the watercourse called Te
-Rua-o-Tawhiwhi, on the eastern side of Rangiaowhia village.
-
-Mr Morgan, continuing his story of the new flour-mills, wrote:
-
-“The Rangiaowhia mill was not completed before other tribes became
-jealous and wished for mills. I drew up two more contracts, one for the
-erection of a mill at Maunga-tautari, and the other at Otawhao, at the
-cost respectively of £110 and £120, not including native labour. Both
-of these mills have been erected. A new difficulty now arose at
-Rangiaowhia, that of finding a miller to take charge of the mill. In
-the arrangement I experienced more vexations and difficulty than in the
-erection of the mills. There was a person ready to take charge, but the
-natives, not knowing the value of European labour, refused to give him
-a proper remuneration. One old chief offered one quart of wheat per
-day! At length, after two months, this knotty point was settled. On the
-following day the miller commenced work. In the year 1848 the natives
-of Rangiaowhia took down some flour to Auckland, which they sold for
-about £70. The neighbouring tribes, seeing the benefit likely to arise
-from the erection of mills, began earnestly to desire them. One was
-contracted for at Kawhia, and the sum of about £315 has been paid on
-account. About 1850 a contract was entered into for the erection at
-Mohoaonui [near Otorohanga], on the Waipa, of the largest mill yet
-built, at a cost of £300. The natives of Kawhia are anxious for the
-erection of a second mill, and the natives at Whatawhata and two other
-villages on the Waipa, and of Kirikiriroa and Maungapa, on the Waikato,
-and also Matamata, propose to erect mills; at several of these places
-the funds are being collected.
-
-“Wheat is very extensively grown in the Waikato district. At
-Rangiaowhia the wheat fields cover about 450 acres of land. I have also
-introduced barley and oats at that place. Many of the people at various
-villages are now forming orchards, and they possess many hundreds of
-trees budded or grafted by themselves, consisting of peach, apple,
-pear, plum, quince, and almond; also gooseberry bushes in abundance.
-For flowers or ornamental trees they have no taste; as they do not bear
-fruit, it is, in their opinion, loss of time to cultivate them.”
-
-The missionary, concluding his interesting narrative, described a visit
-paid to the district by Sir George Grey, Governor.
-
-“His Excellency,” wrote the missionary, “spent half a day at
-Rangiaowhia, and expressed himself much pleased with the progress of
-the natives at that place. He visited the mill, which was working at
-the time. Two bags of flour were presented to him for Her Majesty the
-Queen, and they have since been forwarded to London. The Governor has
-since that time presented the Rangiaowhia natives with a pair of fine
-horses, a dray and harness, and a plough and harness. He also requested
-me to engage a farm servant to instruct the natives in the use of the
-plough, etc. [3] The value of the flour sent down this year from
-Rangiaowhia and now ready for the Auckland market may be estimated at
-about £330. Of this sum upward of £240 was, or will be, spent in the
-purchase of horses, drays, and ploughs. Each little tribe is now
-endeavouring to procure a plough and a pair of horses, and the people
-expect during the next year to have at least ten ploughs at work. The
-rapid advancement in cultivation is the fruit of Sir George Grey’s kind
-present to introduce the plough at those places. One of the chiefs at
-Rangiaowhia has erected a small boarded house. He has also several
-cows, one of which he generally milks in the morning.”
-
-
-
-Such is the story of the very practical missionary work in this
-district. “Te Mokena” truly tamed the people; old cannibals followed
-the plough and spent days in discussing the Auckland market prices of
-wheat and flour. Distant white communities, too, came to depend largely
-on the Maori farmers of the Upper Waikato for their breadstuffs; and
-when the great gold rushes began in California and Victoria, in
-1849–52, the cargoes of New Zealand produce sent to far-away San
-Francisco and to Melbourne often contained shipments from Rangiaowhia
-and other Maori farm-villages.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IV.
-
-THE GOLDEN AGE BEFORE THE WAR.
-
-
-The period from about 1845 to 1860 was the era of peaceful progress and
-industry among Waikato and Ngati-Maniapoto. It was not until the latter
-year that the outbreak of the Taranaki War, the forerunner of that in
-Waikato, interrupted the new and profitable era of wheat-growing and
-flour-milling and the pleasures of the annual canoeing expeditions down
-the Waipa and Waikato to the city markets.
-
-These farm-settlements of Morgan’s making were in what may be called
-their zenith of prosperity in the year 1852, when prices for produce
-were high. In February of that year a visit was paid to Te Awamutu and
-Rangiaowhia by a party of travellers from Auckland and Onehunga, among
-whom was young Heywood Crispe, later a well-known Mauku settler and
-volunteer rifleman. Describing long afterwards this memorable Waikato
-expedition, Mr Crispe said, after narrating that the canoe voyage ended
-at Te Rore, on the Waipa:
-
-“I can well remember the first sight we got in the distance of the
-steeple of the church at the Rev. Mr Morgan’s mission station at Te
-Awamutu, for some of the party were getting a bit tired when it came
-into sight, and it seemed to put new life into them. The natives at
-Rangiaowhia had made preparations for a goodly party, as they had two
-days’ racing in hand. They allotted to us a large, newly-erected whare,
-the floor being covered with native mats, and it was on them that we
-indulged in sweet sleep. There was a line of whares erected on the
-crown of Rangiaowhia Hill, from which we could obtain a fine view of
-the surrounding country, and it all had a grand appearance in our eyes.
-There was a long grove of large peach trees and very fine fruit on
-them. Such a waste of fruit it seemed to us, but of course they were of
-no value there. One never sees such trees of peaches now. We, the
-Europeans, must be the cause by the importation of pests from other
-countries. A large portion of the ground round the hill was carrying a
-very good crop of wheat, for the Maoris believed in that as a crop, and
-they used to convert it into flour at the various flour-mills they had.
-It was of a very good quality, and some of the Waikato mills had a name
-for the flour they produced, a good deal of which was put on the
-Auckland market, being taken down the Waikato, via Waiuku and Onehunga.
-It had taken our canoe party about three weeks to reach this, our
-journey’s end, but there was no iron horse then by which to make a
-rapid journey. Now it is only part of a day’s journey to get to the
-same spot.
-
-“We spent several days in our camp on the Rangiaowhia Hill, taking
-walks and viewing the country. We attended the races, which afforded
-some good sport, all being managed by the natives, assisted by some
-pakeha-Maoris of the neighbourhood. They were white men living a Maori
-life. Some of them had been well-brought-up young men, rather wild
-perhaps, who had drifted away from home and had taken up an idle life
-among the natives, getting regular remittances from their people at
-Home.
-
-“The Maoris provided all their pakeha friends with a most excellent
-meal on the ground, and peaches galore, as well as horses to ride. We
-rode some distance round to view the country, the Maori flour-mills,
-and cultivation. There were a lot of good cattle and horses about, and
-the crops of wheat and patches of potatoes were particularly good,
-although no bonedust was used in those days. The Roman Catholics had a
-very nice place of worship at Rangiaowhia, where regular worship was
-conducted. There were mission stations all up the Waikato and Waipa
-Rivers in those days, and as far as Te Awamutu.”
-
-Everywhere the Maoris of those days showed the travellers on their six
-weeks’ trip the greatest hospitality. On the canoe voyage the pakehas
-called in here and there at native settlements and got a supply of
-pork, potatoes, and peaches.
-
-When the aged Potatau te Wherowhero was made Maori King (1858) there
-were great gatherings at Ngaruawahia and Rangiaowhia. At the latter
-place the Europeans in the district—the mission people, the traders,
-and artisans—were invited to the festivities. The abundance of food at
-Rangiaowhia was probably the reason why that large village of
-Ngati-Apakura was selected as one of the principal gathering places of
-the Waikato in 1858–60. Rangiaowhia in those days was a beautiful
-place, with its comfortable thatched houses, shaded by groves of peach
-and apple trees, dotted along the crown of a gently-sloping hill, among
-the fields of wheat, maize, potatoes, and kumara, and its flour-mills
-in the valley. On the most commanding mound was the Roman Catholic
-Church in front of Hoani Papita’s home; a few hundred yards to the
-south was the English Church, locally greatly admired because of its
-large stained-glass window, sent out from England by Bishop Selwyn. The
-Maori congregations have vanished long ago, and the pre-war
-wharekarakia are used by the white settlers.
-
-A pioneer colonist, Mrs B. A. Crispe, widow of the late Heywood Crispe,
-the only survivor of the Europeans who witnessed the gathering, recalls
-some of the scenes in the Rangiaowhia of 1858, when she was a girl at
-school at Mr Morgan’s mission station at Te Awamutu. She describes the
-venerable Potatau as a feeble old man with his face completely
-tattooed; he wore a long black coat and a dark cloth cap with a gold
-band round it.
-
-Mrs Crispe has memories of the Upper Waikato district as it was toward
-the end of the Fifties, before the Kingite war had destroyed the
-prosperous agricultural life of the Maoris, who then constituted the
-whole population of the interior with the exception of a few
-missionaries and their families and several traders and other
-pakeha-Maoris. Mrs Crispe, who was the daughter of Mr Mellsop, a
-pioneer settler of the Mauku district, was taken up by her father to
-the Rev. John Morgan’s mission station at Te Awamutu—in those days
-usually called Otawhao, after the old pa. She was then a young girl,
-and she was placed with the Morgans to be educated; schooling for
-children was a difficult problem with the back-blocks settlers in those
-days. All communication with the Waikato and Waipa country was carried
-on by canoe, for there were no roads into the interior until the troops
-opened up the country in the Waikato War. In about 1858 the Mellsops
-embarked at Waiuku and passed through the narrow and crooked Awaroa
-Creek in kopapa, or small canoes, the only craft which could navigate
-this stream, connecting the Manukau harbour with the Waikato River. In
-the Waikato they transferred to a large canoe, about sixty feet long,
-well loaded with goods from Auckland for the mission station and the
-Maori settlements. Their Maori crew paddled them up to Te Rore, on the
-Waipa; the voyage occupied three days. Two nights were spent in camp on
-the Waikato banks; the third day was spent in working up the Waipa
-River from its junction with the Waikato at Ngaruawahia. From Te Rore
-the party rode across the plain to Te Awamutu. Here Mrs Crispe spent
-two years at school.
-
-The farming missionary had succeeded in giving the wilds of Te Awamutu
-a thoroughly settled and home-like appearance, with wheat fields
-enclosed by hedges of hawthorn. The wheat grown by the natives in the
-Rangiaowhia-Te Awamutu district was ground at the mills, bagged, and
-sent down to the white settlements for sale. The flour-bags were sewn
-by the native girls in Mrs Morgan’s sewing class at the mission
-boarding school; and when the flour was being ground there would be
-sewing-bees at the mills, where the girls stitched up the bags as they
-were filled. The flour was carted in bullock drays to Te Rore, where it
-was loaded into canoes. The cargoes were paddled down the Waipa and
-Waikato, along the Awaroa to Waiuku, there loaded into a cutter for
-Onehunga, and finally carted across the isthmus to Auckland town, a
-journey of over a hundred miles from the Rangiaowhia water-mills. The
-Maoris would invest the proceeds in clothes, blankets, tea, sugar, and
-all kinds of European goods, and then begin their homeward journey.
-Time was no object in those golden years, and a marketing party from
-Rangiaowhia and Te Awamutu would sometimes spend several weeks on the
-trip, returning with pakeha commodities to delight the hearts of their
-families and endless tales of all the sights they had seen in the
-distant town.
-
-An incident of the visits to Rangiaowhia over sixty years ago is
-recalled by Mrs Crispe. She and the Morgan girls noticed a peach tree
-loaded with great white korako in an enclosure near the English Church,
-and presently they were enjoying a feast of fruit. A Maori woman came
-up to them in great alarm and told them that they must not touch the
-peaches; the tree was tapu, and she was afraid that the fruit would
-kill them as it assuredly would have killed any Maori who ate it. It
-often happened that the choicest fruit trees were under the ban of tapu
-for some reason, such as the recent death of the owner.
-
-In front of Mr Morgan’s mission house at Te Awamutu there was a row of
-almond trees. These almonds—so seldom seen in a New Zealand orchard
-now—were widely distributed among the natives; hence the remarkably
-large trees, up to about thirty feet in height, which grew on the old
-Maori cultivations at Orakau and elsewhere, and survived long after the
-land had been confiscated by the Crown and settled by white farmers.
-
-Dr Ferdinand von Hochstetter, the famous Austrian geologist, on his
-expedition through the interior of the North Island in 1859, admired
-the settled aspect of Te Awamutu and the neighbouring country. He made
-an ascent of Mount Kakepuku, setting out from the Rev. Alexander Reid’s
-Wesleyan mission station at Te Kopua, and from the summit viewed the
-valley of the Waipa: “The beautiful, richly-cultivated country about
-Rangiaowhia and Otawhao lay spread out before us like a map. I counted
-ten small lakes and ponds scattered about the plains. The church
-steeples of three places were seen rising from among orchards and
-fields. Verily I could hardly realise that I was in the interior of New
-Zealand.”
-
-Now the scene has vastly changed. A far more richly-cultivated country
-than that which the wandering geologist saw in 1859 stretches in all
-directions, and the railway engine trails the smoke-banner of the
-pakeha past Kakepuku’s foot, between him and his hill-wife Kawa. But
-some relics of Hochstetter’s day remain. The picture-like spires of the
-English mission church at Te Awamutu and the English and Roman Catholic
-Churches at Rangiaowhia still rise above the tree-groves,
-heaven-pointing fingers that carry a suggestion of antiquity all too
-rare in man’s work in New Zealand.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER V.
-
-JOHN GORST AT TE AWAMUTU.
-
-
-The determination of the Maori tribes to establish a King was not in
-the beginning hostile to the white Government. On the contrary, Wiremu
-Tamehana, of Ngati-Haua, a man of lofty ideals and altogether admirable
-character, continually emphasised the fact that the kingdom must be on
-a footing of friendship with the pakeha; it was simply to govern the
-Maoris within their own district and to ensure a measure of peace and
-order which the Queen’s Government could not maintain. The King
-movement was originated in 1851–52 by Tamehana te Rauparaha—son of the
-great Rauparaha—who had been on a voyage to England and returned with
-ideas for the betterment of his race, and by Matene te Whiwhi, of
-Otaki. The difficulty was to select a suitable chief as King, and one
-man after another declined the honour, until at last Matene and his
-fellow-chiefs persuaded the aged warrior Potatau te Wherowhero, of
-Waikato, to take the position. Potatau, like Tawhiao his son after him,
-was merely a figurehead; the destinies of the native confederation were
-decided by the runangas or tribal councils at Ngaruawahia and Kihikihi.
-Tawhiao succeeded Potatau on the latter’s death in 1860.
-
-A variety of elements, social and political, combined to produce a war
-feeling in Waikato. Iwikau te Heuheu, of Taupo, on his way to a great
-Waikato meeting in 1857, stayed at the mission station and gave Mr
-Morgan his reasons for supporting the King. He contrasted the uncouth
-and inhospitable treatment of Maori chiefs when visiting the towns with
-the kindness shown by the Maoris to even the lowest grade of pakeha who
-came to their settlements. Tamehana pointed to the inability of the
-Government to preserve peace and order among the tribes; this could
-only be done by means of a native king, and he quoted Scripture and
-modern history in support of his argument. The blundering of the
-Government in offering civil institutions and then withdrawing them
-without a fair trial, the construction of the military road from Drury
-to the Mangatawhiri River, and finally the heavy losses of the
-Ngati-Haua and Ngati-Maniapoto in the Taranaki War had a cumulative
-effect in hastening the outbreak in Waikato. It was when this feeling
-was simmering in the Waikato that Mr John Gorst—as he was then—was
-induced by the Government to undertake the difficult task of staying
-the growing tide of anti-pakeha agitation and of diverting the energies
-of the Kingite tribes to peaceful industries and crafts. He came
-several years too late. The institutions and the measure of home rule
-which Sir George Grey offered to the Kingites in 1863 only to have them
-rejected would have met with a cordial acceptance had they been put
-forward five or six years previously. But Grey was in South Africa
-then, and his predecessor, Governor Gore-Browne, and his advisers went
-from blunder to blunder in their determination to stifle the natives’
-legitimate desire for local self-government.
-
-Mr John Gorst arrived at Auckland from England in 1860, and, being a
-young man of brilliant University attainments, he attracted the
-attention and friendship of Bishop Selwyn, Sir George Grey, and other
-notable people of the day. It was Mr (afterwards Sir William) Fox, then
-Premier of the Colony, who determined to establish him as resident
-magistrate in the Upper Waikato, and a house was procured for him at Te
-Tomo, about half a mile from the centre of the present town of Te
-Awamutu. (Te Tomo is now marked by an acacia grove in a field south of
-Te Awamutu, near the Kihikihi Road.) This establishment was built on
-thirty acres of grass land which had been sold to the Crown many years
-before the war began. Here Mr Gorst set up his home in the beginning of
-1861; later he removed to the mission house opposite the church.
-
-During the first part of his residence in Te Awamutu district Mr Gorst
-was a magistrate and a kind of intelligence officer for the Government.
-During the latter part he was styled Commissioner of Upper Waikato, and
-lived at the mission station in charge of a technical school and
-hospital. In the early period, as Gorst narrated in after years, he was
-rather the officer of Mr Fox’s Ministry than of the Government. He was
-a magistrate, but as a matter of fact his jurisdiction was derided by
-the Maoris, and he found none except a few pakehas to obey him. “The
-Maori from the first,” he said, “refused to consent to my exercising
-any kind of authority among them.” Even his great friend Wiremu
-Tamehana, though anxious to receive advice and instruction, objected to
-the admission into the Kingite district of a magistrate who received
-his authority from the Queen.
-
-In 1862–63 Mr Gorst was rather the officer of Sir George Grey than of
-the Ministry (then Mr Domett’s). The Church Mission estate of about 200
-acres, with school buildings and dwelling-house, was lent to the
-Governor for Maori educational purposes. Describing the establishment
-then formed, Gorst wrote:
-
-“Everyone in the school was clothed, lodged, and fed in plain but
-wholesome and civilised style. Clothes and bedding were regularly
-inspected and kept scrupulously clean. A schoolmaster was appointed,
-who taught reading, writing, and arithmetic to all, and besides this
-each young man was employed for five hours daily in one of the various
-mechanical trades carried out within the school. Thus each had an
-opportunity, not only of acquiring a sound elementary education, but of
-fitting himself to gain a livelihood by practising some handicraft
-taught at the school. The trades carried on were those of carpenter,
-blacksmith, wheelwright, shoemaker, tailor, and, later on, printer. A
-few were employed in agriculture and in tending cattle and sheep upon
-the school estate, some as regular occupations and others as an
-occasional change from indoor employment. English artisans employed as
-teachers were chiefly men who had been living in the neighbourhood and
-were familiar with the Maoris and their language. Most had previously
-been exercising their trades for the benefit of the district, and the
-only difference was that they were now more systematically at work and
-were instructing native apprentices. The Maoris of the district had
-therefore to resort to the Government establishment for the repair of
-their ploughs and carts and for their shoes and clothes. The demand for
-all these services was far greater than the supply, so there was a
-prospect of being able to supply a great number of Maori apprentices in
-every department with certain profit. Even Rewi and Tamehana themselves
-visited the school. The latter extended his patronage so far as to be
-measured for a pair of trousers, for which he paid £1 in advance, but
-Te Oriori intercepted them on their way to Matamata, and was so charmed
-with the fit that he refused to part with them, and told Tamehana he
-would agree to take them as a present.”
-
-The school establishment certainly did very useful work, and thus far
-was appreciated by the Maoris; but they could never forget that Gorst
-was a Government official.
-
-It was presently decided by the Government that a native hospital
-should be erected on an area of Crown land about three-quarters of a
-mile from Te Awamutu. The position of Medical Commissioner of the
-Waikato was offered to and accepted by the Rev. A. Purchas, of
-Onehunga. At the same time Sir George Grey sanctioned the establishment
-of a Maori newspaper to reply to the “Hokioi,” the Kingite print issued
-at Ngaruawahia. Mr E. J. von Dadelszen [4] (afterwards
-Registrar-General of New Zealand) was appointed printer; he had learned
-the trade on Bishop Selwyn’s printing-press in Auckland.
-
-A press and type were bought in Sydney, and set up in Te Awamutu early
-in 1863. This was the beginning of the end for Mr Gorst’s
-establishment.
-
-The Government Maori newspaper was called “Te Pihoihoi Mokemoke i Runga
-i te Tuanui” (“The Lonely Lark on the House-top”—the Maori having no
-word for sparrow), and it set about briskly replying to the Kingite
-propaganda of “Te Hokioi e Rere Atu Na” (“The Soaring War Bird”), which
-was edited and printed by Patara te Tuhi, afterwards a great friend of
-Sir John Gorst. The first number of the “Pihoihoi” was published at Te
-Awamutu on 2nd February, 1863, and was widely distributed over Waikato,
-arousing intense interest among the Kingites.
-
-The “copy” for the first issue was revised by Sir George Grey himself,
-and was published under his authority. It contained an article which
-greatly excited the resentment of Rewi and the more truculent section
-of the Kingite natives. The article was entitled, “The Evil of the King
-Movement,” and it criticised a letter from King Tawhiao—or Matutaera
-(Methusaleh), as he was then generally known—to the Governor, dated 8th
-December, 1862, which had been printed in the “Hokioi,” and which
-inquired what evil had been done by the King and on what account he was
-blamed. The “Pihoihoi” gave an answer to these inquiries from the
-pakeha Government point of view; Gorst’s leader was translated into
-forceful and idiomatic Maori by Miss Ashwell, daughter of the
-missionary at Kaitotehe, opposite Taupiri. The strong criticism of the
-Kingite aspirations quickly provoked action among Mr Gorst’s
-neighbours, who asked, “Why is this troublesome printing-press allowed
-in our midst?” Only five numbers of the “Pihoihoi” were printed before
-the indignant Rewi intervened with his war-party.
-
-The coup planned by Ngati-Maniapoto in the tribal council-house
-“Hui-te-Rangiora” at Kihikihi was executed on 24th March, 1863. A
-war-party of eighty men and lads, most of them armed with guns, marched
-into Te Awamutu that afternoon, led by Aporo Taratutu, and accompanied
-by Rewi Maniapoto, and also by the old Taranaki chief Wiremu Kingi te
-Rangitaake. (The unjustifiable seizure of Kingi’s land at Waitara by
-the Government had been the cause of the first Taranaki War.) Rewi and
-Wiremu Kingi remained at Porokoru’s house, which stood in the middle of
-the present town of Te Awamutu, while Aporo led his taua down to the
-mission station, halted them there, and had prayers by way of
-sanctifying the afternoon’s operations. Young von Dadelszen and a Maori
-youth were busy at the time in the little printing-office printing the
-fifth number of the “Pihoihoi Mokemoke.” Mr Gorst was absent; he had
-ridden over to the mission station at Te Kopua, on the Waipa, to
-inquire about some bullocks which were being purchased for the
-Government station. A report had reached him that a taua from Kihikihi
-would visit Te Awamutu that day, but he treated it as an idle rumour.
-
-The actions of Ngati-Maniapoto are described by Mr von Dadelszen in the
-following report which Mr Gorst sent to Sir George Grey with his own
-account of the breaking-up of the station:
-
-“About 3 o’clock in the afternoon of Tuesday, 24th March, while the
-newspapers for that day were being printed, a number of natives
-arrived, about 50 of them armed with guns, and the remainder with
-native weapons, and stationed themselves in front of the
-printing-office. I locked the door before their faces, put the key in
-my pocket, and went a little distance off. After a short prayer, they
-broke the door open, and proceeded to take the press down, and carry it
-outside to some drays they had there. While they were doing this,
-Patene, the Ngaruawahia chief, arrived, and partly succeeded in
-stopping them, turning about six out of the printing-office (it being
-then quite full of natives). After some time, however, he came away,
-and the work went on. Everything connected with the printing was taken
-away, together with a port-manteau belonging to Mr Mainwaring, and a
-box containing some of my clothes. When all was gone, they stationed
-sentinels at the door, and allowed no one inside. Before breaking open
-the door they had a scuffle with the native teacher, who placed himself
-before it, and was dragged away after some resistance. They also broke
-down about twenty yards of the fence between the printing-office and
-the road. They camped all round the house, but about 6 o’clock allowed
-us to enter and take our clothes from the little bedroom at the back.
-They did not attempt to touch anything in the main building. In the
-evening they stationed their soldiers all round the house. About 8
-o’clock, Mr Gorst, Mr White, and Mr Mainwaring arrived. There was some
-talk of setting fire to the place, and one or two fire-sticks were
-brought, but they determined not to do it in the end. A good many guns
-were loaded with ball, but none fired. A great many slept in the
-printing-office that night. During the remainder of the afternoon,
-Taati, Patene, and Te Oriori on one side, and the leaders of the
-soldiers on the other, talked a great deal in the road. William King
-[Wiremu Kingi], Rewi, and a few others stayed some distance off, and
-gave their orders from there. The mail box, etc., were also taken, with
-the mail money.—E. J. von Dadelszen.”
-
-The printing-press, the Kingites’ bete noir, was carried out, with all
-the type, reams of paper, and printed copies of the fifth number of the
-“Pihoihoi,” and the whole plant was loaded on to bullock drays and
-carted off to Kihikihi. Nothing else, however, was taken; some private
-belongings, such as boxes of clothes, were scrupulously returned as
-soon as it was discovered that they were not part of the printing
-plant. Then the leader of the war-party surrounded the mission
-buildings with a cordon of sentries, and awaited Mr Gorst’s return. The
-Maoris camped on the road and in the adjacent field opposite the
-church, and their watch-fires blazed as evening came down.
-
-Mr Gorst rode in after dark, and was permitted to pass unmolested. A
-message was sent in to him that if he refused to go away in the morning
-he would be shot. Resistance was impossible, for although the youths in
-the school establishment declared that they would stand by “Te Kohi”
-there were no arms, and in any case a conflict could only have ended in
-the victory of Rewi’s veterans of the Taranaki war and in the slaughter
-of the Government people.
-
-Next morning there were scenes of intense excitement on the gathering
-road between the mission station and the church where the present main
-road runs. Mr Gorst was ordered to depart. He replied that nothing
-would induce him to leave his post but orders from the Governor. Rewi
-for his part declared that he and his men would not stir from the spot
-until his object was accomplished.
-
-Presently, through the intervention of the Rev. A. Reid, the Wesleyan
-missionary at Te Kopua, Rewi, at a personal interview with Mr Gorst,
-agreed to withdraw his men and give the Commissioner three weeks in
-which to communicate with Sir George Grey. Rewi then in a speech gave
-his reasons for raiding the station. The Governor, he said, had shown
-himself hostile to the Maori King movement, and had been ceaseless in
-his machinations against the confederation of the tribes. Sir George
-Grey had begun to make a military road to the Waikato, and finally at
-Taupiri he had made a speech in which he said he “would dig around the
-King until he fell.” They looked round to see where the spades were at
-work, and they saw “Te Kohi”; they were resolved to have no digging of
-that kind in Waikato, and so they had determined to remove him from the
-land of the Maori.
-
-Rewi then, at Mr Gorst’s invitation, went into the house and wrote the
-following letter for transmission to the Governor:
-
-
- (Translation.)
-
- “Te Awamutu,
- “March 25, 1863.
-
- “Friend Governor Grey:
-
- “Greeting. This is my word to you. Mr Gorst has been killed [has
- suffered] through me. I have taken away the press. These are my men
- who took it—eighty, armed with guns. The object of this is to expel
- Mr Gorst, so that he may return to town; it is on account of the
- great trouble occasioned by his being sent here to stay and beguile
- us, and also on account of your words, ‘I shall dig at the sides,
- and your kingdom will fall.’ Friend, take Mr Gorst back to the
- town; do not leave him to stay with me at Te Awamutu. Enough; if
- you say he is to stay, he will die. Enough; send speedily your
- letter to fetch him in three weeks. It is ended.
-
- “From your friend,
- “From REWI MANIAPOTO.”
-
-
-Mr Gorst also wrote a letter, informing Sir George Grey of the
-occurrences, and saying that the natives had beaten him utterly, and
-that Rewi said if the Governor left him it would be to certain death.
-The letters were sent off to the Governor, who was then in Taranaki.
-While an answer was awaited, Wiremu Tamehana came to see Mr Gorst, and
-sorrowfully told him that he and others of the friendly-disposed party
-could not protect him now. The Governor did not answer Rewi’s letter,
-but sent instructions to Mr Gorst that in the event of there being any
-danger whatever to life he was to return at once to Auckland, with the
-other Europeans in the employment of the Government.
-
-As the Upper Waikato was now inflamed with the war feeling, Mr Gorst
-realised that the evacuation of Te Awamutu was the only possible
-course. He left the station on 18th April, 1863. It was more than forty
-years before he set eyes again on the olden scene of his labours for
-the Maori.
-
-The after-history of the “Pihoihoi Mokemoke” press has been cleared up
-by dint of many inquiries. Practically the whole of the plant was
-restored to the Government after Mr Gorst’s departure. It was placed in
-a canoe and taken down the Waipa and Waikato to Te Iaroa, just below
-the mouth of the Mangatawhiri River, near Mercer; there Mr Andrew
-Kay—later of Orakau—had a trading store. The press and other material
-were handed over to Mr Kay, who sent word to the Government, and carts
-were sent to take it to Auckland. The press was afterwards used for a
-time in printing the Government “Gazette.” A legend gained currency,
-and was repeated by writer after writer, each copying his equally
-ill-informed predecessor, that the Kingites melted the type into
-bullets to use in the war. The fact, however, is that the plant was
-returned to the Government very nearly complete. Sir John Gorst told me
-(1906) that some of Rewi’s young men helped themselves to a little of
-the type as curiosities, but there could have been very little missing
-in that way. As for the “Hokioi” press, the Ngati-Maniapoto informed me
-that it was taken up from Ngaruawahia to Te Kopua for safe-keeping when
-the war began, and there it was lying, rusted and broken, when I last
-heard of it; some of the scattered type was now and again ploughed up
-on the bank of the Waipa.
-
-Sir John Gorst, re-visiting New Zealand after forty-three years, set
-foot once more in Te Awamutu on 3rd December, 1906, and renewed his
-acquaintance with some of his old native pupils and travelled over the
-old familiar ground. He was welcomed with immense enthusiasm by pakeha
-and Maori alike, and there was a peculiarly pathetic touch in the
-speeches made by the few Maori survivors of the old regime in Waikato.
-Sir John, with Miss Gorst, visited Captain D. Bockett, one of the
-original military settlers of Rangiaowhia, who occupied the historic
-mission-house. He went through the old buildings and the
-well-remembered church. Then, with a large party, he visited Mr Andrew
-Kay at his farm at Otautahanga, and talked over the old Waikato days;
-and on the day’s drive passed over the battlefields of Hairini,
-Rangiaowhia, and Orakau. At a great gathering at Te Awamutu to welcome
-“Te Kohi” one of the speakers was the veteran Tupotahi, one of the
-heroes of the Orakau defence; he had been a member of Aporo’s war-party
-which invaded the Government station in 1863. Ngati-Maniapoto greeted
-with a quite extraordinary enthusiasm the distinguished manuhiri whom
-they had driven from their midst in the days of the racial quarrels,
-now happily buried for ever.
-
-There was more than a touch of the poetic in the farewell to “Te Kohi”
-and his daughter at the railway station, Te Awamutu, when the venerable
-man bade good-bye for ever to his friends old and new. Two pretty
-native girls, Victoria and Ngahuia Kahu Hughes, daughters of William
-Hughes, of Kakepuku—one of Mr Gorst’s old pupils at the mission station
-before the debacle of 1863—stood hand-in-hand on the platform and sang
-very sweetly this parting waiata:
-
-
- Hoki hoki tonu mai
- Te wairua a Te Kohi.
- Kia awhi-reinga
- Ki tenei kiri—ee—ii!
-
- Ka huri koe i Te Awamutu
- Ka tahuri whakamuri;
- Mokemoke rere a te aroha—ee—ii!
-
- Ka eke ki tereina,
- Ka tahuri whakamuri;
- Mokemoke te rere a te auahi—ee—ii!
-
- Ka pinea korua
- Ki te pine o te aroha,
- Ki te pine e kore nei e waikura—ee—ii!
-
-
- (Translation.)
-
- Return, return, the spirit of Te Kohi,
- To greet me once again
- In the shadowy land of dreams.
-
- When you look your last on Te Awamutu
- Send back your love to us,
- To the lonely ones you ne’er will see again!
-
- And as the railway bears you far away,
- O backward turn your gaze;
- Like the smoke that backward drifts—ah, me!
- Farewell, a fond farewell!
-
- We will pin you both to our hearts
- With the pin of love,
- The pin that will never rust!
-
-
-It was a pathetic little song with something of the sentiment breathed
-in Tom Moore’s beautiful old Irish melody:
-
-
- As slow our ship her foamy track
- Against the wind was cleaving,
- Her trembling pennant still looked back
- To that dear isle ‘twas leaving.
- So loth we part from all we love,
- From all the links that bind us;
- So turn our hearts, where’er we rove,
- To those we’ve left behind us.
-
-
-
-
-THE LAST CANOE VOYAGE.
-
-Of a picturesque quality, too, was “Te Kohi’s” passage to Auckland down
-the Waikato River. It had been arranged with Mahuta, the King of
-Waikato—son of Tawhiao—that Sir John should be taken down the river
-from Ngaruawahia to Waahi, near Huntly, by Maori canoe, passing the
-scenes once familiar to him in his before-the-war journeyings and
-reviving memories of the primitive old days. Ngaruawahia in his era in
-the Waikato was the capital of the Maori King, and no craft but dug-out
-canoes floated on the great river. It was a glorious summer morning
-when Sir John Gorst and his daughter and their party embarked at the
-green delta in a fine, roomy, white-pine canoe, the “Tangi-te-Kiwi,” 70
-feet in length, with a crew of fifteen Maori paddlers, for the voyage
-down the Waikato to Waahi. The sun drove away the early mists, and the
-bush-clad range of the Hakarimata “stood up and took the morning,” high
-above the willows that fringed the low banks of the shining river. Down
-the long curving reaches the big waka swept with the powerful current
-aiding the paddles, and the canoe captain, old Hori te Ngongo, standing
-amidships, gave the time to his crew with voice and gesture, now and
-again breaking into a high chanted song of the ancient days. One of
-Hori’s songs was peculiarly appropriate, for it had been composed in
-1863 with special reference to Gorst and the Mangatawhiri River, the
-frontier line of those days. Thus chanted old Hori, the kai-hau-tu, in
-a long-drawn high song to which the paddlers kept time as they dipped
-and lifted their blades:
-
-
- Koia e Te Kohi,
- Purua i Mangatawhiri,
- Kia puta ai ona pokohiwi,
- Kia whato tou
- E hi na wa!
-
-
-In this waiata the Commissioner of Waikato was requested to “plug up”
-the boundary river between pakeha and Maori lands and make it a close
-frontier, and thus prevent the King’s followers passing below its mouth
-to trade in Auckland, so that presently, for want of European clothing,
-their naked bodies might be seen protruding from their scanty native
-garments.
-
-Now and again as the “Tangi-te-Kiwi” approached a native hamlet on the
-west bank of the river the crew would redouble their strokes and the
-captain would chant in a louder, wilder key the old-time song for “Te
-Kohi,” and from the village women would come a shrill reply and long,
-wailing cries of “Haere-mai! Haere mai!” The canoe swept past the sites
-of the old mission station and mission schools at Hopuhopu and at
-Kaitotehe (opposite Taupiri)—the latter was Mr Ashwell’s station before
-the war—and Sir John’s eyes lingered with a pathetic interest on the
-scenes he knew in 1861–63 until a change of course or bend in the river
-hid them from his view.
-
-High-peaked Taupiri, beloved of the old-time Maori, tapu and
-legend-haunted, was passed on the right; and then, as the canoe glided
-down the broad, glimmering reach, willow-walled, toward Huntly town, we
-saw another long Maori waka appear in the distance ahead, its two rows
-of paddles flashing in the sun with beautiful regularity. In a few
-moments the two canoes met. The stranger was the royal canoe, “Te
-Wao-nui-a Tane” (“The Great Forest of Tane”—the Maori god of the
-woods), which had been sent up by Mahuta to meet Sir John Gorst’s
-canoe, challenge us in true Maori style, and escort us down to the
-meeting-place at Waahi. A splendid picture the “Wao-nui-a Tane” made as
-she swept up under the strong strokes of twenty-six paddlers, all
-stripped to the waist, their brown shoulders bowing and rising as one.
-Amidships stood a red-capped captain, the chief Te Paki, giving the
-time to his crew and chanting the old war-time songs. The crew were all
-picked men of the Ngati-Whawhakia tribe of Waahi, the best canoe-men on
-the Waikato. The canoe itself was about 70 feet in length, like our
-waka, the “Tangi-te-Kiwi.” As the King’s canoe came alongside, Miss
-Gorst and the Minister of the Crown (the Hon. George Fowlds) who
-accompanied the Dominion’s guests were transferred to her, and away
-down the glistening river shot the “Wao-nui-a Tane,” easily distancing
-our canoe. Down the river she flashed at racing speed, her paddles
-glinting like wet wings in the sun. Ngati-Whawhakia gave an exhibition
-of faultless time and paddling that day as they swept down far ahead of
-us to Waahi, their old kai-hau-tu yelling himself hoarse with his
-boat-songs. It was a perfect picture of old Maoridom revived, bringing
-once more to the honoured guest’s mind the romantic and adventurous
-scenes in the days before the war, when hundreds of canoes, large and
-small, made lively this noble waterway; the days before ever a pakeha
-steamboat’s paddle-wheel startled the Waikato.
-
-And after the great welcome chants of the powhiri at the crowded marae
-of Waahi, “Te Kohi” gripped hands once again with the venerable and
-benevolent-looking veteran Patara te Tuhi, the chivalrous Kingite who
-edited and printed the “Hokioi” at Ngaruawahia in the Sixties, and who,
-when Mr Gorst had been ejected from Te Awamutu, gave him shelter one
-night—the ironical humour of fate!—in the raupo-thatched
-printing-office of the rebel “War Bird.”
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VI.
-
-THE WAIKATO WAR.
-
- We broke a King and we built a road—
- A courthouse stands where the reg’ment goed,
- And the river’s clean where the raw blood flowed,
- When the Widow give the party.
-
- —“Barrack-Room Ballads.”
-
-
-The eviction of Mr Gorst from Te Awamutu served to precipitate the
-Waikato War, but in truth a conflict had become inevitable. There was a
-widespread feeling that the time had come for a racial trial of
-strength, and the conflict was due as much to the aggressive policy of
-the Government and the anti-Maori tone of the newspapers and the
-politicians as to the martial preparations of the Kingites.
-
-The construction of the military road and the establishment of military
-posts in obvious readiness for an advance into the Waikato confirmed
-the natives in their belief that the Government meant to force a way
-into the interior and shatter their home-rule plans.
-
-The first definite act of war was Lieutenant-General Cameron’s despatch
-of troops across the frontier, the Mangatawhiri River, on 12th July,
-1863.
-
-Te Huirama, with a body of Waikato, barred the way with rifle-pits on
-the Koheroa ridge, near Mercer, and on 17th July the first engagement
-took place. The troops under Cameron charged the Maori position with
-the bayonet, and the Kingites were driven out with the loss of their
-leader and about thirty others. Numerous skirmishes followed in the
-South Auckland country on the northern side of the Mangatawhiri; the
-Lower Waikato and Wairoa and Hauraki war-parties carried gun and
-tomahawk into their enemy’s country, following their favourite tactics
-of ambuscade and plunder. There were many bush fights, in which the
-Forest Rangers and the Forest Rifle Volunteers, as well as Imperial
-troops and militia, were engaged.
-
-The three principal fortified posts of the Kingites in the early stages
-of the war were Paparata, Meremere, and Pukekawa. These positions were
-designed to stop the southward progress of the troops and enable the
-Maoris to levy war on the frontier settlements. Pukekawa is the
-beautiful round green hill on the west side of the great elbow of the
-Waikato, where the river bends westward below Mercer; anciently a
-fortified pa of the Ngati-Tamaoho stood on its summit. When the Waikato
-War began the Ngati-Maniapoto came down the river in their canoes and
-selected it as their headquarters, and from Pukekawa as a convenient
-base they made raids on Patumahoe, Mauku, Camerontown, and other
-frontier districts. They expected to be attacked there, and entrenched
-themselves, but General Cameron did not carry the war to the west side
-of the Waikato.
-
-Presently the arrival of gunboats specially adapted for the river war
-enabled Cameron to outflank and capture the strongholds on the east
-bank of the Waikato and to occupy Ngaruawahia, the Maori King’s
-headquarters, unopposed. His only serious check was at Rangiriri, where
-in disastrous frontal attacks the Imperial naval and military forces
-sustained heavy casualties—47 dead and 85 wounded. The pa surrendered
-next day, and 183 prisoners were taken. The Lower Waikato was
-conquered, and the General with his steam flotilla shifted the army to
-the Waikato-Waipa delta for the final blows to the Kingite cause.
-
-
-
-
-PATERANGI AND WAIARI.
-
-Falling back from pa to pa, Waikato and Ngati-Maniapoto at last
-concentrated their forces in the great series of entrenchments at
-Pikopiko, Paterangi, and Rangiatea, defensive works intended to block
-the march of the Imperial and Colonial troops on the principal Kingite
-cultivations and food stores at Rangiaowhia. The chief fortification
-was Paterangi; the traces of this elaborate system of earthworks can be
-seen to-day close to Mr Harry Rhodes’ farmhouse on Paterangi Hill.
-
-General Cameron’s headquarters were at Te Rore, on the Waipa, and there
-he camped for several weeks early in 1864. The principal engagement
-during this period of waiting—for Paterangi was too strong for frontal
-attack—was a lively skirmish at Waiari, on the Mangapiko River. Forty
-Maoris fell that day (14th February, 1864), and six British soldiers
-lost their lives.
-
-Here, at Waiari, that free-roving and adventurous colonial corps the
-Forest Rangers had their first taste of sharp fighting in the Waipa
-country. We shall hear a good deal of those Rangers in the succeeding
-chapters. There were two companies of them, each fifty strong. No. 1
-Company was commanded by Captain William Jackson—afterwards Major
-Jackson and M.H.R. for Waipa—and No. 2 Company by Captain G. F. Von
-Tempsky, who as Major of Armed Constabulary fell in the bush battle of
-Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu, in Taranaki, in 1868. The Rangers were armed with
-Terry and Calisher breech-loading carbines and five-shot revolvers, and
-Von Tempsky’s men also used bowie-knives, made in Auckland from a
-pattern supplied by him, somewhat on the model of the bowie-knife of
-Arkansas and Texan fame.
-
-The Rangers at Waiari were ordered to clear the Maoris out of the scrub
-which covered the old pa in the river-loop. They dived into the
-thickets, and soon killed or dispersed the Kingite warriors, and then
-covered the retreat of the main body of troops to Te Rore and Colonel
-Waddy’s advanced camp. The Rangers enjoyed the work so much that it was
-difficult to get them home to camp at Te Rore for their tea. The
-British dead and wounded had been removed, and as many as possible of
-the Maori dead were brought across to the north bank of the Mangapiko.
-General Cameron had ridden up from the main camp at Te Rore in time to
-witness the defeat of the Maoris in Waiari. The Rangers, covering the
-return of the troops, came under a heavy fire in front and from both
-flanks, and returned it with coolness and accuracy from the cover of
-the manuka and fern.
-
-A veteran corporal of No. 1 Company (Jackson’s) recalls Colonel
-Havelock’s ire at the indifference of the frontiersmen to the bugle
-calls. “It was getting dusk,” he says, “and still all our Rangers had
-not come out of the scrub, and we could hear their carbines cracking in
-reply to the heavy banging of the double-barrel guns. Captain Jackson
-was standing alongside Colonel Havelock, A.D.C.—the son of the famous
-hero of the Indian Mutiny—who asked why the Rangers had not returned.
-Jackson replied in his blunt fashion that he didn’t know; he supposed
-they’d come out when they had finished their job. The ‘Retire’ was
-sounded again, but still our fellows kept popping away in the dusk. At
-last, Colonel Havelock, swearing that he would turn out the 40th
-Regiment and fire on the Rangers if they did not obey orders, called up
-all the buglers that could be found and told them to sound the ‘Retire’
-all together. Presently our boys came out of the manuka and joined us,
-as pleased as kings with their afternoon’s hot work.”
-
-A very few of those hard-fighting Rangers are left to recall the
-incidents of a vanished phase of New Zealand life. Some—like Major
-Jackson—settled down to pioneer farming, but for others the warpath had
-attractions irresistible, and long after the battle of Orakau many of
-the young veterans strapped on their fighting gear again and followed
-“old Von” to Wanganui and Taranaki to do battle against the Hauhaus.
-The corps ceased to bear its distinctive name; most of its members
-returned to their sections of land in the military settlements on the
-confiscated Waikato land; some joined the Armed Constabulary. And when
-Von Tempsky fell to a Hauhau bullet before the stockade of Te
-Ngutu-o-te-Manu it was a young officer who had been his subaltern in
-1863–64, J. M. Roberts—now Colonel, and holder of the New Zealand Cross
-for valour—who coolly and competently extracted the rearguard after a
-terrible night in the forest of death. He had learnt his work well in
-Von Tempsky’s practical school in many a scout and in many a skirmish
-in a country where the name of the Forest Rangers is already but a dim
-legend, so quickly has the work of nation-making marched in New
-Zealand.
-
-Von Tempsky was a clever artist in water-colours, and had a gift of
-writing animated narrative. He wrote a journal of events covering his
-service in the Waikato War, and his story of the fighting at
-Rangiaowhia, Hairini, and Orakau will be given in the chapters which
-follow. His account has the merit of being a participant’s direct
-description of the engagements; moreover, it now sees print for the
-first time. [5]
-
-Among the notable figures of that day whom Von Tempsky describes in his
-journal was Bishop George Augustus Selwyn. There is a word-vignette of
-the great Bishop, riding unostentatiously with the army, his old
-pack-horse ambling along laden with his tent and simple camp gear.
-“What comfort the wounded and sick derived from his presence may be
-imagined,” wrote Von Tempsky. “Often have I followed with my eye his
-fine, manly figure wending its way on errands for the good of others;
-and the study of that man’s character, strongly impressed in a face
-where hard work has stamped its signet on high-bred features, would
-yield materials for an epic poem. How that man’s being has clung to a
-preconceived idea of his work in this country! How every fibre of his
-existence has wrapped itself round that one object, the improvement of
-the aboriginal! Through good and evil times he has stood by his work,
-strong, fresh, after years of disappointment, unalterable in his
-purpose, even if in opposition to the good of his own race. There
-perhaps we find the one flaw in an otherwise almost perfect character.”
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VII.
-
-THE CAPTURE OF RANGIAOWHIA.
-
-
-The first British soldiers to reach Te Awamutu marched in early on the
-morning of 21st February, 1864. This was General Cameron’s force, which
-outflanked the Maori defences at Paterangi and Rangiatea in a surprise
-night march, and invaded the chief source of food
-supplies—Rangiaowhia—the decisive strategic movement in the Waikato
-War.
-
-The following is Von Tempsky’s MS. narrative of the night march and the
-morning’s hot work at Rangiaowhia:—
-
-“On 20th February, 1864, the bugle at headquarters, Te Rore camp,
-sounded, ‘Come for orders.’ Everyone, almost, knew what these orders
-were going to be; and great excitement consequently prevailed. The
-orders were that about half of the troops were to be under arms, in
-heavy marching order, at half past ten that night. The rest, with the
-luggage and so forth, were to follow in the day-time, leaving a
-sufficient garrison for Te Rore. At half past ten the dense columns of
-our force were drawn up in silence near headquarters. No bugle had
-sounded; the tents were to remain standing, and the cover of a moonless
-night was to hide our circumvention of the wily foe. I had the honour
-to command the advanced guard, composed of my Rangers and 100 men of
-the 65th under Lieutenant Tabuteau. Next followed the Defence Force
-under Colonel Nixon, and the Mounted Artillery, doing troopers’
-service, under Lieutenant Rait, an active and energetic officer. The
-rest of the 65th, 70th, some of the 50th, and other detachments
-followed, Westrupp, with No. 1 Company, Forest Rangers, bringing up the
-rear, as Captain Jackson had not yet returned from Auckland. As far as
-Waiari the road enabled us to march in fours. Thence, however, Indian
-file had to be the order of the march. The importance of our redoubt at
-Waiari became now apparent to me, as its existence there served to mask
-our start. On that point alone was discovery from Paterangi to be
-apprehended. Once past it, our detour of the fern ridges made us nearly
-safe until we came close on to Te Awamutu. Mr James Edwards (half-caste
-guide) rode ahead of us, Captain Greaves, of the staff (70th) by his
-side, and a better combination of local knowledge and military sagacity
-never led troops on a difficult march. The high fern had to be trodden
-down, principally by the advanced guard, but we were used to it and
-knew that honour of position had to be paid for. Ridge after ridge was
-passed, now and then a gully, but never very steep, so that packhorses
-and even bullock drays could easily follow our tracks on the morrow.”
-
-At dawn (to summarise Von Tempsky’s story) the troops neared Te
-Awamutu. It was known that at the entrance, by the pass, there was
-situated an old pa. It was not known whether it was now occupied or had
-been put into repair. The Rangers scouted on ahead and found it empty.
-The cocks at Te Awamutu mission station were now crowing, and the
-steeple of the church came into sight. Bishop Selwyn, and Mr Mainwaring
-as his aide, galloped along ahead to the mission station, whose native
-inhabitants “were under a theocratic flag of truce.” The column pushed
-on to Rangiaowhia. The young troopers of the Colonial Defence Force
-Cavalry now dashed forward in advance to their first serious work.
-
-“Rangiaowhia,” narrated Von Tempsky, “came soon into sight with a blue
-ridge of mountains at the back, its straggling houses between peach
-groves crowning cultivated ridges, with two prominent churches at a
-short distance from one another. Kahikatea forests straggled up to the
-village, here and there, and when we approached it nearer a succession
-of ridges with some swamp intervening showed us that we had been
-somewhat deceived in the distance. The rapid crack, crack of revolvers
-and carbines announced to us now that the troopers had not forgotten
-their spurs in getting ahead of us. We listened eagerly for the sound
-of double-barrel guns, and that sound also was soon heard. So the
-conflict had commenced, and that idea lifted our feet with the power of
-galvanism. We probably got there considerably ahead of the main body,
-but our blood was up, and we wanted to support our troopers in the
-arduous task of riding through streets lined with houses whence a
-desperate foe might have great advantage over mounted men. When,
-however, we got nearer to the thick of the firing, a mounted civilian,
-with some artillery troopers, met me and said that in that direction
-there was nothing for us to do; if we wanted to see a good body of men
-we should go to the Catholic Church, which was crammed full of armed
-Maoris. I at once took his advice, particularly as I had heard but few
-double-barrels lately in the direction of the Defence Corps. In
-extended order, with 100 of the 65th Regiment in support, we advanced
-past several rows of deserted whares, from which, however, now and then
-some balls whistled past us. The church being our main object, we paid
-no attention to these minor matters. I sent Lieutenant Roberts with
-some men round the right flank of the church, and our circle gradually
-drew closer. I could see already some black heads at the windows—but of
-a sudden a white flag went up.
-
-“‘Very well, lads,’ I thought, ‘then I shall take you prisoner.’ We
-advanced still nearer. Roberts’ signal announced to me that the church
-was surrounded, when I heard Captain Greaves’ voice calling to me from
-the rear:
-
-“‘The General does not want you to press the Maoris any further.’
-
-“‘Not take them prisoner, even?’
-
-“‘No.’
-
-“ * * * I obeyed, though I was fast consuming my tongue by merciless
-mastication. But honour is due to the order of a man like General
-Cameron, so I ordered my men off and marched to where the firing still
-continued. [6]
-
-“The two churches lay more towards the left flank of the village. The
-firing continued more to our right near the centre of the village. As
-we approached that point we got a few long-range shots from distant
-whares, but took no notice of them.
-
-“In passing a boarded house, however, one more like the building of a
-European than a Maori, two shots were rapidly fired at us from its
-verandah. I did not believe my eyes when I saw there a woman coolly
-sitting on the verandah and hiding a still smoking double-barrel
-underneath it. She was decently dressed in the semi-European style
-adopted by influential Maoris. She was oldish, and not very fair to
-look at, particularly as her time-worn features were bent into one
-concentrated expression of hatred—such a hatred as Johnson revered and
-you read of occasionally in old plays.
-
-“I went up to her and had the gun taken away, looking at her all the
-time, not knowing whether I should laugh or feel pathetic—the coolness,
-the ugliness, and reckless hatred of this specimen of Maoridom puzzling
-my choice of sentiment exceedingly. I thought of passing on, just with
-a warning for future good behaviour, when some officers shouted to me
-that ‘the old wretch’ had also fired at them, wounded a man of the
-65th, and been warned already, and that I had better take her prisoner.
-
-“Reluctantly I gave her in charge of one of my men, but accompanied the
-order with a Freemason’s sign which my man understood, the result of
-which was that the woman afterwards quietly slipped away unnoticed.
-
-“Just as we started again we heard another couple of shots from the
-same house, and now thinking that some men might be inside I had the
-house surrounded.
-
-“Just as Roberts got to the back part, another fairy burst from its
-door, and, running with the fleetness of a deer, dropped her gun just
-in time to have her sex recognised and respected. I was glad that her
-fleetness saved me from another female responsibility, and proceeded
-onward.
-
-“I met Captain Bower, Adjutant of the Defence Corps, one of the Six
-Hundred at Balaklava. He looked fearfully excited, and hurriedly told
-me that Colonel Nixon had just been shot, and that the bullet had gone
-through his lung.”
-
-Von Tempsky, describing what he then saw, says that a circle of
-soldiers of all regiments surrounded at some distance a nearly solitary
-whare with a very narrow and low door; in the open doorway lay the body
-of a soldier of the 65th, shot through the head. A constant firing of
-rifles into the house was carried on with little regard to the effects
-of cross-fire, and the narrator formed his men in a half-circle, in the
-safe radius of the “dead angle” of the house. It seemed that after the
-house had been first surrounded Colonel Nixon sent Lieut. T. McDonnell
-and Mr Mair, the interpreter, to ask the Maoris in it to surrender,
-assuring them of good treatment. A volley was the concise answer. Then
-the firing into the house commenced, but as the floor was below the
-level of the outside ground the Maoris were comparatively secure for
-some time. Then of a sudden an excited trooper of the Defence Corps
-dismounted, and dashed, sword and revolver in hand, into the whare.
-Some quick shots were heard, and nothing more was seen or heard of him.
-A man of the 65th rushed forward to ascertain the fate of the trooper,
-but, being covered and hampered by his roll of blankets and other
-paraphernalia, he stuck in the door and was shot in the head. The
-firing into the whare now became a perfect cannonade, and even Colonel
-Nixon could not abstain from firing with his revolver at the open door.
-Stepping incautiously from behind the corner of a neighbouring whare,
-he received a bullet, fired from that open door.
-
-“When we arrived,” resumes Von Tempsky, “some neighbouring whares had
-been set fire to with the view to communicating the fire to the
-all-dreaded one. But somehow this seemed to me an uncertain process,
-and unfair. So, looking round at my nearest men, I said, ‘We will rush
-the whare, boys.’
-
-“‘Aye! Rush it, rush it!’ was echoed, and with one ‘Forward!’ about a
-dozen of us were round the door in an instant. Sergeant Carron had got
-ahead of me, and had poked his head into the low doorway. I stood
-impatiently behind him, just on one side of the door, thinking that we
-ought to take the body of the 65th man out of the way first. Carron
-then drew back his head and said to me:
-
-“‘There is only one dead man inside, sir.’
-
-“I could not quite understand this, though I could see that it was
-pitch dark inside, and so Carron might have been mistaken.
-
-“At this moment Corporal Alexander, of the Defence Corps, had pushed
-his way between myself and Carron, and, squatting down in the low
-doorway, commenced to arrange his carbine for taking aim, evidently
-puzzled by the darkness—I urging him either to make room for us or jump
-in.
-
-“A double-barrel thunders, discharged from the interior of the house, a
-bullet knocks through Alexander’s brain, and he drops backward. The
-doorway was now completely chocked with the two bodies. My men dragged
-away Alexander, and, after firing five shots of my revolver quickly
-into the corner from which I had heard the last report, I dragged the
-65th man out of the door myself. At that moment, also, one of my men
-got shot in the hip—a fine young fellow, John Ballender. He staggered
-forward and dropped, never more to rise, though he lingered for months
-in hospital. (Note.—A Canadian by birth, by profession a surgeon, he
-served as a private with me. An excellent shot, and brave to a fault. I
-had known him first at Mauku. His comrades have erected a handsome
-marble slab over his grave at Queen’s Redoubt.)
-
-“I now debated within myself whether the rush might not be renewed, as
-the door was clear now; but I saw that my men, even, had had enough of
-it, and were pointing significantly and triumphantly to the flames that
-now commenced to lap over from the nearest burning whare to the fatal
-and now fated house. What the feelings of the inmates of that doomed
-fortress must have been passes almost the power of imagination. They
-must have heard by this time the crackling of the approaching fire;
-they must have felt the heat already. Could human nature hold out any
-longer in resistance?
-
-“No! Behold, one man, in a white blanket, quickly steps from the door
-and approaches the fatal circle at some distance from us. He holds up
-his arms to show himself unarmed; he makes a gesture of surrender; he
-is an old-looking man.
-
-“‘Spare him! Spare him!’ is shouted by all the officers and most of my
-men. But some ruffians—and some men blinded by rage at the loss of
-comrades, perhaps—fired at the Maori.
-
-“The expression of that Maori’s face, his attitude on receiving the
-first bullet, is now as vivid before my mind’s eye as when my heart
-first sickened over that sight. When the first shots struck him he
-smiled a sort of sad and disappointed smile; then, bowing his head, and
-staggering already, he wrapped his blanket over his face, and,
-receiving his death bullets without a groan, dropped quietly to the
-ground. (Note.—Had all the men been with their regiments—that is to
-say, had had their own officers near them—this would not have happened.
-In that promiscuous crowd no one knew who one belonged to.)
-
-“The flames now caught the roof. Could there be another being yet in
-that house of death? The roaring sound of approaching destruction
-inside the house, the certainty of death outside! What man can bear
-such wrath of fate?
-
-“Behold! There is one such man! Like an apparition he suddenly stands
-in front of the door—stands bolt upright—and fires his last two shots
-at us. Defiance flashes from his eyes even as he sinks under a shower
-of bullets.
-
-‘The house is one mass of flame—it is near falling—when another Maori
-bursts from it, gun in hand, and drops pierced by bullets while
-dauntlessly aiming at the foe. As he fell the timbers of the roof bent
-inward, the house tottered, and with a crash crumbled to pieces on the
-well-fought ground.
-
-“Seven charred bodies of Maoris and the first Defence Corps man were
-found among the blackened ruins. That fortress had held ten defenders.
-What would not ten hundred of such defenders do when properly armed and
-commanded? Yet I am sorry to say that much of this unyielding desperate
-disposition is based upon one of the worst if the strongest features in
-Maori character.
-
-“After the fall of the house there remained nothing to do at
-Rangiaowhia. The General, fearing the results of straggling in such a
-rambling, extensive community as this, together with the presumed
-absence of water in the most important military points, decided on
-returning to Te Awamutu.
-
-“On our way to Te Awamutu I had occasion to observe the peculiar
-insensibility to wounds in Maoris; the same that I had previously
-observed in North American Indians. I had seen an immense, brawny Maori
-lying on the ground covered with blood, Dr. Mouat, V.C., of the Staff,
-attending him with his usual skill and celerity. I thought that kindly
-attention but thrown away, for the Maori had a sabre cut over the head,
-a revolver bullet in his mouth, a shot through the liver, and a sabre
-cut over the back. He was carried in a stretcher half way to Te
-Awamutu, when he insisted on getting out, and walked the remainder of
-the way. I saw him the following day in hospital, sitting up among the
-female prisoners, chatting in such an unconcerned way and with such
-equanimity of expression in his features that I doubted the evidence of
-my eyes that this could be the same man I had seen on the previous day
-with four wounds, each of which would have prostrated for some time a
-European.”
-
-A veteran of No. 1 Company of Forest Rangers, Mr Wm. Johns, of Auckland
-(formerly of Te Rahu), gives the following account of his experiences
-at Rangiaowhia:
-
-“About a dozen whares were burned in the village. The fight extended
-from the head of the swamp, where Colonel Nixon was shot, right up to
-the Catholic Church, whence we drove the Maoris over the crest into the
-swamps, next the native racecourse. Some shots were fired at us from
-the English Church; some Maoris were inside the building. It was an
-open skirmish from then right along. There were not more than 200
-Maoris altogether in Rangiaowhia that day, but they fought well, and
-had plenty of ammunition. After one of our fellows had been shot, my
-commanding officer said to me, ‘Corporal, take two men and see if there
-are any Maoris in the whare there,’ pointing to a house about twenty
-yards away. I posted the two men outside and stooped to enter the
-house, which was sunk in the ground, with a low entrance. As I entered
-I was felled by a terrific blow on the side of the neck, but deflected
-somewhat by the edge of the doorway. I lay there stunned for some
-moments, and when I recovered I saw a Maori weapon, a long taiaha,
-lying beside me. [It is now in the Old Colonists’ Museum in Auckland; a
-small piece was nicked out of the blade of it by the doorway edge.] My
-men told me that the inmates of the whare had escaped by bursting
-through the thatch at the back, and got clear away. It was a very
-narrow escape for me, and I took the taiaha as a memento of it. I took
-no further share in the fight that day, but I was able to march back to
-Te Awamutu.”
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VIII.
-
-THE ENGAGEMENT AT HAIRINI.
-
-
-On the afternoon of 22nd February, 1864—the day following the capture
-of Rangiaowhia—the British and Colonial forces were involved in a much
-sharper affair, a heavy engagement in which all three arms—horse, foot,
-and artillery—were used. This was the battle of Hairini Hill, a steep
-elevation about half way between Te Awamutu and Rangiaowhia; the name
-has since been transferred mistakenly to Rangiaowhia village. The
-present road follows exactly the military route of 1864.
-
-Here the Maoris who came pouring out of Paterangi immediately they
-discovered that their works had been outflanked had hastily fortified
-themselves, burning to avenge the surprise capture of Rangiaowhia and
-the killing of their comrades. An incident of the day’s work was a
-sabre charge by the Colonial Defence Force Cavalry; this was one of the
-very few occasions on which cavalry charges were practicable in the
-Maori Wars.
-
-Von Tempsky wrote the following narrative of his Rangers’ share in the
-afternoon’s fighting:
-
-“At last about 1 o’clock orders came (to Te Awamutu camp), and away
-went the Rangers. I had received no order relative to my position or
-further operations; so, calculating to commit any errors on the safe
-side, I hurried my men past as many detachments as I could, and got
-them well in front by the time we had reached a commanding fern ridge,
-on which line of battle was formed. The firing had been going on
-already for some time between our skirmishers and the Maoris. I could
-now see their position plainly. There is a considerable rise just at
-the entrance to Rangiaowhia proper; the first considerable whares are
-on that hill; the brow of the same was crowned with a long stake fence,
-ditch, and low parapet, having been the common enclosure of a large
-field. It had been strengthened during the night and morning, and a
-very respectable length of line of black heads was bobbing up and down
-behind it. A swamp was at the foot of this hill, the main road avoiding
-it and turning more to our right flank. The right flank of the Maoris
-was covered by a still more impassable swamp [Pekapeka-rau], so that
-their left flank was the only point needing much defence, a dense
-forest on that side giving them also contingent advantages.
-
-“The 50th, under their brave old Colonel Waddy, and the Defence Cavalry
-Corps, under Captain Walmsley, as staunch an officer as ever put spurs
-to a horse, were on our extreme right; and were destined to do the work
-of that day, General Cameron and Staff personally superintending this
-particular work.
-
-“We saw the 50th fix bayonets, and as they advanced on the main road
-the Maoris commenced a perfect feu d’enfer, and I, looking in vain for
-directions, led my men against the right flank of the Maoris.
-
-“We had to cross several little gullies and rises; at each place
-affording the least shelter I breathed my men for a moment, and then
-dashed them again over the next exposed space. Three severe instalments
-of a lead shower rattled, thumped, and whistled round us; each time I
-put the men under shelter till the shower passed, and then rushed on
-again. As yet I had seen only one of my men hit.
-
-“As we got into the swamp we just saw the gleam of the bayonets of the
-50th close upon the left flank of the Maoris. We heard the British
-cheer, echoed it, and rushed on to the right of the position, where I
-also saw a peach-grove that might be of use to us.
-
-“Of a sudden, while panting up the hillside, with an upper stratum of
-lead travelling over our heads towards our friends we had left behind
-us, I saw that long black line of heads waver. I heard confused cries
-and shouts presaging disorder—and lo!—it broke and fled—some to the
-right, where I saw the Defence Corps after them; and some to the left;
-to these we lent our company. Maoris have a natural affinity to swamp;
-there is a strong amphibious tendency in the brown man. Ducks are no
-more at home in the swamps than Maoris. Only in this instance the
-‘being at home’ was extended perhaps beyond the wish of many by our
-carbines. So soon as we had reached the peach-grove which commanded the
-swamp to our left, we had a fine play upon the greater part of the
-Maoris who were trying to make their escape. I had some soldiers of the
-70th with me who, seduced by the example of my men, had followed my
-fortunes faithfully that day. They were, however, despatched back to
-their regiment by the arrival of Colonel Carey of the Staff.
-
-“Some skirmishers still lurked between us and that part of Rangiaowhia
-where the two churches stood; so we took our way in that direction,
-getting now and then a sight of a Maori and a hearing of their bullets.
-I was just directing one of my foremost skirmishers to aim at a figure
-of a man which I could see behind a bush, when something struck me in
-the attitude as being nerveless like that of a wounded man. I gave the
-word to stop firing, and, surrounding the Maori carefully, as some sham
-being dead and then blaze into you, then approached him. Resting on his
-right elbow, his back against a stump, the left leg stretched from him
-with a large pool of blood around it, the Maori surveyed our approach
-without a start or a movement of a muscle in his face, even. Now, let
-me tell you that my men in the day of battle are not very
-confidence-inspiring objects to look at. What with dust, smoke, their
-wild dress, their armament, and faces wild with excitement of the hour,
-a man would be quite justified in hesitating to trust his life
-altogether to their keeping, not being able to see the golden
-sub-stratum of that desperado exterior. A calm, steady, almost
-indifferent look was fixed on me by the dark eye of the Maori. I made
-to him a gesture of friendship, and proceeded to examine his wound. An
-Enfield bullet had shattered his left leg below the calf, and he was
-rapidly bleeding to death. A boot-lace twisted under the knee had to do
-duty as a tourniquet, and the Maori’s shirt had to supply the bandages.
-One of our men who spoke a little Maori told him we would come back for
-him, and left him with water and some rum; the latter he refused
-taking.
-
-“I had an idea that as the Catholic Church had proved once an asylum to
-the Maori, it might be occupied the same way to-day. I was determined
-to be beforehand with the Staff to-day at least, and pushed on by
-short-cut. Everything seemed quiet about the neighbourhood. The church
-door was locked, but as it might have been locked from the inside I had
-a carbine pointed into the lock, which pass-key proved to fit our
-requirements. I entered the church, found it empty, turned my men out
-again, and re-fastened the door to the best of my ability.
-
-“Colonel Carey, of the Staff, then arrived, and gave me orders to guard
-the adjoining dwelling-house of the priest and permit no one to enter
-it. My men had by my permission gone to plunder the nearest whares.
-Their whole plunder was then put into the verandah of the priest’s
-house, and, putting a sentry over it, I dispersed my men once more for
-‘loot,’ as they now deserved to have a pull at Rangiaowhia. I remained
-to guard the priest’s house myself and ruminate over the day’s work.
-
-“Colonel Weare, of the 50th, then made his appearance, and informed me
-that he had received orders to take charge of this house and grounds. I
-had no great objection to a transfer of responsibility, but when I was
-informed that nothing was to be removed from the ground, not even the
-loot my men had taken from the neighbourhood, now lying piled in the
-verandah, I most decidedly objected to such an unfair arrangement. A
-picket under a subaltern was then put over the premises, and Colonel
-Weare departed. I recalled my Rangers by my whistle, drew them up
-outside, and carried out myself every individual article belonging to
-them, not forgetting one or two articles of loot belonging to Colonel
-Weare, accidentally mixed with ours, considered already as safely
-acquired by right of seniority. It was to me about as interesting an
-interlude as could be found amongst the sad realities of higher
-interests around me. And I look back to my struggle with Colonel Weare
-for the loot of my men probably with the same amount of amusement as he
-does himself by this time. He put me under arrest. I took no notice of
-it, nor did General Cameron, who joked me the next day about it.”
-
-The Forest Rangers’ entry into Te Awamutu that evening must have been a
-grotesquely picturesque spectacle. Von Tempsky wrote:
-
-“An advanced guard under myself surrounded the stretcher of the chief
-Paul, whom we had picked up on the way back according to promise. This
-was serious and respectable, but the main body of the two companies
-that followed, borne down with the most promiscuous loot ever gathered,
-were a sight fit for the pencil of Hogarth. There were men representing
-a walking museum of fowls strung and hung all over their persons. There
-were men having the carcases of pigs strapped to their bodies; one even
-carried a live young sow, baby-wise in his arms, restraining its
-desperate struggles and screams by the strength of a powerful arm.
-There were men mounted on Maori horses, one of them my half-caste
-Sergeant Southee, decorated with feathers used at the Maori war dance.
-The whole two companies bristled with Maori spears, tomahawks,
-double-barrel guns, and so forth. I myself had a magnificent
-long-handled tomahawk, given to me by one of my men, who picked it up
-on the battlefield. I gave it to General Cameron.
-
-“I have since heard that our entry into Te Awamutu created not only
-admiration but envy, loot being such a scarce article in this war that
-even Commodore Wiseman could not help saying to a friend of mine,
-‘Those rascally Rangers have got all the loot.’ In former days the
-Naval Brigade generally got ahead of the soldiers in that business, but
-now the agility of the Rangers had put the long-armed Jack Tar into the
-shade.
-
-“In dismissing my men that evening, I could not but testify to their
-gallant conduct, particularly No. 1 Company, under Lieutenant Westrupp,
-who had followed me when I went a considerable pace, and when my own
-men, being in high fern, could not keep up with me. General Cameron, in
-acknowledging the good behaviour of the men, had another ration of rum
-served out to them that night, so that at the camp-fire our battles
-were fought over again with even more gusto and less risk.”
-
-Another old-timer, an ex-Ranger in the Waikato, thus described to the
-present writer that triumphal march back from Rangiaowhia:
-
-“We had found great stores of potatoes, pigs, and fowls lying ready to
-be carted to the big pa at Paterangi. The stuff was stacked here and
-there along the middle of the village between the two churches. When we
-marched back to Te Awamutu that night one of our fellows, Johnny Reddy,
-was leading, or rather driving, a pig by a rope. As we came near the
-mission station gate at Te Awamutu we saw General Cameron standing
-there with Bishop Selwyn. Reddy called out, ‘Make way for the Maori
-prisoner!’ The General ordered, ‘Arrest that man!’ But Johnny dropped
-his rope, left the pig, and bolted. All the same, he had a fair whack
-of that porker for his supper.”
-
-The Royal Navy men, as a veteran recalls, did not come home from the
-battle quite empty-handed, for when they hauled their six-pounder
-field-piece in that evening it was loaded with Maori pigs and potatoes.
-
-The day’s casualties numbered two soldiers killed, one of the Defence
-Force Cavalry mortally wounded, and fifteen others wounded, including
-Ensign Doveton, of the 50th. The Maoris lost about a score killed,
-beside many wounded, some of whom were captured and treated in the
-field hospital at Te Awamutu.
-
-
-
-
-THE RANGIAOWHIA BLOCKHOUSE.
-
-A veteran Forest Ranger (Mr Wm. Johns, of Auckland) says:
-
-“About 1870 the Rangiaowhia blockhouse, designed exactly like that at
-Orakau, was built close to where the Hairini school now stands. It was
-constructed of four-inch planks. We used it as a refuge place in the
-panic times. Being doubtful of its strength, I proposed to my
-fellow-settlers one day that I would test whether it was really
-bullet-proof. We all went out, and with an Enfleld rifle at fifty yards
-I put a bullet not only through the front wall of four-inch planks but
-also nearly through the rear wall. Then I took one of the solid plugs
-of the floor-loopholes in the overhanging upper storey, a piece of
-timber seven inches thick, set it up, and drilled it through with a
-bullet. We decided that we could not stay in the blockhouse, as it
-would only be a death-trap in case of attack; so we represented its
-condition to Major Jackson, our commanding officer. Then the blockhouse
-was made really bullet-proof by giving it a plank lining and filling
-the intervening space, four inches or so, with sand and gravel.”
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IX.
-
-THE INVASION OF KIHIKIHI.
-
-
-Rewi Maniapoto’s headquarters were at Kihikihi, three miles from Te
-Awamutu, and General Cameron made no delay in paying his adversary a
-military call. Rewi had not fought at Hairini; the fact is that he was
-a more sagacious soldier than most of his fellow-countrymen, and
-perceived the impossibility of making a successful stand at such a
-vulnerable spot. No doubt he fully realised that with the bloodless
-fall of Paterangi the pakeha conquest of the Waipa was practically
-complete.
-
-On 23rd February, 1864, a mixed force of troops marched from Te
-Awamutu, and without resistance entered the large village of Kihikihi,
-an attractive sight with its cultivations of root and grain crops and
-its peach and apple orchards. The Ngati-Maniapoto retired to the Puniu
-River without firing a shot.
-
-After burning the large carved council-house (which stood at the south
-end of the present township) and destroying the tall flagstaff, the
-force returned to Te Awamutu. The troops were now well established in
-encampments around the mission station, and several redoubts were soon
-built. The principal redoubt, occupied by Imperial troops during
-1864–65, was built in the middle of the present town, in rear of the
-post office, as shown on the plan here given. The site of this
-earthwork can still be traced, although it is intersected by a road.
-There were also British garrisons in occupation of Pikopiko, Paterangi,
-and Rangiaowhia.
-
-The soldiers in the various camps revelled in an abundance of fruit and
-potatoes, and the horses of the cavalry and field artillery throve on
-the maize that grew in every settlement.
-
-A few days after the first expedition to Kihikihi a scouting party of
-the Colonial Defence Force Cavalry brought news that the Maoris had
-returned to the neighbourhood of the settlement. It was decided,
-therefore, that a redoubt should be built at Kihikihi, and an
-expedition made a start from Te Awamutu before daylight one morning, in
-an attempt to surprise Ngati-Maniapoto. Colonel Waddy, of the 50th, was
-in command. The two companies of Forest Rangers composed the advance
-guard.
-
-Von Tempsky, describing this expedition, wrote:
-
-“As we approached Kihikihi I went somewhat in advance, and seeing some
-Maoris near a bush adjoining the village, we gave chase, and sent word
-back to that effect. We skirmished through some maize-fields, with a
-dense bush to our left, to which bush I gave a wide berth. But we could
-not get well at them as they had the start of us, and we were suddenly
-brought up by a swamp. We skirmished with them across the swamp, but
-got little good out of it. I saw them retreating into some distant
-whares, and making themselves quite comfortable, proving to me thereby
-that they were now supported, and that their position was strong. As we
-found the swamp altogether impassable without making a detour of miles,
-I returned, having formed, however, my plan already to look after these
-gentlemen.
-
-“That night I entered the bush which I had skirted the previous day,
-thinking of heading the swamp by these means, and surprising the
-whares. We had a fearful march of it. It was a kahikatea bush, with
-swamp inside, and night to add to the difficulties. However, we
-persevered, and by the time it was morning we were opposite the whares.
-With one ‘Hurrah!’ we rushed across the open space on to one, then to
-the other, whare, but found both empty and everything in them smashed
-to atoms—to the very cats of the domicile. The houses belonged to Mr
-Gage, a half-caste, who had not joined the Maori cause.
-
-“While my men were overhauling the premises for anything useful, I
-surveyed the neighbourhood, and saw that between us and the bush, which
-formed a perfect bight around us, there was still another swamp to
-cross if we wanted to get into the bush. Also, I saw that if there were
-any Maoris lurking there we presented a fair target for their pleasure,
-without even the chance of retaliation.
-
-“At that moment Sergeant Carron, who had been sniffing around with his
-usual acuteness, reported to me that there were Maoris in the bush.
-This decided me in relinquishing my position at once, as we could do no
-harm to our antagonists if they persisted in remaining in the bush. I
-had hardly drawn my men down the knoll on which the dwelling-house
-stood when down came a volley over the heads of the last men
-disappearing behind the hill. I took up a better position within 300
-yards of it, where logs and fern gave good cover to the ground in our
-favour. But the Maoris would no more cross that swamp in front of us
-than we would in front of them; so, looking at one another wrathfully,
-and shaking a figurative fist, we parted at last without much harm done
-to either side.”
-
-The redoubt now built on the highest part of the Kihikihi village (the
-spot is just behind the present police station) was garrisoned by
-Imperial troops for a time, and then by Waikato Militia. In the
-Seventies, and, in fact, until about 1883, it was occupied by the Armed
-Constabulary. Unfortunately it was demolished in the Eighties by the
-townspeople, who did not realise the value of this large and
-picturesquely-set earthwork as a place of future historic interest.
-
-The Forest Rangers now camped at Kihikihi for some time. On 29th
-February, 1864, the first expedition was made to Orakau village. Von
-Tempsky, describing this bit of work, wrote:
-
-“The Maoris at Orakau kept hanging about, irresolute what to do, till
-we saw them commencing to dig rifle-pits, and then it was high time to
-give them notice to quit. Colonel Waddy mustered his whole strength,
-and away we went under the firm impression that we would have a warm
-afternoon of it. The Forest Rangers were in the advance. There was much
-scrub on each side of the road, and we had also orders to break down
-any fence that might impede the action of the cavalry. We had broken
-down one or two across our road already, when the Maoris commenced with
-some desultory shots at cannon range. But suddenly I saw a peculiar
-sort of fence across the road—a stake fence bound with new flax,
-therefore a new work—a rising bank behind it, with a suspicious look
-about the crown.
-
-“‘Listen, men,’ I said. ‘We must make one broad rush at that place—one
-long, strong, all-together push—and that fence must go down. Then up
-the bank like lightning.’
-
-“Thus arranged—thus it was done. With a cheer a wave of sprightly
-fellows dashed against that fence. Down it went—up the bank we flew.
-There were the masked rifle-pits just dug and just deserted. They had
-stuck sprigs and branches of tea-tree into the newly-thrown-up earth to
-hide the presence of those pits.
-
-“Thence we entered the village, still with considerable precaution, as
-we would not believe that the Maoris would make no resistance whatever,
-particularly in such broken ground as the village, straggling amongst
-gullies and ridges covered with peach-groves, afforded. Thus, however,
-it was. We went right through the village, and seeing the fugitives in
-the far-off distance making for an old pa [probably Otautahanga], I
-gave chase, but was soon recalled, as the orders of Colonel Waddy were
-to confine himself strictly to Orakau. The next time I entered that
-village a few weeks after we did not complain about the reluctance of
-fighting in the Maoris.”
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER X.
-
-THE BATTLE OF ORAKAU.
-
- And how can man die better
- Than facing fearful odds,
- For the ashes of his fathers,
- And the temples of his gods?
-
- —“Horatius” (“Lays of Ancient Rome.”)
-
-
-The defence of Orakau Pa by the three hundred Maoris who deserve
-lasting fame as surely as the three hundred of Thermopylæ has passed
-into imperishable history as an inspiring example of heroism and
-devotion to a national cause. Many and many a story of that three days’
-siege has been written, and yet new narratives with much that is
-thrilling are still to be gathered from the very few survivors. Far
-away in the wild forest glens of the Urewera Country I have heard the
-story of Orakau told in the meeting-houses at night by the old
-warriors, and travelling over the Huiarau Mountains to Waikaremoana, my
-companion, a Hauhau veteran, told me how his father fell at Orakau and
-he himself escaped from the field with a severe wound, and proudly he
-exhibited the deep scars.
-
-Orakau was one of those defeats and retreats that are grander than a
-victory. The spirit of Bannockburn was in the defenders’ scornful
-defiance of terrible odds; but even Bannockburn was outdone by the
-Maori garrison’s indifference to the foe’s superiority in numbers and
-arms and by the devotion of the women who remained to share the fall of
-their husbands and brothers. The pakeha’s cattle graze over the
-unfenced, unmarked trenches where scores of brave men were laid to
-rest. Technically they were rebels, holding stubbornly to nationalism
-and a broken cause, but the glory of Orakau rests with those rebels.
-And now that the old racial animosities have disappeared Briton and
-Maori join in fraternal worship of the men and women who died for a
-sentiment. A Waikato Regiment has taken for its motto the war-cry of
-the people whom Cameron defeated but could not conquer, and has
-inscribed on its colours the words, “Ka whawhai tonu matou, ake, ake,
-ake!” To New Zealanders of the blended races in the years to come that
-slogan of the soil should carry as thrilling a call in battle-test as
-the last words of Burns’s ode hold for the Scot: “Liberty’s in every
-blow—let us do or die!”
-
-
-
-Of Ngati-Maniapoto themselves there were but fifty or so in Orakau; the
-defence fell chiefly on the Urewera—who had come fully a hundred and
-fifty miles to fight the pakeha—and on the Ngati-Raukawa and
-Ngati-te-Kohera and other West Taupo hapus.
-
-Very nearly all those dogged heroes of Orakau have passed to the
-Reinga; I know of only five now living—three Ngati-Maniapoto and two
-Urewera.
-
-In this sketch of Waipa history I need not enter into the already
-familiar military history of Orakau. There is, however, an immensely
-interesting MS. narrative at my hand—Major Von Tempsky’s account of the
-siege—and extracts from this animated description make a valuable
-contribution to the story of the three days’ fighting.
-
-Von Tempsky, after describing his march with the Forest Rangers from Te
-Awamutu, as advance guard of Major Blyth’s column, narrates that the
-force crossed and re-crossed the Puniu and came out in rear of Orakau,
-soon after the main body under Brigadier-General Carey had opened the
-attack. His Rangers (No. 2 Company—No. 1 was in camp at Ohaupo) were
-ordered to guard the east side of the Maori position. Von Tempsky then
-goes on to describe the events of the first day (31st March, 1864):
-
-“For two hours we lay under what cover the inequalities of the ground
-afforded, with a heavy and well-directed fire upon us. We could see the
-Maoris strengthening their works as busy as bees, firing away also with
-rifles from two or three small embrasures with most unpleasant
-comparative accuracy. There was one gentleman in particular sending his
-shots at me with a wonderful progression of skill. I had a hillock
-somewhat bigger than my head to shelter the same; a gentle incline
-thence afforded a philosophical resting-place for the trunk and limbs;
-so that I lay in comparative security from direct shots, though not
-from the leaden droppings of high descent. The first indication of the
-notice taken of my insignificant presence was given me by a bullet
-striking the ground in beautiful line with my head about eight or nine
-yards in front. The next shot made the distance six, in the same
-splendid line, the third five, the fourth four, and so on until—he did
-not hit me after all.
-
-“I had had some hopes that the nearness of our circle to the pa
-indicated an intention of a general assault, but nothing of the kind
-took place. We could not even fire, as the danger of a cross-fire was
-then too imminent, and I must confess that I was heartily glad when we
-were removed at last from that uselessly-exposed position to a point
-further back, where the sudden fall of the ridge gave a comparative
-shelter from bullets. Here I was joined once more by the rest of my men
-and Lieutenant Roberts, and got from him a full account of the
-proceedings of the main column.
-
-“They were first fired upon from some peach-groves in the beginning of
-the village. The advance guard under Captain Ring, accompanied by
-Roberts and his Rangers, skirmished along the road, the natives
-retiring before them. It became then apparent that the Maoris were
-going to make a stand in a large peach-grove before them. There was an
-old stock-yard fence visible, but as to the nature of any other
-defences no one had any idea of what was before them. The word for
-assault was then given, and, Captain Ring and Roberts leading
-gallantly, they advanced in quick time. The Maoris held their fire
-until our force was within fifty yards, and then gave them volley after
-volley. Within a few yards from the ditch, and a parapet now becoming
-visible, Captain Ring fell dead by the side of Roberts. A few Rangers
-were trying to get into the ditch, but were not supported. Several men
-had fallen, and the bugle from the main body sounded the Retire.
-Another effort to lead the men on to the assault proved as ineffectual
-as the first. Captains Fisher and Hinds, of the 40th, and Captain
-Baker, of the Staff, most gallantly set the example, and urged the men
-on—but the advance of the latter was this time even a milder affair
-than the first. Captain Fisher was badly wounded, several men shared
-the same fate, and only a few of my men got into the ditch. Roberts saw
-that he was not sufficiently supported, and drew his men back. The two
-pieces of artillery then commenced to play upon the pa. We arrived
-about that time, and I witnessed the harmless flight of shells and
-other equally ineffectual shots. A little dust, and a cheer from the
-natives, were all the results that I could see. This firing of the
-Armstrong even continued after we were in our encircling position, and
-I had the pleasure of picking up nice pieces of shell dropped amongst
-us, after the explosion had taken place over our heads.”
-
-Von Tempsky here comments on the failure to reconnoitre the pa before
-the troops were rushed against it in premature assaults.
-
-“After we had taken up our position on the east side, closing the
-circle that now surrounded the pa on all sides, everyone asked, ‘What
-next?’ A sort of vague idea circulated that ‘the place was going to be
-blown up that afternoon.’ I heard this myself from an officer of high
-standing, wondering in myself how this wonderful feat was going to be
-accomplished, and particularly in the space of time mentioned. However,
-there was little Hurst of the 12th (acting engineer officer). He
-suggested sapping. The idea was greedily seized and carried out.
-
-“About twelve o’clock we began to see natives trooping along the ranges
-to the east, and making for the forest between us and Rangiaowhia [the
-Manga-o-Hoi bush]. Their numbers increased at every moment. I was
-stationed in a hollow where the main road from the pa [toward
-Otautahanga and Parawera] crossed a swamp and led up an adjoining
-ridge, on which stood a large weather-board house. I had previously put
-a picket near that house, as the view from it commanded the very point
-of the forest now that reinforcements were gathering.
-
-“The natives in the pa had seen the arrival of succour as well as we
-had, and repeated cheers and volleys announced their appreciation of
-the sight. From the forest responsive cheers soon established a
-sympathetic intercourse between the two separated bodies, and I must
-confess that as far as I was concerned at least the enthusiasm was all
-on their side. Some Maori trumpeter in the pa now commenced one of
-those high-pitched shouts, half song, half scream, that travel
-distinctly over long distances, particularly from range to range. He
-was giving the reinforcements some instructions. I never have been able
-to find out what they were, though we had plenty of interpreters with
-us. I went to the picket with reinforcements, and extended a line of
-skirmishers along the brow of the hill in some tea-tree scrub. There
-was open ground between us and the line of forest in which the
-reinforcements were, and they had to cross that opening if they wanted
-to come to us.
-
-“About this time the natives in the pa commenced a war dance. Of
-course, we could see nothing of it, but we could hear it—the measured
-chant—the time-keeping yell—the snort and roar—the hiss and scream—the
-growl and bellowing—all coming from three hundred throats in measured
-cadence, working up their fury into a state of maniacal, demoniacal
-frenzy, till the stamping of their feet actually shook the ground.
-
-“There was soon an echo in the forest of this pandemoniacal concert.
-Another chorus of three hundred or four hundred throats made the woods
-tremble with their wrath of lung and the thundering stamp of feet.
-Twice it subsided, and skirmishers appeared, firing lustily into us. I
-must confess there was something impressive in these two savage hordes
-linking their spirits over this distance into a bond of wrathful aid,
-lashing one another’s fury into a higher heat by each succeeding yell
-echoing responsive in each breast. Yet when the result of all this
-volcanic wrath broke against us, when the simple crack of our carbines
-sent line after line of their skirmishers back into the bush, then the
-third war dance to get the steam up anew became a most laughable
-affair, particularly as its result was equally pusillanimous with the
-first two. No! that open ground under the muzzles of our carbines was
-not at all to the liking of the war-dancers. There they remained in the
-bush firing at us at long range, their bullets coming amongst us with
-that asthmatic, overtravelled sound denoting exhaustion of strength.
-
-“The sap workers were now covered by a good number of Enfield rifles,
-which dropped most of their bullets into our snug hollow. I must say
-that as night came on I reflected upon its probable effects, and I
-experienced a good deal of uneasiness. I was placed on the one point
-where the Maoris from the pa, trying to effect a junction with the
-forces in the bush, would have to pass or break through. I never for a
-moment believed that they would allow the night to pass without making
-the attempt, as they had no water in the pa. If the forces in the bush,
-then, favoured by darkness, crossed the opening and attacked our rear
-while we faced the Maoris from the pa, the chances were ten to one that
-the junction would be effected, and that thus our prey would escape us
-after having done irreparable damage.
-
-“I gave Roberts charge of the picket. It could not be in better hands.
-That day his behaviour before the pa, and on many previous instances,
-had borne me out in my preconceived idea of the young man that he was
-as true as steel. I ranged all my men on one side of the road, lying
-down close to one another in the fern, with strict orders not to stir
-from their positions until I gave the word—to let the Maoris run the
-gauntlet of their fire—and then, when Roberts had barred the narrow
-pass across the swamp, to charge them, bowie-knife and revolver in
-hand.
-
-“It was an anxious night—so much so, that I even forgot the want of
-sleep of the night previous, and listened with little need of effort to
-the firing from the pa on the sap and from the sap on the pa. * * * The
-Maoris had now fought for more than twelve mortal hours; they had
-wrought at the spade with marvellous rapidity and pluck; and last, not
-least, they had hurrah’d and war-danced enough to supply all England
-with consumption, and all that with no adequate supply of water, as
-their store of it inside must have been quickly exhausted. I believe
-that night some daring and devoted slaves managed to creep through our
-sentries and bring a few calabashes-full into the pa. But what was that
-for the great number of parched throats? (Also, raw potatoes assuaged
-their thirst considerably.) Still the roar of their guns did not cease,
-and allow me to tell you that they had some old-fashioned barrels that
-roared like the bulls of Bashan and threw balls as big as potatoes.
-Hour after hour I listened to the firing and to the pinging of bullets
-whistling over our heads and dropping amongst us the whole life-long
-night; but the sounds I most listened for were footsteps and that
-indescribable hum that precedes even the most silent body of men. I
-went to the picket several times, and returned each time in great
-haste, fearing the Maoris might break cover during my absence. But I
-was not the only wakeful officer. I think nearly everyone with any
-responsibility on him slept little that night, except those borne down
-by fatigue. The artillery troopers under Rait had hardly ceased their
-rounds along our whole circle throughout the night, and Rait and I had
-a long chat about the certainty of the Maoris breaking cover that
-night. Yet the night passed and nothing happened.
-
-“This is one convincing proof to me that the Maoris after all, with all
-their cleverness, have not the true military sagacity in them to
-distinguish when obstinacy of defence turns into stupid self-sacrifice.
-Had they pushed through us that night we would have suffered at close
-quarters with their guns quite as much in ten minutes as in the time
-that the whole siege lasted, and their loss would have been
-comparatively small, as up to that time I believe not half a dozen of
-theirs had been hit.
-
-
-
-
-THE SECOND DAY.
-
-“The morning of the first of April brought Jackson and his Rangers. I
-was glad to see another half-hundred revolvers make their appearance
-and strengthen my rather ticklish position. Some of Jackson’s men, on
-passing by the sap, had volunteered to work therein. They did excellent
-service, all having been diggers, and, being strong, daring fellows,
-they pushed the sap in great style. They were under the direction of
-George Whitfield, who had got his commission for his behaviour at
-Mangapiko. At Orakau his services were quite as prominent, and should
-have been recognised more than they were.
-
-“Another weary, weary day—wait, wait—nothing but waiting. There was not
-even the fun of a war-dance—no water for boilers, so there could be no
-steam. Now and then yet a hurrah or so of the natives, when someone got
-prominently hit, but the strength of voice and lung displayed on the
-first day had made us hypercritical, so that their performance in the
-vocal department was not appreciated. They made, however, some very
-good shooting, particularly at unconscious amateurs and spectators.
-There was poor Major Hurford, of the 3rd Waikato Regiment. He came to
-me and said that he had just had two very narrow escapes, one ball
-contusing his breast, another his hip. ‘I am so glad,’ he said, ‘that
-my wife will not hear of this until all is over.’ The following morning
-it was all over with him.
-
-“That day the natives began running out a counter-sap to outflank ours,
-and the firing from each covering party became exceedingly hot. We got
-all our own lead from those musical Enfield messengers en masse. When
-it comes to eating, drinking, and sleeping under an unceasing peppering
-of lead, when it drops into your pannikin, or into the bowl of your
-pipe—a man may be excused for losing his temper—if he has one to lose.
-
-“The natives in the bush showed again that afternoon, but their spirits
-were not so high as the day previous. They would not treat us to any
-more war-dances, and just fired their sullen shots to let their friends
-in the pa know that they were there. That evening the sapping party of
-Jackson brought home their first victim of the war—Private Coglan.
-Having exposed himself rather imprudently in planting a gabion, he was
-shot dead on the spot.
-
-“I felt a little less anxious that night. More than one hundred
-revolvers were now in a row, which in half a minute would fire 600
-shots, and these at close quarters should tell. At night there is
-nothing like a revolver for a struggle.
-
-
-
-
-THE THIRD DAY.
-
-“The following morning (2nd April) General Cameron made his appearance
-with a detachment of the Defence Corps and some packhorses with
-hand-grenades. * * * Our sap was now so far advanced that it entered
-the old stock-yard fence, which surrounded the pa at some distance. It
-was in rashly jumping out of the sap and cutting down gallantly one of
-these posts that Major Hurford received his death-wound in the head. He
-rallied for a short space of time, long enough to receive the
-attentions of his poor wife, but the ball, remaining in his head,
-caused his death at last at Otahuhu. Many gallant deeds were done that
-day in the sap, but the same being at the opposite extreme of the pa
-from our position I was not an eye-witness to them. I only know from
-good testimony that Captain Baker was amongst the foremost to urge the
-work by word and example; Jackson’s Ensign Whitfield behaved with his
-usual distinction; Ensign Harrison, of the Transport Corps, did good
-service with his rifle en amateur; my Sergeant Southee later in the
-day, still with the 65th detachment, was the first to change his
-footing from our works into that of the Maoris. (Note.—Poor Whitfield
-lost his life in one of my engagements in the Wanganui district. He was
-one of the most gallant officers I have known.)
-
-“The weariness on our post on that third day was becoming to me almost
-unbearable. There was no excitement to compensate for the constant
-annoyance of bullets flying about you for three days and two nights,
-and the constant false reports of the assault going to take place
-sickened one at last of the whole affair. There had been a demand for
-volunteers in the morning to go sapping. I knew it did not refer to me,
-but I thought they might accept me after all when the hottest work
-commenced, so I took sixteen volunteers from my company and marched
-round to the sap. I was close to the sap when Baker met me and
-instantly drove me back in spite of all my expostulations and pleas of
-the morning’s order. ‘No, no! To your post! To your post!’ And as a
-sweetener for this disagreeable treatment the cunning Staff Machiavelli
-told me to come back at four o’clock in the afternoon, when I would be
-allowed to sap, knowing himself perfectly well that by that time I
-would have found other work to do. I went back crestfallen and
-miserable. My return instantly enfranchised Jackson, who took the
-opportunity of trying his rifle skill en amateur in the sap—and his
-skill in this department is by no means contemptible.
-
-“ * * * what means that shout—that hurrah? ‘Stand to your arms, men!’
-Another truly British cheer! They must be assaulting the pa! ‘Forward,
-men—forward!’ And away I dash with a promiscuous crowd of Rangers and
-soldiers. But I know the way where we can go in reasonable security.
-Along the slant of the hill the fern is high, and the level of the
-ground scarce shows our heads. If we reach the angle of the pa in front
-of us while attention is concentrated on the diagonally opposite angle
-where our sap leads to we may get into the pa with little opposition,
-or shoot down fugitives escaping thence, if there are any.
-
-“We had to go some distance. The Maoris saw us first just on cresting
-the hill, and sent a heavy fire at us. But all those who followed my
-guidance were soon safe from it. I saw some heaps of rubbish under some
-trees, with a half-broken-down pig fence, at 30 yards from the pa. That
-was a good halting place to breathe my men and count them. Alas! there
-were not above a dozen. There were my two sergeants, Carron and Toovey,
-Mogul, and little Keena, and a few of Jackson’s company—but we had lost
-our tail by the velocity of our flight forward. Well, the place had a
-very tenable look about it, so, seeing that every man lay well covered,
-I sent Sergeant Carron back for reinforcements, and saw that my men
-kept the Maoris’ heads well down the parapet. Our arrival there had in
-the first instance driven back a few Maoris attempting to escape from
-the angle I expected they would make use of. After that they kept up a
-pretty close fire upon us, but we had very good cover, and gave it to
-them better than they could. Carron returned in a little, and said that
-Captain Baker wanted me immediately at my post, so nolens volens, I had
-to return, seeing that a dozen men were not enough with which to
-assault 300 Maoris behind a high parapet. During my return I was
-informed by my men that one of those following me had been hit, and was
-lying in the very path to the pa. This was the first intimation I had
-of such mishap, for all the men close to me and following my guidance
-had been untouched. This poor fellow had chosen the main track to walk
-upon, probably scorning the fern, and had so come by his death. It was
-Corporal Taylor, an old soldier of the 70th. Sadly we carried our
-burden to our post, where I found my mentor Captain Baker charged to
-the muzzle with military reprimands for me. While he and I and Major
-Blyth were argumenting on this subject a tremendous shout arose from
-the pa—a volley, and then such an incessant rattle of musketry that I
-perceived at once what the matter was. At last the Maoris had broken
-cover.
-
-“Leaving my interlocutors very unceremoniously, and calling on my men
-to follow me, I rushed up to the picket house. On the other side of the
-house, at a glance, I saw the state of things. A dense mass of Maoris
-was rushing through the scrub at the bottom of the gully on the further
-corner from our post. The ridge where the pa stood was enveloped in a
-dense mass of powder-smoke, whence the incessant firing of our troops
-issued as if there never would be a pause to it.
-
-“Giving hurried orders to Westrupp to watch the forest side of the
-picket hill, and taking Roberts with me, we went off at full speed
-along the ridge to cut off the Maoris whom we saw now ascending the
-furthest extreme of that ridge.
-
-“‘Run, men, run! Cut them off! Cut them off!’ And the Rangers bounded
-over the ground as if their feet had wings.
-
-“The Maoris had had a tremendous start of it, but the passage of the
-swamp and scrub in the bottom of the gully had delayed them somewhat.
-We came within shot of them, and as their long, irregular mass ascended
-the next rise our fire began to tell. Still we had to use the utmost
-exertion to keep within sight and shot of them, and would probably have
-lost half had not Rait with his troopers and some of the Defence Corps
-headed them by a daring break-neck ride across country. But the Maoris,
-seeing only these troopers after them, suddenly turned upon them, and
-from the other side of the swamp commenced to give them some ugly
-shots, killing in a moment two horses and wounding some of the men.
-Now, Rait’s troopers had only revolvers, which were utterly useless at
-that distance, so they began to be rather doubtful what to do with
-their Tartar, when the Rangers made their appearance, and the presence
-of their carbines became soon painfully evident to the natives. Off
-they started again, and now at a lesser distance they began to drop
-under our fire very fast; also some of them had outrun their fleetness,
-and, our wind and stamina beginning to tell after the first three
-miles, many a laggard was shot down after giving us the last desperate
-shot of his barrel. * * * The last natives we saw were three or four
-trotting along the top of a distant ridge. Signs of declining day and a
-bugle sounding the return made us relinquish further pursuit. On
-re-crossing the river we found Colonel Havelock collecting the squads
-of avengers. He marched them home in a body, myself remaining behind to
-wait for some men of mine who had not yet made their appearance. When
-these at last arrived I also turned my face Orakau-wards.
-
-“We followed pretty much the direction we had taken in the pursuit, and
-soon came upon the silent marks of it. Amongst them, however, I found
-one poor fellow still alive. We bandaged him the best we could, and
-carried him along. After getting over the next mile he expired, and we
-laid him to his rest. We found another one, not far off, and carried
-him also some distance, when he, too, gave up the ghost and left us.”
-
-Other wounded men were carried into the camp, Von Tempsky continued,
-but not until next day did the troops fully realise the terrible nature
-of the blow they had inflicted on their foes. Probably fewer than fifty
-out of little more than three hundred escaped death or wounds. Fully
-160 Maoris were killed or died of wounds. The British loss was 17
-killed and 51 wounded.
-
-On 3rd April, 1864, the Forest Rangers were moved from Orakau, the main
-body having left the previous day. Colonel MacNeil, A.D.C. to General
-Cameron, had been ambuscaded near Ohaupo during the three days of
-Orakau. It was therefore decided to have a permanent post about half
-way between Pukerimu and Te Awamutu. Major Blyth (40th) and Von Tempsky
-were despatched from Te Awamutu to a place a little beyond the native
-pa of Ohaupo, and a redoubt was built on a commanding ridge. The 40th
-built the redoubt, while Von Tempsky’s Rangers policed the road and
-scouted the bush.
-
-“There is some lovely lake scenery,” wrote Von Tempsky, “between Te
-Awamutu and Ohaupo. Among sombre patches of forest gleams a water
-mirror every now and then, with a vivid green margin of waving grasses
-and rushes; here and there a solitary cabbage-tree with its long,
-irradiating leaves giving to the otherwise home-like scenery the New
-Zealand character. By moonlight the lake scenery is quite a fairy
-effect, and has often compensated me for the tediousness of repeated
-night patrol.”
-
-
-
-
-INCIDENTS OF THE SIEGE.
-
-THE MAORI DEFENCE.
-
-The Maoris’ reason for not building the Orakau pa in a more defensive
-position is explained by the survivors. They say that it was not placed
-where the native church stood, and where “Kawana” afterwards fixed his
-homestead, because that situation was conspicuous, and would readily be
-seen from the Kihikihi redoubt. This position certainly would have been
-superior to that selected as the site of the fort on the Rangataua
-rise, for on the western side of the Orakau Hill, just in rear of the
-old homestead, the ground slopes steeply to the Tautoro gully and
-swamp, and that side of the pa could easily have been scarped into an
-insurmountable wall. On the southern side there is a quick incline to
-the present road; on the east and north aspect the land slopes gently
-from the hill crest.
-
-With regard to the famous cry of defiance associated with the defence
-of Orakau, it is difficult to reconcile some of the Maori versions with
-the popular story. From none of my Maori authorities, all of them men
-who fought at Orakau, have I been able to obtain exact confirmation of
-the reported ultimatum: “Ka whawhai tonu matou, ake, ake, ake!” (“We
-will fight on for ever, and ever, and ever!”) The following is the
-statement of Major W. G. Mair, who, when ensign in the Colonial Defence
-Force Cavalry, acted as staff interpreter, and conveyed General
-Cameron’s demand for the surrender of the pa and his promise of safety
-for the garrison: “I could see the Maoris inclining their heads towards
-each other in consultation, and in a few minutes came the answer in a
-clear, firm tone: ‘E hoa, ka whawhai tonu ahau ki a koe, ake, ake!’
-(‘Friend, I shall fight against you for ever and ever!’)” Then Mair
-made request for the women and children to come out. “There was a short
-deliberation, and another voice made answer: ‘Ki te mate nga tane, me
-mate ano nga wahine me nga tamariki.’ (‘If the men are to die, the
-women and children must die also.’)” The difference between the popular
-version and Mair’s narrative is obviously very slight.
-
-The Maori account, as given by Te Huia Raureti and Pou-Patate Huihi and
-the late Te Wairoa Piripi is to the effect that the answer of Rewi and
-his fellow-chiefs was that they would not make peace. Te Wairoa Piripi
-said: “The General’s messenger came to us and called out: ‘Do not fire
-at me. I have a message for you from the General to request that you
-make peace, so that your women and children may be saved.’ This message
-was made known by Raureti Paiaka to the whole pa, to Rewi, who was at
-the northern section of the pa when the pakeha was speaking to Raureti.
-The people in the western part of the pa were listening. Rewi Manga
-made reply: ‘Kaore au e hohou te rongo’ (‘I shall not make peace.’)
-Then all the people cried in chorus: ‘Kaore e mau te rongo, ake, ake,
-ake!’ (‘Peace shall never be made—never, never, never!’) Then stood up
-Karamoa Tumanako, of Ngati-Apakura, and said: ‘I shall make peace.’ To
-this Rewi, Hone Teri, and Raureti replied: ‘We are not willing that the
-people should be made prisoners, but if we leave the pa you make your
-own peace.’ Some of the people having fired, the pakeha dropped down,
-and the fighting began again. It was now that the rakete (rockets,
-i.e., hand-grenades) were flung into our pa. They were not so bad at
-first, but when the fuses were shortened many were the deaths. The sap
-was now close up. The outer fence, or pekerangi, was thrown down on the
-top of the soldiers, and some of them were killed or injured there. Two
-shells from the big gun on Karaponia [the hill on which the blockhouse
-was afterwards built] burst in the Manga-o-Hoi swamp, and the tribes in
-that direction were scattered. The explosion of a third shell slightly
-damaged the end of the pa where Te Huia and certain others were. The
-sun was declining, and now the pa was broken at the south-east angle,
-and the people jumped out from all parts of the work. The line of
-soldiers below the pa in the south-eastern direction was broken through
-by Paiaka, Te Whakatapu, and Te Makaka te Taaepa, and the people fled
-to the swamp, thence to the Puniu, leaving a great many dead.”
-
-Te Huia Raureti said (1920): “When the interpreter spoke to us, saying,
-‘Friends, come out to us so that your lives may be saved,’ Rewi
-Maniapoto made reply, through a messenger, my father Raureti Paiaka,
-‘Peace shall never be made—never, never!’ Again spoke the pakeha, and
-said: ‘That is right for you men, but as for the women and children,
-send them out of the pa.’ This was declined, and all the people cried,
-repeating Rewi’s words, ‘Peace shall never be made—never, never,
-never!’ (‘Kaore e mau te rongo—ake, ake, ake!’)”
-
-The Ngati-Tuwharetoa and Ngati-te-Kohera tribes declared that it was
-Hauraki Tonganui who replied to Mair on behalf of Rewi—he was simply a
-mouthpiece or messenger.
-
-It is clear from all the Maori statements, and also Major Mair’s
-account given me many years ago, that Rewi himself did not speak to the
-interpreter. (For full details of Orakau and the discussion between the
-opposing parties see the Official History of the New Zealand Wars,
-written for the Government, and published 1922.)
-
-Orakau pa was surrounded by a square of post-and-rail fence, about a
-chain outside the earthworks. A veteran of the Forest Rangers says it
-was a cleverly-designed obstruction—the predecessor of our modern
-barbed-wire entanglements. It was partly masked with flax and fern, and
-it wrought the defeat of Captain Ring’s charge at the pa. The mounted
-men, too, were stopped by the post-and-rail fence, and there made a
-good target for the Maoris. The earthworks were not high, but the wide
-trench was a deadly affair and a complete obstruction to any charge.
-
-The British headquarters in the siege were fixed just under the fall of
-the ground on the south-west of the pa close to where the blockhouse
-was afterwards built. The slopes are covered to-day with a dense growth
-of prickly acacias. The blockhouse has disappeared; the site is
-traceable only by a hollow showing where the magazine was under the
-floor of the building. A short distance to the W.S.W. of this spot, on
-slightly higher ground, just on the edge of the Karaponia crest, with
-the acacia grove feathering the abrupt slope to the swamp a hundred
-feet below, is the place where two Armstrong guns were posted to shell
-the pa. A tall bluegum marks the exact spot; at its foot are the
-fern-grown remains of a short parapet, the gun emplacement.
-
-It was estimated that about 40,000 rounds of ammunition were fired by
-the troops during the three days’ fighting at Orakau.
-
-“Some of our men,” wrote an eye-witness, “lost their lives through
-foolishly and recklessly exposing themselves to the fire of the rebels.
-Tired of waiting in the sap, and in some instances excited by drink,
-they stood up and invited their fate: ‘Come on,’ they would cry, ‘and
-we’ll cook your head for you!’—in jocular allusion to the preserved
-heads which once formed an important article of trade in this island.”
-
-The same narrator, an army chaplain, wrote: “Our men were short of
-caps; the reason for this was that they often used them for lighting
-their pipes. They placed a small piece of rag inside the caps, which
-they then caused to explode with the points of their bayonets.
-
-“The Royal Irish had to avenge the death of their gallant leader
-[Captain Ring]. More than one Maori was slain from the belief that he
-had fired the fatal shot. It is said that ten Maoris fell in this way;
-when a fugitive was overtaken the cry arose: ‘That is the man who
-killed the captain!’—then came a wild yell, a shot, a bayonet thrust,
-and all was over.
-
-“A Maori fugitive was taken prisoner and committed to the charge of two
-of the Royal Irish, who were thus prevented from joining in the
-pursuit. As they heard the shouts of the pursuers dying away in the
-distance they cursed their hard fate in being obliged to remain behind.
-An officer came up when their impatience had reached its crisis: ‘Shall
-we kill him, Barney?’ Barney thought for a moment, then shook his head.
-‘I couldn’t kill the craytur in cold blood, Shane, but I wish we were
-quit of him.’ ‘Kick him and let him go,’ was the ready response. They
-loosed their hold and applied their heavy boots with full force to the
-person of their prisoner, who turned round and looked as if he would
-have sprung at their throats. The love of liberty was stronger than the
-thirst for revenge; he disappeared in the bush, while Shane and Barney
-hurried after their comrades.
-
-“Most of the women who attempted to escape from the pa were taken; they
-were not able to run as fast as the men, and were soon exhausted. One
-woman was found dead clasping a Bible to her breast. The sacred volume
-was found on the persons of several of the dead and wounded, who had
-left everything else behind.
-
-“There was little left to reward those who first entered the pa; they
-found about three tons of raw potatoes and a little Maori bread, but
-not a drop of water, nor any vessel to hold water. * * * They had no
-surgeons to attend to their wounds. One man had his left leg broken by
-a ball; he bound two pieces of wood round it with wild flax and fought
-on to the last. Another whose side was pierced plugged the wound with a
-cork and kept his place among the defenders of the pa. * * * We have
-officers here who fought through the Crimea and the Indian Mutiny; all
-unite in affirming that neither the Russians nor the Sepoys ever fought
-as the Maoris have done; all lament the necessity of having to fight
-against such a gallant race. On this point the whole army is unanimous;
-a different feeling may prevail among the colonists, who look forward
-to reaping a rich harvest from all this carnage and bloodshed.”
-
-
-
-
-A MAORI SURVIVOR’S STORY.
-
-THE RETREAT TO THE PUNIU.
-
-The following are extracts from the narrative given to the present
-writer in 1920 by the veteran chief Te Huia Raureti, of
-Ngati-Maniapoto, who with his father fought at Orakau:
-
-“Orakau was not a strong fortification. There was no proper palisading
-around the earthworks—we had not sufficient time to complete the
-defences—but there was a post-and-rail fence, in the form of a square,
-a little distance outside the trenches and parapets. The principal
-parapets were about five feet high and four feet in thickness, composed
-of sods and loose earth, with layers of fern pulled up and laid with
-the roots outward. The fern helped to bind the earthworks. We were
-still working away at the ditches and parapets when the troops came
-upon us. We had a sentry on the look-out, on the west side of the
-earthworks, the Kihikihi side, from which the soldiers approached. His
-name was Aporo. Suddenly his voice was raised in these words of alarm:
-
-“‘He pukeko kei te Kawakawa! Kei Te Tumutumu te mea e tata ana!’ (‘A
-swamp-hen has reached the Kawakawa! There are others nearer us at Te
-Tumutumu!’)
-
-“The ‘pukeko’ was the advance guard of the Imperial troops; the
-Kawakawa was the settlement near the large acacia grove [about a third
-of a mile north of the Orakau church and kainga.] The troops marched by
-the road which skirted the bush and up through the cultivations.
-Meanwhile some other soldiers (mounted men) had come a more direct way,
-a little to the north of the cart road, and we saw them at the peach
-and almond grove on the hill just west of the Tautoro swamp and creek
-about a quarter of a mile from our earthworks. Some of the troopers
-rode at our pa, but had to retire before our volleys. The main body of
-the soldiers came marching on; and another force which had marched up
-along the Puniu River, crossing and recrossing, finally fording the
-river near where the Waikeria joins it and coming out on the
-Orakau-Maunga-tautari Road.”
-
-After describing the three days’ fighting, Raureti told the story of
-the retreat to the Puniu on the last day:
-
-“When the people had come to the decision to abandon the pa we all went
-out of it on the north-east side and retreated on the eastern side of
-the Karaponia ridge. My gun was loaded in both barrels, and I had some
-cartridges in my hamanu [ammunition-holder.] The soldiers were already
-in the outworks of the pa. Only one man wished to surrender, and this
-was Wi Karamoa, the minister. He remained in the pa, holding up a white
-handkerchief on a stick in token of surrender. We left many killed and
-wounded in the pa. Some of the dead we had buried; others were left
-lying where they fell. Among those whom we buried in the works were
-Matekau, Aporo (Waikato), Paehua (of Ngati-Parekawa), Ropata (the
-husband of Hine-i-turama), and Piripi te Heuheu (Urewera). There was
-bayonet work in the first rushing of the pa. On the first part of our
-retreat, across the slopes of the pa, we did not fire; we reserved our
-shots for emergency.
-
-“We had to break through the soldiers at the steep fall of the land
-east of Karaponia. Here, where the ridge dropped, there was a scarped
-bank and ditch, made to keep the pigs out of the Rangataua
-cultivations. Just below this, between us and the swamp, were the
-soldiers. A man rushed first to break through the soldiers; he was
-killed. Then the foremost man turned back towards the pa, but my father
-Raureti Paiaka and his comrade Te Makaka dashed at the line of soldiers
-and broke through, and all the rest of us followed and made for the
-swamp. Raureti shot two soldiers here. We now were broken up and
-separated from one another. We retreated through the swamp, and when we
-reached a place called Manga-Ngarara (Lizard Creek) we found some
-troops who arrived there to stop us. There again Raureti Paiaka broke
-through and we passed on. Ngata was nearly killed there by being cut at
-with a sword. Raureti raised his gun as if to fire at the swordsman,
-but he had no cartridge in his gun. The soldier, fearing to be shot,
-hastily turned back, and our friend was saved.
-
-“Our chief and relative Rewi was with us in the retreat through the
-swamp, and several of us formed a bodyguard to fight a way through for
-him. When we had crossed the swamp to the Ngamako side, where the hills
-go steeply up, we saw soldiers, mounted and foot, in front of us, and
-we fired at them, and one or two dropped. At last we reached the Puniu
-River; we crossed it and travelled through the Moerika swamp, and
-presently halted at Tokanui. Next morning we went across to Ohinekura
-(near Wharepapa). Some of those who escaped from Orakau retreated to
-Korakonui and Wharepapa; some crossed to Kauaeroa; and others went to
-Hanga­tiki. When we crossed the Puniu the old Urewera chief Paerau, who
-was following us, called out to us from the Orakau side of the river,
-‘Friends, Te Whenuanui is missing.’ However, Te Whenuanui (the chief of
-Ruatahuna) appeared safely, and we continued our retreat together.
-
-“Rewi Maniapoto had gone to the Urewera Country before Paterangi was
-built, in order to enlist assistance in the war. There were old ties of
-friendship with the Urewera dating back to the time of the battle of
-Orona, at Lake Taupo, in the ancient days. The Warahoe section of the
-Urewera had a pa there then, and there were Ngati-Maniapoto living with
-them. Some of Warahoe later came and lived in the Ngati-Maniapoto
-country. Two casks of gunpowder were given to Rewi for the war; one of
-these was paid for in this way: Takurua, elder brother of Harehare, of
-the Ngati-Manawa tribe, came back with Rewi, and Raureti gave him £30
-to pay for the gunpowder.”
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XI.
-
-CAMP LIFE AT TE AWAMUTU.
-
-
-The close of the Waikato War saw some four thousand Imperial and
-Colonial troops in quarters at Te Awamutu, which remained a large
-military cantonment for over a year. Surveyors were busy cutting up
-blocks of confiscated land in the Waikato-Waipa delta for the military
-settlers, three regiments of Waikato Militia—one regiment was allotted
-land at Tauranga—and the two companies of Forest Rangers.
-
-An excellent description of military life in Te Awamutu at this period
-is contained in a narrative written by an Army chaplain (name not
-given) which appeared in “Fraser’s Magazine,” London, in 1864. The
-writer narrates the trials and humours of the journey by river and road
-from Auckland to Te Awamutu in March, and gives an account of the
-soldiers’ town as he saw it.
-
-“During the hot months,” wrote the chaplain, “officers and men were
-under canvas. * * * Most of these [the tents] have now disappeared, and
-a small town of whares has sprung up in their place. These whares are
-extremely comfortable; the coldest wind or the heaviest rain is
-effectually excluded. The nearest approach we have ever seen to a whare
-at Home is a Highland bothy, built of turf and heather. One whare
-affords accommodation for twenty-four men, who have to act as their own
-architects, carpenters, and builders. A healthy spirit of rivalry is
-thus produced; each man vies with his neighbour, and surveys the work
-of his own hand with honest pride. Raupo, a strong, flexible reed,
-abounding in the neighbouring swamps, has to be cut down and carried
-into camp on the men’s shoulders. They have often to remain for hours
-up to the waist in water, and are thus liable to frequent attacks of
-dysentery and fever. * * * When the whare is finished the men are
-allowed to have a dance on the wooden floor. The solitary flute strikes
-up ‘Judy O’Callaghan,’ ‘Garryowen,’ or some equally lively air, and a
-light-footed Irishman dances a pas de seul amid the vociferous applause
-of his comrades, who, inspired by his example, take the floor and
-batter the boards with hearty goodwill. A few of the huts are built of
-wood, which has been supplied by contract. Most of the primæval forests
-in the district have disappeared, but clumps of red pine may still
-occasionally be seen. A party of some two hundred sawyers are employed
-about six miles from the camp [near Rangiaowhia]; strange, wild-looking
-men who have lived for years in the bush and hold little intercourse
-with their fellow-men. Some of the more skilful amongst them can make
-as much as £15 per week; the poorest workman can make the half of that
-amount. * * * The furnishings of our hut consist of a camp-bed, a
-table, two chairs, two wooden stools, two bridles, a riding-whip, a
-mirror six inches by four, a few paddles, a rifle, a sword, and a lump
-of bacon suspended from the roof. The mothers and sisters of officers
-out here are not to suppose that their sons and brothers are equally
-comfortable; our habits are deemed quite luxurious; our hut is the envy
-of the whole camp. The rumour has reached us that the Colonial
-Government, who claim it as their property [the hut was at the mission
-station], intend to turn us out, but they will find that rather
-difficult; possession at Te Awamutu is something more than nine points
-of law; we know our rights and mean to stand by them.”
-
-Describing some of the troops at Te Awamutu, the chaplain wrote: “ * *
-* The soldiers of the 65th Regiment are most exemplary in this respect
-[attendance at religious services]. The regiment has spent eighteen
-years in the colony; the men have been broken up into detachments and
-stationed in rural districts, far removed from the temptations of
-garrison towns. Their appearance is very different from that of the men
-belonging to other regiments recently arrived. They are grave, serious,
-thoughtful men, with bronzed faces and flowing beards—living proofs of
-the healthiness of the climate. They are all in good condition, and
-occupy one-fourth more space on the parade-ground than any other
-regiment here. From their long residence in the colony most of them
-have contrived to save a little money; some who have speculated in land
-are capitalists possessed of thousands. This wealth does not interfere
-in any way with the strictness of discipline or the respect due to
-their officers. On the contrary, they expose their lives as readily as
-those who have nothing to lose, and from long intercourse are devotedly
-attached to those under whom they serve. They have never left their
-officers wounded on the field of battle; it is always a point of honour
-with them to carry them off, whatever loss may be entailed. Their
-wealth also sometimes enables them to be generous. It was only recently
-that a subaltern of long standing was likely to lose his company from
-not having money to purchase. Judge of his surprise when one of the
-sergeants waited on him and offered to advance the sum required. * * *
-The 65th is first on the roster for Home service, but few of the men
-will ever leave the island. In fact, it is not to be desired that they
-should, as a better class of colonist could not be found.
-
-“When the natives fled from this district a good many horses, cattle,
-and pigs were left wandering in the bush. Some months ago it was a
-frequent amusement among the officers to sally forth in small parties
-in search of loot. They revived the wild sports of Mexico by hunting
-down the horses and driving them into camp. We know of one case where
-an officer brought in twenty horses and sold them at £5 a head, thus
-netting £100 by the venture. * * * We have several lakes in the
-neighbourhood. [One of these was the Pekapeka-rau lagoon near
-Rangiaowhia.] The natives, on leaving, hid their canoes by dragging
-them into the bush or sinking them. A good many have been found, and
-some of our men have become skilful paddlers. They venture forth in
-these frail barques in search of sport. At first the wild fowl were so
-tame that they seemed to apprehend no danger; they have now become more
-suspicious. Pig-hunting also was a frequent amusement.”
-
-
-
-
-THE ROMANCE OF ARIANA.
-
-This Army chaplain narrated with dry humour the romantic little story
-of a wounded half-caste girl, one of the prisoners taken at Orakau on
-2nd April, 1864; her name was Ariana Huffs, or Hough:
-
-“We have a few friendly natives in camp (at Te Awamutu) who receive
-rations; they have evidently much sympathy with their countrymen in
-bonds, and we respect them for it. There is one of them, a hunch-back
-postman, who plays a little on the Maori flute, which is much the same
-as our penny whistle. As soon as evening sets in he takes his stand at
-the door of his tent and begins playing a sort of dirge. His music is
-execrable, but we bear with it for the following reasons: One evening
-we requested him to cease his serenade or to remove elsewhere beyond
-our hearing. The deformed creature threw himself into an interesting
-attitude and said, ‘It is not for myself I am playing; it is for Ariana
-Huffs. Every evening she comes out to listen, and I can speak to her
-with my flute; she knows all that it says.’ After this sentimental
-avowal we have learned to tolerate this black Blondel, this dusky
-Trovatore. Ariana is a remarkably pretty half-caste, the offspring of
-an Englishman and a Maori woman. Her mother died some years ago, and
-her father, one of those restless, unsettled beings so often to be met
-with in the colonies, left her to the care of her Maori relatives and
-started for Australia; nothing has been heard of him since. When the
-war broke out she was living with a settler near Awamutu; the family
-was obliged to leave, and she was carried off by the rebels. She says
-that this was done against her will, and that while the fighting was
-going on at the pa [Orakau] she was tied to another woman to prevent
-her from attempting to escape. We suspect, however, that she was tied
-only by the gentle cords of love, and that a Maori warrior had
-something to do with her presence there. When the pa was evacuated she
-was hit by a bullet which shattered her arm; it would have gone hard
-with her in the indiscriminate slaughter which ensued had not some
-brave fellow stood over her and defended her life.
-
-“Ten men came forward to claim the honour due to this gallant deed; but
-this was after the report of her beauty had spread over the camp, and
-each claimant doubtless imagined that he could establish a lien over
-her heart.
-
-“Nay; some weeks after the fight an enthusiastic militiaman travelled
-all the way from Raglan, a distance of thirty miles, and demanded an
-interview with the Brigadier; he stated that he was the preserver of
-Ariana’s life; he could neither eat nor drink nor sleep for thinking of
-her; so he had made up his mind to make her his wife. He had £50 in the
-Savings Bank, which sum he wished to devote to her education, so as to
-prepare her for the duties of the married state. All that he desired at
-present was an interview with the object of his affections; Ariana
-would at once recognise him and rush to his arms. There was only one
-slight difficulty: he spoke no Maori and she knew no English; but love
-has a language of its own; he had no doubt that they would understand
-one another.
-
-“The Brigadier [Carey], amused at the fellow’s earnestness, granted the
-desired interview, and allowed the interpreter to be present to assist
-if the silent language of love should prove insufficient. The lover
-entered the room with a bashful, sheepish air, and stared at Ariana,
-who stared at him in return; but there was no recognition on her part,
-no outburst of gushing gratitude, no rushing to his arms. On the
-contrary, she turned to the interpreter and coolly asked what the man
-wanted; on learning which she laughed heartily and told him to go away,
-as she had never seen him before, and would have nothing to say to him.
-The poor fellow begged, beseeched, implored, and looked unutterable
-things; Ariana only tittered and turned away her head. Ever since that
-time the militiaman has continued to urge his suit in letters, written
-by a half-caste amanuensis, but the Maori maid is still obdurate. He is
-not the only man who has felt the power of a beauty or claimed to be
-her preserver; so importunate were some of her admirers that a guard
-had to be stationed at the hut for her protection. She has now almost
-recovered from her wound, and an asylum will be provided for her in an
-orphan institution. We have still some hopes of the militiaman:
-perseverance often leads to success in love as in everything else.”
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XII.
-
-PIONEER LIFE ON THE OLD FRONTIER.
-
- “There,” said Ninian, and pointed to the north, “is the start of
- what my father—peace be with him!—used to call the Wicked Bounds,
- where every man you’ll meet has got a history, and a dagger in
- below his coat—Camerons, Clan Ranald’s men, Clan Chattan, and the
- Frasers—it stretches to the Firth of Inverness for sixty miles, the
- way a kite would fly.”
-
- —Neil Munro, in “The New Road.”
-
-
-Looking southward across the Puniu in the Seventies and early Eighties
-we who were bred up on the Frontier saw a mysterious-appearing land,
-fascinating to the imagination because unknown—a land, too, of dread in
-the years of unrest, for there in the hinterland only a few miles from
-the border river lived Te Kooti and his band and the hundreds of
-Waikato dispossessed of their good lands on which we pakeha families
-now dwelt. As far as the eye could range it was a land altogether given
-up to the Kingites and the Hauhaus—an untamed country painted in the
-dark purple of broken mountain ranges, merging into the vague, misty
-blues of great distance, the sombre green of ferny hills and plains,
-and the yellow and white of deep flax and raupo swamps. Clear, dashing
-hill-streams and lazy, swamp-born watercourses, alive with eels and
-wild duck, all carrying down their quota to feed the silently-gliding
-Waipa. And over all, from Maunga-tautari’s shapelessly rugged mass
-along the curving sector to Pirongia’s fairy-haunted peaks, an aspect
-and air of solitude; a suggestion of mystery and waiting for the touch
-of man which was to transform that far-stretching waste.
-
-The contrast! On our side the green farms of the pioneer settlers,
-roads, villages—each with its redoubt as a rallying-place in
-alarm—churches, schools—primitive schools, maybe, in the early
-stages—the flag of British authority flying.
-
-So the border remained, the line of demarcation sharply defined by the
-confiscation boundary, the southern side inimical, sullen, waiting, for
-well-nigh twenty years after the final shots of the Waikato War.
-
-Life on the old frontier, on one of the farthest-out farms, seems a
-kind of dream, a fabric of remembrance tinged with a faerie haze,
-viewed through the vista of years from these times of new interests,
-new manners, changed modes of thought. Memories! One strives to marshal
-them into some order, but the most that can be done is to recall the
-things that chiefly fixed themselves on the youthful mind. There was
-the home on the hill, on the famous battlefield, the garden with its
-sweet old flowers, the cherry orchard, the huge almond trees (with flat
-stones at their feet upon which Maori children long before us cracked
-those almonds)—trees grown in the old days from the Rev. John Morgan’s
-orchard—the wild mint that grew in the tiny creek that went rippling
-down a swampy gully near the big acacia grove; the dam and the
-lake-like pond in the Tautoro swamp; and, above all, the peaches. The
-peaches of those happy dream-days on the old Orakau farm!—peaches
-vanished, a kind never to be tasted by the present generation. Orakau,
-Kihikihi, Te Awamutu, and Rangiaowhia were then the favoured land of
-the most delicious fruit that ever this countryside has known.
-Peach-groves everywhere, the good Maori groves, trees laden with the
-big honey peaches that the natives called korako because of their
-whiteness. Tons of peaches grew in those groves, and those wanted were
-gathered by the simple process of driving a cart underneath and sending
-one of us youngsters up to shake the branches until the cart was filled
-with fruit. Some of the best peaches were preserved by the housewives
-of the frontier in a way never seen now; they were sliced and sun-dried
-on corrugated iron, in the strong heat of the long days, and then
-strung in lines and hung in the high-ceilinged kitchen, criss-crossed
-in fragrant festoons, until required for pies.
-
-As for the surplus fruit the pigs got it; many a cart-load of peaches
-from the groves was given to them, or they were turned out to feed on
-the heaps of fruit lying under the trees. Porkers fattened on peaches!
-
-And it was curious, too, to explore some of those old groves of trees,
-on the crown of the farm near the road, for there the lead flew most
-thickly in the three days’ siege of Orakau, and nearly every tree bore
-the curious weals and knotty growths that indicated a bullet-wound, and
-a search with a knife sometimes revealed a half-flattened ball or
-fragment of one.
-
-There was the bush on the north, covering the greater part of the swamp
-between the farm slopes and the high country of Rangiaowhia; even
-there, in little islanded oases in the woods and the raupo marsh, were
-Maori peach-groves. On the south, a few hundred yards from the
-homestead, was the Blockhouse, with its little garrison of smart,
-blue-uniformed Constabulary—a tiny fort, but one that came large and
-grim enough on the eye of childhood.
-
-The nearest farmer neighbour was the farthest-out settler of all—Mr
-Andrew Kay—and very far out and lonely his home seemed, on the verge of
-the confiscation boundary. Maoris were more numerous than pakehas; many
-a savage-looking and tattooed warrior, wearing a waist-shawl—for the
-Maori had not then taken kindly to trousers—called in at the home from
-one or other of the large villages just over the border; and native
-labour was employed at times on the farms.
-
-That was long before the day of the dairy factory and the refrigerator,
-and while living was cheap there was little ready money in the country.
-No monthly cheques for butter-fat then; no competing buyers coming
-round for crops or stock. When a mob of cattle was ready for the market
-it had to be driven all the way to Auckland; and often there was mighty
-little profit for all the long hard work. Wheat was one of the staple
-crops, and in the early years it was threshed by hand with the
-old-fashioned flail and the grain carted to the nearest flour-mill.
-There was a water-mill on the Manga-o-Hoi, on the old swamp road
-between Kihikihi and Te Awamutu, and further south in the Waipa-Waikato
-country there were several wind-mills. I think I recollect two
-wind-mills of that old type on the road from Te Awamutu to Hamilton;
-one stood at or near Ohaupo.
-
-For many a year after the War periodical scares of a Maori invasion
-were raised in the border settlements, from Alexandra and Te Awamutu
-around the confiscation line to Cambridge. The shooting of the surveyor
-Todd on Pirongia Mountain in 1870, the tomahawking of the farm-hand
-Lyon on the Orakau side of the Puniu in the same year, and the murder
-and decapitation of Timothy Sullivan near Roto-o-Rangi, on the
-Maunga-tautari side, all set alarms going. Every settler was armed, and
-the old Militia organisation presently was supplemented and made mobile
-by the formation of a fine body of frontier horse, the Te Awamutu and
-Cambridge troops of Waikato Cavalry. Well mounted, armed with sword,
-carbine, and revolver, able to shoot accurately and ride well, and
-thoroughly acquainted with the tracks, roads, and river fords, these
-settler-cavalrymen could not have been surpassed for the purposes of
-border defence. Formed in 1871, the troops remained in existence until
-the introduction of the mounted rifles system in the beginning of the
-Nineties, and many hundreds of young fellows passed through the ranks
-during that time. In the early years, when the two troops were a real
-bulwark for the frontier, Major William Jackson, the veteran of the
-Forest Rangers, commanded the Te Awamutu troop; his lieutenants were
-Andrew Kay and William A. Cowan (the writer’s father), the two
-furthest-out settlers of Orakau. Captain Runciman commanded the
-Cambridge corps. Te Awamutu was the usual drill-ground of Jackson’s
-troop, and the shooting-butts were on the Puniu side of the settlement.
-
-Some of the isolated settlers supplied themselves with small armouries
-of weapons for defence in case their homes were attacked. In our Orakau
-homestead there were, beside the cavalryman’s regulation arms, a
-double-barrel gun and a Spencer repeating carbine, a novel weapon in
-those days, American make; it was the U.S.A. cavalry arm. It held eight
-cartridges, fed in a peculiar way, by spring action through the heel of
-the butt.
-
-Towards the Puniu, on a lonely hill where a few bluegums mark the site
-of a long-razed dwelling, there lived an old soldier who had been a
-gold-digger, and he devised a method of winning safety, in case of an
-attack, which would naturally suggest itself to an ex-miner. He dug a
-tunnel from the interior of his little house to a point on the
-hill-side, concealed with a growth of fern and shrubs; there he
-considered he could make his escape into the scrub if his assailants
-burned his house over his head.
-
-There was another pioneer, a veteran of Jackson’s Forest Rangers, now
-living in Auckland. He told me of his preparations for defence on his
-section, which was partly surrounded by bush, at Te Rahu, a short
-distance from Te Awamutu. There was an old Maori potato-pit, one of the
-funnel-shaped ruas, not far from the house, and this he determined in
-one period of alarm to convert into a little garrison-hold. He made it
-a comfortable sleeping-place with layers of fern and blankets, and
-after dark at night he cautiously retired there with his carbine and
-two or three other shooting-irons and plenty of ammunition, and spent
-the night with an easy mind. His companion was his little daughter—his
-wife had died—and there the pair rested till morning. To make his
-retreat doubly secure the ex-Ranger had dug a short tunnel from his
-rifle-pit, emerging in the fern, so as to have a way of retreat in case
-his stronghold was forced. The place was quite an ingenious little
-castle; and, as he said, would probably have been secure even had his
-home been attacked, for fern grew all about it, and was not likely to
-have been discovered except by a dog—and the Maoris did not take dogs
-with them on a raid.
-
-The most anxious time on the frontier in the Seventies was the crisis
-caused by the murder of Timothy Sullivan by a party of Maoris between
-Roto-o-Rangi and Maunga-tautari, on 25th April, 1873. This was an
-agrarian murder, caused through rather careless dealings with native
-land; Purukutu, the principal in the crime, had not been paid for land
-in which he had an interest and which Mr E. B. Walker had acquired on
-lease, outside the aukati line. Sullivan was regarded by the Maoris as
-a tutua, a nobody; they were really after his employer, Mr Walker, and
-others, including Mr Buckland, of Cambridge. It was a savage piece of
-work, for Purukutu and Hori te Tumu, after shooting Sullivan—who had
-been at work with two companions fascining a swamp—decapitated him and
-cut out his heart. This was the last deed of the kind committed in New
-Zealand. The following account was given me by the old man Tu Tamua
-Takerei, who died recently at Parawera:
-
-“Timoti [Timothy] was killed on the open plain at the foot of the hill.
-The Hauhaus cut off his head with a tomahawk and also cut open his body
-and took his heart away as a trophy of war. The head was carried to
-Wharepapa, where it was left. The heart was carried up country at the
-end of a korari stick (a flax-stalk), and was taken to a place near Te
-Kuiti. The slayers of Timoti intended to lay the heart before Te Paea,
-or Tiaho, the Maori Queen, but she disapproved their action, so the
-trophy was not presented to her. The taking of a human heart was an
-ancient custom of the Maori; it was the practice to offer it to Tu and
-Uenuku, the gods of war.”
-
-This desperate deed was regarded by very many, Maoris as well as
-pakehas, as a prelude to war, and intense excitement prevailed on both
-sides of the border. The cavalry troops at Te Awamutu and Cambridge
-were called out for patrol duty, and the Armed Constabulary posts were
-strengthened. Additional blockhouses were built, one at Roto-o-Rangi
-and one at Paekuku, to watch the Maunga-tautari side, and a redoubt was
-built at the Puniu. The Waikato and Auckland newspapers were full of
-war rumours; public meetings were called at Te Awamutu to discuss
-defence measures; and all along the frontier the determined settlers
-were on the alert. It was many months before the alarm subsided. The
-fanatical-minded factions among the King Country Maoris might have
-succeeded in raiding some of the border farms, but no native captain
-was bold enough to try the experiment in the face of the vigilant watch
-of the well-armed, well-drilled troops of frontier horse and the
-numerous garrisons of Armed Constabulary.
-
-Formidable on the youthful eye in those lively years of the Seventies
-loomed the Blockhouse. This was the picturesque little garrison-house
-which crowned the Karaponia hill at Orakau, as if guarding our
-homestead that stood a few hundred yards away among its groves. It was
-very close to the spot where the British headquarters camp had been
-pitched in 1864 at the attack on Orakau Pa. The Blockhouse was a type
-of the border outposts built on many parts of the frontier, as far away
-as the Hawke’s Bay-Taupo Road, in the Hauhau wars. The building was of
-two storeys, and its curious tall shape and its lonely stand on the
-hill-crest commanding a look-out over the wild Maori country southward
-made it the most prominent object in the landscape. On the ground floor
-the building, constructed mostly of kahikatea, was about 16 feet by 20
-feet, with a height of 9 feet. The upper storey overlapped the lower
-one by about 3 feet all round, and was 12 feet high. The walls were
-lined, and the space between the outer wall and the lining was filled
-with sand to make the place bullet-proof. The palisade which surrounded
-the Blockhouse was 10 or 12 feet high; there was a space of 6 feet or 7
-feet between it and the building. In the walls of the top storey there
-were loop-holes all round, breast high, three at the ends and about six
-at the sides; and there was also provision for firing through the
-projecting part of the floor. There were no rifle-slits in the lower
-storey, but the palisading was loopholed; these firing-apertures were
-about 5 feet apart and breast high. The loopholes were 6 inches high
-and 2 inches wide, just large enough to put a rifle barrel through. In
-the front the palisading was double, with a curtain of timber covering
-the entrance. The front fence was nearly all tall manuka stakes, but
-the main palisading consisted of posts 10 or 12 inches in thickness;
-manuka timber was used to fill the interstices. On the edge of the
-gully at the rear of the Blockhouse the bank was scarped
-perpendicularly about 7 feet as an additional protection. To heighten
-the warlike face which this little fort presented to the world, above
-the narrow gateway there was set a wooden effigy of a sentry. The
-figure had been carved by some Maori artist; it represented a soldier,
-with wooden rifle and fixed bayonet, in the correct attitude of “port
-arms.” It gave a kind of artistic finish to the “pa o te hoia,” as the
-Maoris called the Blockhouse, and it loomed very grim and soldier-like
-in the eyes of us small youngsters from the Orakau farm. A tall
-flagstaff stood in front, and there were a potato patch and a garden
-plot, with all the old-fashioned flowers—sweet william, verbena,
-sunflower, Indian-shot, pansies, and their like. The married men of the
-Armed Constabulary lived outside the Blockhouse, in raupo whares, and
-very cleverly the pakeha learned to thatch his house. I remember the
-home of an Irish sergeant who lived near the Blockhouse, beside the
-main road; it was a snug, thatched dwelling, very neat and pretty;
-there was a potato patch, and there was a sweet little flower garden,
-and honeysuckle twined about the whare and hung over the door.
-
-The Blockhouse stood no sieges; its loop-holes never flashed the fire
-of Enfield or Snider on a yelling horde of Hauhaus. But it is certain
-that the existence of this chain of posts along the frontier, with the
-vigilant patrol of the settlers’ cavalry corps, prevented the hostiles
-from raiding across the border and descending on the out-settlements.
-
-There were many scares, and more than once the wives and children on
-the scattered farmsteads were taken in to the redoubts and blockhouses
-for the night, while the men of the farms, with carbine and revolver,
-watched their homesteads and rode patrol along the tracks leading to
-the Maori country and the fords of the Puniu.
-
-
-
-They are all gone now, those romance-teeming old blockhouses of our
-pioneer days. Like many other deserted posts, the Orakau building stood
-there on the sentry hill-top for many a year, rocking in the gales now
-that the protecting palisade had gone, until a Crown Lands Commissioner
-with no interest in historic matters sold it as mere old timber. Few
-people in those years possessed sufficient prescience and sentiment to
-help preserve for the new generation of colonists those relics of the
-adventurous days.
-
-Of the redoubts, less easily demolished, a few crumbling earthworks
-remain here and there. One, I am glad to say, that is very well
-preserved is the Armed Constabulary redoubt at Alexandra—now
-Pirongia—garrisoned up to 1883. The village English Church stands in
-the centre of the work to-day. I give a sketch-plan of this last
-surviving example of the old frontier forts.
-
-The year 1881 saw the first definite decision for permanent peace on
-the part of the Maoris; it marked the nearing end of the necessity for
-frontier redoubts and blockhouses, and it relieved the border of the
-Kingite menace which had been an ever-present source of disquiet since
-white farmers first set the plough to the confiscated lands. Tawhiao
-laid down his guns at Major Mair’s feet at the border township of
-Alexandra, and then came a peaceful though martial-appearing march of
-the Kingite men through the European settlements and much firing of
-salutes to the dead—the “powder-burning of sorrow”—over the
-battlefields of the Sixties. Six hundred armed Kingites escorted the
-tattooed king and his chiefs, the lordly Wahanui and his shawl-kilted
-cabinet of rangatiras, on the pilgrimage to the scenes of the last
-despairing fights, and there were amazingly animated scenes in the
-outermost villages of Waikato when Tawhiao came to town, riding grimly
-in his buggy, and guarded front and rear by his fierce-faced riflemen.
-The march was by way of Te Awamutu, and the Cavalry band rode out from
-the township along the Alexandra Road to meet the Kingites and play
-them through the village. A right rousing march it was, too, for the
-tune the bandsmen played as they came riding in at the head of the
-procession was “The King of the Cannibal Islands.” It was Sergeant
-Thomas Gresham—then a lawyer in Te Awamutu, and afterwards coroner in
-Auckland—who suggested the air to Bandmaster Harry Sibley, and that
-grizzled veteran of the wars seized on the bright idea with joy, and
-chuckled into his clarionet at the left-handed compliment he was paying
-his olden adversary. Tawhiao himself was pleased with the liveliness of
-the music, and later, through an interpreter, inquired the name of the
-tune; and an angry man was he when he was informed that it was “Te
-Kingi o Nga Moutere Kai-tangata.” For that same “kai-tangata” was a
-tender subject; and dour old Tawhiao had no glimmering of a sense of
-humour.
-
-Kihikihi settlement was given up that week to a Kingite carnival of
-feasting and war-dancing and speech-making, and the Maori camp at
-Rewi’s house and in the neighbouring field rang night and morning with
-the musical sound of the Hauhau hymns, the service of the Tariao, the
-“Morning Star,” chanted by hundreds of voices. Some unconventional
-scenes there were, characteristic of the frontier life. For instance,
-there was the pakeha-Maori dance on the main road in Kihikihi that
-symbolised the final unifying of the two races. The dashing Hote
-Thompson, the King-maker’s son, a fighting man of renown, paraded in
-all the glory of Hauhau war-paint in front of his savage-looking
-soldiery, and called for a pakeha lady partner to dance “te lancer”
-with him, and then out stepped a settler’s handsome wife, and the
-accomplished Hote led her through the mazes of the lancers in the
-middle of the crowd on the dusty road with as much grace as if he had
-been young Lochinvar himself. True, Hote wore only a shawl in place of
-trousers, and his face was blackened with charcoal dabbed on for a
-haka, but none the less he was a pretty gallant. Had that pakeha dancer
-been a reader of Bret Harte she might have recalled the historic dance
-on “Poverty Flat”:
-
-
- “The dress of my queer vis-a-vis,
- And how I once went down the middle
- With the man that shot Sandy McGee.”
-
-
-There was no law but the Maori chieftains’ law south of the Puniu River
-until after 1883, when Te Kooti was pardoned and a general amnesty to
-Maori rebels was proclaimed. For policy reasons the Kingites were left
-pretty much to themselves for some time after Tawhiao laid down his
-guns at Major Mair’s feet at Alexandra in 1881, and when John Rochfort
-and Charles Wilson Hursthouse, setting out from Kihikihi, carried
-flying surveys through the Rohepotae, the state of the country from the
-Puniu for a hundred miles southward was not very different in
-essentials from that of the Scottish Highlands in the period described
-by Mr Neil Munro in his adventure romances that carry a tang of
-Stevenson’s “Catriona.”
-
-The only occasion on which an offender south of the Puniu was brought
-to justice before the chiefs of Ngati-Maniapoto voluntarily opened the
-country to Government authority was in 1882, when a long-wanted man was
-brought into Te Awamutu under circumstances unorthodox and dramatic.
-The Maori was Winiata, who in 1876 killed a man named Packer, at Epsom,
-near Auckland. Packer and Winiata had been fellow-servants in the
-employ of a Mr Cleghorn, and had quarrelled. Winiata, after tomahawking
-Packer, fled to the King Country, and for six years was safe. At last
-the Government reward of £500 tempted a big half-caste named Robert
-Barlow to make an effort to bring in Winiata. The arrest was
-accomplished as the result of a scheme devised by the Te Awamutu
-policeman, Constable R. J. Gillies—a very smart and capable man,
-afterwards Inspector of Police—and Sergeant McGovern, of Hamilton. At
-Otorohanga Barlow met Winiata, whose home was at Te Kuiti, and,
-pretending to be a pig-buyer, set about bargaining with the wanted man.
-In the night he succeeded in making Winiata and two companions drunk,
-and about midnight lashed him to a spare horse, after taking a revolver
-from him, and made off for the Puniu. It was an exceedingly risky
-undertaking, for Barlow would have been shot had any of the Maoris been
-at all suspicious. He took the prisoner to Kihikihi, and with the
-assistance of the Constabulary handed him over to Constable Gillies at
-Te Awamutu. He received the reward of £500, with which he bought a farm
-at Mangere. Winiata was tried and convicted, and was hanged at Auckland
-on 4th August, 1882. As for Barlow, he did not live long himself; he
-died in a very few years after his King Country feat, and the natives
-declared that he had been fatally bewitched (kua makuturia) by a
-tohunga in revenge for his capture of Winiata.
-
-Another incident that greatly excited the frontier was the capture and
-imprisonment of Mr Hursthouse and a fellow-surveyor by the fanatic Te
-Mahuki, or Manukura, of Te Kumi, near Te Kuiti. This was in 1883. The
-surveyors were released by Te Kooti and friendly-disposed King natives.
-Soon thereafter Mahuki and a band of his “Angels” rode into Alexandra,
-which they had threatened to loot and burn; but they were smartly
-arrested by Major Gascoyne and a force of Armed Constabulary and Te
-Awamutu Cavalry, and were haled off to Auckland prison. [7]
-
-
-
-A wilderness that vast country of the Rohepotae lay for many a year.
-The cultivations of the Maoris, even the fields of wheat and oats
-around such settlements as Araikotore—the patriarchal Hauauru’s
-village—or the large patches of potatoes and maize at Tokanui and
-Tokangamutu—it is Te Kuiti to-day—gave but scanty relief from the
-general impression of an unused virgin expanse of fern prairie and
-woody mountain land. At Otewa, on the Upper Waipa, lived the notorious
-and dreaded Te Kooti, in outlawed isolation far from his East Coast
-birthland, ever since his final skirmish with Captain Preece’s Arawa
-force in the Urewera Country in the beginning of 1872. Not until after
-John Bryce’s peace-making with him at Manga-o-rongo in 1883 did the
-white-haired old cateran venture out into the pakeha settlements.
-
-Then miles away to the west, on the beautiful slopes of Hikurangi,
-giving on to the fertile basin of the Waipa and overlorded by the
-Pirongia Range, there was the great camp of King Tawhiao and his exiled
-Waikato, several hundreds of them, looking down with many mournings on
-the good lost lands and the lost battlefields of the Sixties. Later,
-they moved down to Te Kopua, yonder by Kakepuku’s fern-shod heel, and
-then to Whatiwhati-hoe, the Place of the Broken Paddles, on the level
-banks of the Waipa. In the mid-Eighties they migrated in their canoes,
-a picturesque tribe-flitting, past Pirongia, down the Waipa and down
-the Waikato, back to their old ancestral homes, or what was left of
-those homes, on the west side of the Lower Waikato. But they never had
-a more lovely or more inspiring home in all their wanderings than those
-sun-bathed slopes of rich volcanic land on the high shoulder of
-Hikurangi, where the road to-day goes over the range to Kawhia.
-
-Now the once wild country across the border has become the highway of
-the motor-car, has become dotted with scores of lively European
-settlements, with large towns with electric light and asphalted
-footpaths, churches and police stations, tennis lawns and bowling
-greens, stock sale-yards and all the other varied furnishings of an
-advanced day. Hauhauism is a far-off tale of the past; descendants of
-old king-like Wahanui and the one-time followers of the Pai-marire and
-Tariao fanatic faiths have fought beside Waikato and King Country white
-soldiers on the fields of Gallipoli and France. Yet the names of the
-old trail-breakers, the stories of the heroic missionaries, soldiers,
-surveyors, road-builders, should not be forgotten by those who look out
-from their carriage windows or their cars or from their comfortable
-farmhouses on this well-favoured land of the Waipa slopes and the old
-Aukati frontier.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIII.
-
-KIHAROA THE GIANT.
-
-A FOLK-TALE OF THE TOKANUI HILLS.
-
- This curious tradition, gathered from the last of the old learned
- men of the Ngati-Maniapoto tribe, is given as a typical example of
- the Maori folk-lore with which the King Country abounds.
-
-
-On the crown of the land at Whenuahou, immediately north of the Tokanui
-hills known to the European settlers of the old frontier as “The Three
-Sisters,” is an historic spot called Kiharoa, in memory of a giant
-warrior of long ago. It was proposed by some of the Kingite chiefs in
-1864, after the British occupation of the Waipa basin, that a fort
-should be built here for a final stand against the Queen’s soldiers.
-The position commanded a wide view over the valley of the Puniu and the
-conquered lands north of the river, but it would have been useless
-without a sufficient garrison to hold also the hill-forts in rear of
-and above it, ancient terraced pas of the Maori. The suggestion was not
-favoured by Rewi and the other leaders, and the warriors re-crossed the
-Puniu to the north side and built the pa at Orakau. Long ago, riding
-along the old horse track from Kihikihi to Otorohanga past Hopa te
-Rangianini’s little village at Whenuahou, we used to see the Giant’s
-Grave, as it was called. This locally-famous landmark was a shallow
-excavation on a ferny mound; it was twelve or fourteen feet in length
-and about four feet in width, and vague traditions had grown up around
-it, but none of the European settlers of the frontier knew anything
-definite of its history. A few years ago, however, I gathered the story
-of this semi-mythic giant from two venerable warriors of the
-Ngati-Maniapoto, on the south bank of the Puniu River. There certainly
-seems to have been a veritable giant, a man of enormous stature and
-length of reach with the hand-weapons of those days, six generations
-ago. This Kiharoa, or “The Long Gasping Breath,” was a chief of the
-Ngati-Raukawa and Ngati-Whakatere tribes, who in those times owned the
-Tokanui hills and the surrounding fruitful slopes.
-
-The strong terraced and trenched pa on Tokanui, the middle conical hill
-of the row of three, was built by the two tribes named, under Kiharoa,
-about a hundred and fifty years ago. The same people fortified and
-occupied the other two hills; the eastern one is Puke-rimu (“Red-Pine
-hill”) and the western Whiti-te-marama (“The Shining of the Moon”).
-There were many good fighting men among the people of these hill forts,
-but their tower of strength was Kiharoa, who stood hugely over his
-fellows; he was twice the height of an ordinary man, and he wielded a
-taiaha of unusual length and weight, a hardwood weapon called by the
-name of “Rangihaeata” (“The First Rays of Morning Light”). Many a
-battle he had fought successfully with this great blade-and-tongue
-broadsword, sweeping every opponent out of his path. Kiharoa was
-tattooed on body as well as face, and when he leaped into battle,
-whirling “Rangihaeata” from side to side in guard and feint and cut,
-his blue-carved skin glistening with oil and red ochre, his great
-glaring eyes darting flame, his moko-scrolled features distorted with
-fury, few there were brave enough to face him. But there came a day
-when Kiharoa met his better on the battlefield of Whenuahou.
-
-The Ngati-Maniapoto tribe, whose great fortress was Totorewa, an
-impregnable cliff-walled pa on the Waipa River, raised a feud against
-the Ngati-Raukawa and Ngati-Whakatere, and a large war-party set out
-under the chief Wahanui, who himself was a man of great frame, though
-no giant like Kiharoa. The “taua” took a circuitous route, coming upon
-the Tokanui hills from the south via Manga-o-Rongo, and then making a
-detour to the east to avoid the deep morass which defended the southern
-side of “The Three Sisters”—the present main road from Kihikihi to
-Otorohanga traverses this now partly-drained swamp.
-
-Meanwhile the garrisons in the hill forts had prepared for war, and
-their sentinels stood on the alert on the tihi or citadel of the
-terraced strongholds, keeping keen watch for the expected enemy. Harua,
-one of the chiefs of the forts, had descended to the plain with a small
-party before the approach of the foe was detected, and although the
-people on the hill forts called repeatedly to him warning him to
-return, no heed was given to the long-drawn shouts. At length a
-keen-eyed sentry saw the glisten of a weapon—perhaps a whalebone
-mere—in the westering sun; the direction was well to the east of the
-pa, and by that token it was plain that the enemy army was lying in
-ambush waiting to advance silently in the night. It was imperative that
-Harua and his men outside the pa should be warned, and so in the still
-watches of the night a strong-lunged warrior on the battlements of
-Tokanui lifted up his voice in this whakaaraara-pa, or sentinel-chant:
-
-
- E tenei pa, e tera pa!
- Titiro ki nga tahanga roa
- I Tunaroa!
- Pewhea tena te titiaho
- Kia haere ake ki te pa.
- Hoi tonu, hoi tonu!
-
-
-In this chant the garrisons of the pas on each hand, Puke-rimu and
-Whiti-te-marama, were called upon to be on the alert, and to scan the
-long slopes towards the place called Tunaroa where the enemy lay
-concealed. Yonder perhaps was the place whence the foe would advance in
-the morning sunshine against the pas. “Ye heeded me not—heeded me not,”
-the chant ended. Had any lurking enemy scout been near enough to hear
-the words he would take them as being addressed only to the garrisons
-of the hill-top fortresses, and would not suspect that it was really a
-warning for the ears of Harua and his small force of scouts who were
-liable to be cut off from the pa as soon as daylight came.
-
-The cry of warning was heard and understood by Harua, and he and his
-scouts swiftly rejoined their friends on the hill-tops.
-
-When day came and the war-party of Ngati-Maniapoto appeared, working
-round to the north-east side of the Tokanui chain of forts, Kiharoa the
-giant, stripped for battle, took up his taiaha, “The First Rays of
-Morning Light,” and led his warriors down to the open slopes of
-Whenuahou to give battle to the invaders. As he dashed down the hill he
-ran through a grove of karaka trees. Here there was a pool where the
-kernels of the karaka berries were prepared for food by being steeped
-in water after having been cooked; this food was termed “kopiri.” There
-were some dead leaves of the karaka lying on the track, and Kiharoa
-slipped on these leaves as he ran, and fell, and narrowly escaped
-breaking his taiaha in his fall. The spot is at the foot of Tokanui
-hill, just outside the thickets of prickly acacia which now clothe the
-silent old fortress with a mat of softest green. This accident was in
-the belief of the Maori a tohu aitua or evil omen for Kiharoa. The
-knowledge of this fact may have unnerved the giant, or “Rangihaeata’s”
-mana may have suffered by the mishap. He rushed to meet his foes, but
-he was outfought for all his phenomenal reach of arm. He fell pierced
-with spear thrusts and battered with blows of stone clubs, and he lay
-dead on the battlefield of Whenuahou.
-
-The Tokanui people were defeated; they fled in panic when their
-gigantic chieftain fell, and many were killed on the field. The
-survivors, however, held their forts successfully. Ngati-Maniapoto
-contented themselves with the dead, which would provide many ovens of
-man-meat, and most of all they rejoiced to find that they had
-vanquished the dreaded Kiharoa. They gathered round in amazement to
-measure his height and his giant limbs; and on the spot where he lay
-marks were cut at head and feet to indicate his length. His enormous
-tattooed head was cut off and preserved by being smoke-dried, and
-presently was carried home to Totorewa to decorate the palisade at the
-gateway of the fort. His body was cut up and cooked and eaten where he
-fell, and there the excavation remained to mark his great stature. He
-was two fathoms long! So says the native account. My Maori friends will
-not abate a single inch. This is the length of the place we used to
-call the “Giant’s Grave,” on the crown of the land below Puke-rimu, the
-eastern hill of the “Sisters.” And the battlefield was divided among
-the victors, and later became the home of a section of the
-Ngati-Matakore tribe, of whom my old warrior acquaintances Hauauru and
-Hopa te Rangianini were the chiefs in the days of my boyhood within
-sight of the terrace-carved “Three Sisters.”
-
-Such is in brief the story of the giant’s grave—a misnomer assuredly,
-seeing that Kiharoa’s tomb was the stomachs of his slayers. The Tokanui
-village hall stands within revolver shot of the place where Kiharoa
-came to his end, and the community creamery at the cross-roads stands
-where once Wahanui’s cannibal army plied spear and stone club and
-taiaha on the defenders of the three hill forts. Some distance to the
-east is the Waikeria prison farm. It was in that direction, at Tunaroa,
-that Wahanui and his Totorewa army lay in the fern the night before the
-battle.
-
-There was another giant of those parts in the days before the white man
-came with his guns. This was Matau; he was, like Kiharoa, a man of the
-Ngati-Raukawa tribe. He was nearly as tall as Kiharoa, says an old
-word-of-mouth historian. He was a dreaded warrior, and, like Kiharoa
-again, his favourite weapon was the taiaha. His home was in a palisaded
-hole in a cliff above the cave called Te Ana Kai-tangata (“The
-Cannibal’s Cave”), which you may see in the rocky face in the gorge
-towards the head of the Wairaka Stream, a tributary of the Puniu River.
-The entrance to this cave is still marked with the paint kokowai or red
-ochre; that is how you will know it. It was an excellent place in which
-to lie in wait for incautious travellers in the days of old.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-APPENDICES
-
-
-SOME MAORI PLACE NAMES.
-
-The following are the meanings of a number of native place-names in the
-Te Awamutu district; some of these names are now for the first time
-placed on record:—
-
-
- Te Awamutu: The end of the river; i.e., the head of canoe
- navigation.
- Rangiaowhia: Beclouded sky.
- Kihikihi: Cicada, tree-locust.
- Orakau: The place of trees.
- Paterangi: Fort of heaven; i.e., the pa on the high part of the
- ridge, the skyline.
- Waiari: Clear water.
- Mangapiko: Crooked creek.
- Te Rore: The snare.
- Mangatea (on the Manga-o-Hoi, where the mill stood): White stream.
- Matariki (a short distance above the bridge at Te Awamutu, right
- bank of river): The Pleiades constellation; also reeds used for
- lining the interior of a house.
- Te Reinga (old village site behind R.C. Church, Rangiaowhia):
- Leaping, rushing; thus the place of leaping, the final departing
- place of spirits of the dead.
- Hikurangi (the Rangiaowhia heights above the Manga-o-Hoi; Gifford’s
- Hill; also place on Pirongia-Kawhia Road): Skyline; horizon.
- Pekapeka-rau (swamp between Hairini and Rangiaowhia): Place where
- the native bat was numerous.
- Tioriori (native village, near where the Hairini cheese factory now
- stands): A kind of kite, made of raupo.
- Tau-ki-tua (the site of the English Church at Rangiaowhia): The
- farther ridge.
- Te Rahu: Basket made of undressed flax.
- Te Rua-Kotare (Taylor’s Hill, or Green Hill, north of Te Awamutu):
- The kingfisher’s nest (in hollow tree).
- Tauwhare (ancient pa on cliffy right bank of Mangapiko River, above
- Waiari): Overhanging.
- Tokanui: Great Rock.
- Waikeria: Dug-out waterway, or watercourse gouged out.
- Otorohanga: O, food carried for a journey; torohanga, stretched
- out. According to a Ngati-Maniapoto tradition, a certain warrior
- chief who set out from this spot for Taupo with only a very small
- quantity of food caused it by supernatural means to “stretch out”
- and to last until he had reached his destination. Hence the name.
-
-
-
-
-THE CAPTURE OF WINIATA.
-
-The Maori murderer Winiata, captured at Otorohanga by Robert Barlow,
-was brought into Kihikihi early on the morning of Tuesday, 27th June,
-1882. At about three o’clock that morning Constable Finnerty, of the
-Armed Constabulary, found Barlow and Winiata struggling violently
-outside the Alpha Hotel. Winiata, who was in a naked condition, had
-recovered from the effects of the grog, and was making a desperate
-effort to escape. He was overpowered and taken to the Constabulary
-barracks in the redoubt, and chained to a bedstead. Major Minnett, who
-was in command of the Armed Constabulary Force at Kihikihi, sent him to
-Te Awamutu with Barlow in the Government waggon under an armed guard,
-and Constable Gillies then took the prisoner in charge and delivered
-him to Sergeant McGovern at Hamilton the same day.
-
-There were two other Maoris in the whare at Otorohanga, and both of
-these were made helplessly drunk or drugged by Barlow.
-
-
-
-
-MR HURSTHOUSE’S ADVENTURE IN THE KING COUNTRY.
-
-The capture of Mr Charles Wilson Hursthouse and Mr William Newsham,
-Government surveyors, by a band of King Country fanatics under the
-prophet Te Mahuki occurred at Te Uira, near Te Kuiti, on 20th March,
-1883. Mr Hursthouse was on his way from Alexandra to explore the
-country from the Waikato frontier to the Mokau, and he and his
-assistant surveyor were accompanied by the Mokau friendly chiefs Te
-Rangituataka and Hone Wetere te Rerenga and twenty-five other Mokau
-men. At Te Uira, sixteen miles beyond Otorohanga, on the afternoon of
-the 20th, as they rode up they saw a large body of Maoris mustering
-excitedly. These were natives under the leadership of the fanatic Te
-Mahuki, or Manukura, a Ngati-Maniapoto man who had been a follower of
-Te Whiti at Parihaka, and who had returned to the Rohepotae to found a
-sect of his own. He called his followers the “Tekau-ma-rua,” or “The
-Twelve”—although they numbered many more—after the Twelve Apostles.
-This was a revival of a term of the Hauhau war days. The selected
-war-parties of the Taranaki fighting chief Titokowaru were called the
-“Tekau-ma-rua.” These men attacked Hursthouse’s party, and a lively
-fight followed, although no deadly weapons were used. The Tekau-ma-rua
-pulled the surveyors and the Mokau men off their horses, Rangituataka’s
-followers fighting desperately with stirrup-irons and leathers. The
-prisoners were marched to the village at Te Uira, in the midst of the
-terribly-excited Tekau-ma-rua, who were dancing and yelling and
-chanting ngeri or war-songs. Te Rangituataka and Wetere and their men
-were not ill-used—there were too many of them; moreover the leaders
-were high chiefs of the tribe—but the surveyors and a native named Te
-Haere were thrust into a cookhouse and imprisoned there. Hursthouse and
-Newsham had been stripped of their coats, waistcoats, and boots. Their
-hands were tied behind their backs and their feet were fastened
-together with bullock-chains. In this condition, suffering great pain
-from the tightness of their bonds, tortured by mosquitoes which they
-could only brush off by rubbing their faces on the ground, and without
-drink or food except dirty water and some pig’s potatoes thrown in on
-the floor, they remained there two nights and a day, listening to the
-yells and threats of the natives outside, and expecting to be killed.
-Early on the morning of 22nd March there was a new commotion outside,
-and Hursthouse heard Te Kooti’s voice. In a few moments the door of the
-cookhouse was burst open and the prisoners were released by Te
-Kooti—who had just been promised an amnesty by Mr Bryce, Native
-Minister—and a large party of natives, including Wahanui’s people;
-Wahanui himself arrived a little later. Hursthouse and Newsham had
-already worked their hands free, and the former had picked up a piece
-of iron chain as a weapon in case he was attacked. The extreme tension
-and anxiety of the thirty-six hours’ painful confinement and the want
-of food had affected even the indomitable Hursthouse, old campaigner
-though he was, and, as he related afterwards, when he was released he
-fairly broke down and wept. The surveyors were escorted to Alexandra by
-a large body of Wahanui’s people, and presently resumed their exploring
-expedition, after their late captor in his turn had been locked up.
-
-
-
-
-MAHUKI’S RAID ON ALEXANDRA, AND HIS CAPTURE.
-
-On Sunday, 25th March, 1883, three days after the release of Hursthouse
-and Newsham, Mahuki and twenty-six followers invaded the township of
-Alexandra (now Pirongia), in pursuance of the leader’s announced
-intention to loot the place. Mahuki had prophesied many extraordinary
-things, and his followers had implicit belief in his supernatural
-powers. He had even sent word of his intended visit, so Alexandra was
-prepared. A force of Armed Constabulary under Captain (afterwards
-Major) Gascoyne, who was in command of the Alexandra Redoubt, and the
-Te Awamutu Cavalry troop were on hand, and so disposed in detachments
-out of sight as to surprise and surround the invaders. Mahuki’s men,
-fortunately for themselves, were not armed. Two Europeans who had
-ridden out to reconnoitre the road to the Waipa bridge had to make a
-speedy retreat when the Tekau-ma-rua came in sight. One of them—Mr
-Alfred H. Benge, the schoolmaster at Te Awamutu—returned safely with
-the loss of only his hat; the other, a well-known Alexandra resident,
-parted company with his horse in the race, and was caught, tied up, and
-deposited by the roadside to reflect on the position at leisure, while
-the Hauhau troop galloped on into Alexandra. Their surprise was
-complete. Armed Constabulary and Cavalry troopers rushed out and
-surrounded them, pulled them off their horses, and tied them up.
-Twenty-three were captured in this way, including the much-astonished
-prophet himself, and four more were arrested at the bridge. Only one
-man got clear away to carry the news of the prophet’s capture to the
-kainga at Te Kumi. Four of the twenty-seven, being young boys, were
-released; the rest were marched, handcuffed in couples, to Te Awamutu,
-where they were entrained for Auckland. Mahuki and his principal
-followers were tried at the Supreme Court for the assault on Hursthouse
-and Newsham, and received terms of imprisonment.
-
-Some years later Mahuki ran amok again, this time at Te Kuiti, and was
-once more imprisoned, and he died while serving his sentence. He was
-the last of the troublesome religious fanatics of the Rohepotae.
-
-
-
-
-THE NAME RANGIAOWHIA.
-
-Rangiaowhia has been spelled in a variety of ways, ranging from the
-curious “Rangahaphia” in one of the Auckland papers of 1851 to
-“Rangiaohia” and “Rangiawhia.” The old men of Ngati-Maniapoto pronounce
-and write the name as spelled in this book.
-
-
-
-
-THE FIRST WAIPA MISSIONARY.
-
-The Rev. Benjamin Yates Ashwell, although the first to establish a
-mission settlement at Te Awamutu, did not live there. He made several
-visits, travelling through the Waikato and Waipa, and left native
-teachers in charge at each village where he was early favourably
-received. In the Forties he established his headquarters at Kaitotehe,
-near Te Wherowhero’s pa, on the opposite side of the Waikato River to
-Taupiri. This spot, on the most beautiful bend of the Waikato, became a
-favourite halting place for canoe crews passing up and down the river,
-and pioneer travellers have described to the writer the pleasure of
-landing at Kaitotehe on a hot midsummer day, after a long, cramping
-voyage in a Maori canoe, and feasting in the cherry groves at the
-mission station. Mrs B. A. Chrispe, of Mauku, describing Mr Ashwell’s
-station, says that the church was a large and lofty thatched building,
-with the walls beautifully lined in the artistic Maori fashion with
-arapaki lattice work of coloured lathes and reeds arranged in many
-patterns. The site of the long-deserted mission station, which is seen
-from the railway train as it passes along the Taupiri bend, is covered
-with a growth of acacia. The Maoris pronounced the missionary’s name
-“Ahiwera.”
-
-
-
-
-THE KING COUNTRY RAILWAY.
-
-A highly-important event in the story of this district, and, indeed, of
-the Dominion, was the turning of the first sods of the Te
-Awamutu-Marton railway, the King Country section of the Main Trunk
-line, in 1885. The sods were turned on the south side of the Puniu
-bridge by the high chiefs Wahanui, Taonui, and Rewi. The Premier of New
-Zealand, Sir Robert Stout (then Mr Stout), was present, but he
-contented himself with second place in diplomatic compliment to the
-lords of the soil. There is a curious inner history to the ceremony on
-the banks of the Puniu; it was related to the present writer some years
-ago by Sir Robert Stout. “The sod was nearly not turned that day,” said
-Sir Robert; and he told the story of the dispute between the Waikato
-and Ngati-Maniapoto tribes. Early that morning there was a conference
-at Te Awamutu between the Premier and his colleague, Mr John Ballance,
-and the Maori chiefs. Mr G. T. Wilkinson was the interpreter. Wahanui,
-Taonui, and Rewi were there, and all three had agreed that the sod
-should be turned and the railway should go on through the Rohepotae.
-But Waikato sent two chiefs to protest against the work in the name of
-the Maori King, whose headquarters were then at Whatiwhatihoe, on the
-Waipa. There were long speeches; the only one who was silent was the
-huge-framed Wahanui; but he was fuming with indignation; his chest was
-heaving in his efforts to suppress his anger. At last one of the
-Waikato chiefs, regardless of the fact that his tribespeople were only
-in the Rohepotae by sufferance of Ngati-Maniapoto, had the hardihood to
-declare that the sod would not be turned because it was Waikato’s land.
-“Oh, well,” said the Premier, quietly regarding the deeply-incensed
-Wahanui, “if it is Waikato’s land we have come to the wrong place.”
-Then the tall, dignified rangatira Taonui, almost as big a man as
-Wahanui, arose and said, with angry determination: “It is our land; the
-sod shall be turned, and turned to-day!” And it was done. Waikato were
-ousted; literally they had no locus standi; and, baffled and
-disgruntled, they saw the big work begun and the first step taken in
-the civilisation of the great Rohepotae.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-NOTES
-
-
-[1] The full name of Kakepuku is Kakepuku-o-Kahurere, or “The Swelled
-Neck of Kahurere.” It was so named nearly six centuries ago by
-Rakataura, the priest and magician of the Tainui people. Rakataura and
-his wife Kahurere explored all this wild new country from Kawhia
-eastward and southward, giving names to the features of the landscape
-as they travelled. The name alluded to the shape of Kakepuku, but in
-truth it deserves a more poetical one, as, for example, that of
-Tauranga-Kohu, “The Resting Place of the Mists,” a beautiful
-place-description belonging to a mountain a few miles to the eastward
-on the south side of the Puniu.
-
-[2] MS. journal lent to the writer by Mr E. Earle Vaile, of Broadlands,
-Waiotapu.
-
-[3] The old man Pou-patate Huihi, of Te Kopua, told the writer: “Before
-we procured European ploughs we made wooden ones, and these were
-sometimes drawn by men—Ko te tangata te hoiho tuatahi (Man was the
-first horse).”
-
-Pou-patate also said that when wheat-growing was at its height on the
-Waipa, before the war, his people received as much as ten or eleven
-shillings a bushel for the wheat in the Auckland market.
-
-[4] Died in Wellington, 1922.
-
-[5] The original MS. narrative is in the Alexander Turnbull Library,
-Wellington.
-
-[6] Later in the day the Rangers had a skirmish with armed Maoris who
-occupied the Catholic Church, and drove them out of it, the natives
-finding that the walls were not bullet-proof.
-
-[7] For further details of these episodes see Appendices.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLD FRONTIER: TE AWAMUTU,
-THE STORY OF THE WAIPA VALLEY ***
-
-Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will
-be renamed.
-
-Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
-law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
-so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the
-United States without permission and without paying copyright
-royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
-of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
-concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
-and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following
-the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use
-of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for
-copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very
-easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation
-of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project
-Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away--you may
-do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected
-by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark
-license, especially commercial redistribution.
-
-START: FULL LICENSE
-
-THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
-PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
-
-To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
-distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
-(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
-Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
-Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
-www.gutenberg.org/license.
-
-Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic works
-
-1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
-electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
-and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
-(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
-the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
-destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your
-possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
-Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
-by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the
-person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph
-1.E.8.
-
-1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
-used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
-agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
-things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
-even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
-paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this
-agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm
-electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
-
-1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the
-Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
-of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual
-works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
-States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
-United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
-claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
-displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
-all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
-that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting
-free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm
-works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
-Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily
-comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
-same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when
-you share it without charge with others.
-
-1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
-what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
-in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
-check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
-agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
-distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
-other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no
-representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
-country other than the United States.
-
-1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
-
-1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
-immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear
-prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work
-on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the
-phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed,
-performed, viewed, copied or distributed:
-
- This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
- most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
- restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
- under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
- eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
- United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
- you are located before using this eBook.
-
-1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is
-derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
-contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
-copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
-the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
-redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project
-Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
-either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
-obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm
-trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
-
-1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
-with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
-must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
-additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
-will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works
-posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
-beginning of this work.
-
-1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
-License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
-work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
-
-1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
-electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
-prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
-active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
-Gutenberg-tm License.
-
-1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
-compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
-any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
-to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format
-other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official
-version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm website
-(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
-to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
-of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain
-Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the
-full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
-
-1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
-performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
-unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
-
-1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
-access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
-provided that:
-
-* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
- the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
- you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
- to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has
- agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
- Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
- within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
- legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
- payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
- Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
- Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
- Literary Archive Foundation."
-
-* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
- you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
- does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
- License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
- copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
- all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm
- works.
-
-* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
- any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
- electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
- receipt of the work.
-
-* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
- distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
-
-1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than
-are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
-from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of
-the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the Foundation as set
-forth in Section 3 below.
-
-1.F.
-
-1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
-effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
-works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
-Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm
-electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
-contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
-or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
-intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
-other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
-cannot be read by your equipment.
-
-1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
-of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
-Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
-Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
-liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
-fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
-LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
-PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
-TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
-LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
-INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
-DAMAGE.
-
-1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
-defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
-receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
-written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
-received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
-with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
-with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
-lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
-or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
-opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
-the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
-without further opportunities to fix the problem.
-
-1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
-in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO
-OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
-LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
-
-1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
-warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
-damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
-violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
-agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
-limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
-unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
-remaining provisions.
-
-1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
-trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
-providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in
-accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
-production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
-electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
-including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
-the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
-or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or
-additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any
-Defect you cause.
-
-Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
-
-Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
-electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
-computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
-exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
-from people in all walks of life.
-
-Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
-assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
-goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
-remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
-Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
-and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future
-generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
-Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
-Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at
-www.gutenberg.org
-
-Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary
-Archive Foundation
-
-The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit
-501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
-state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
-Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
-number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
-Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
-U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
-
-The Foundation's business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,
-Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up
-to date contact information can be found at the Foundation's website
-and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
-
-Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
-Literary Archive Foundation
-
-Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without
-widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
-increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
-freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest
-array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
-($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
-status with the IRS.
-
-The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
-charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
-States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
-considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
-with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
-where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
-DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular
-state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate
-
-While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
-have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
-against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
-approach us with offers to donate.
-
-International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
-any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
-outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
-
-Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation
-methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
-ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
-donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate
-
-Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
-
-Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
-Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be
-freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
-distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of
-volunteer support.
-
-Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
-editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
-the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
-necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
-edition.
-
-Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
-facility: www.gutenberg.org
-
-This website includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
-including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
-Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
-subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/old/67490-0.zip b/old/67490-0.zip
deleted file mode 100644
index cf1fa0a..0000000
--- a/old/67490-0.zip
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ
diff --git a/old/67490-h.zip b/old/67490-h.zip
deleted file mode 100644
index 0e3f2b6..0000000
--- a/old/67490-h.zip
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ
diff --git a/old/67490-h/67490-h.htm b/old/67490-h/67490-h.htm
deleted file mode 100644
index 53bccc2..0000000
--- a/old/67490-h/67490-h.htm
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,5450 +0,0 @@
-<!DOCTYPE html
-PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
-<!-- This HTML file has been automatically generated from an XML source on 2022-02-24T19:23:56Z using SAXON HE 9.9.1.8 . -->
-<html lang="en">
-<head>
-<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
-<title>The old frontier: Te Awamutu, the story of the Waipa Valley</title>
-<meta name="generator" content="tei2html.xsl, see https://github.com/jhellingman/tei2html">
-<meta name="author" content="James Cowan (1870–1943)">
-<link rel="coverpage" href="images/front.jpg">
-<link rel="schema.DC" href="http://dublincore.org/documents/1998/09/dces/">
-<meta name="DC.Creator" content="James Cowan (1870–1943)">
-<meta name="DC.Title" content="The old frontier: Te Awamutu, the story of the Waipa Valley">
-<meta name="DC.Language" content="en">
-<meta name="DC.Format" content="text/html">
-<meta name="DC.Publisher" content="Project Gutenberg">
-<style type="text/css"> /* <![CDATA[ */
-html {
-line-height: 1.3;
-}
-body {
-margin: 0;
-}
-main {
-display: block;
-}
-h1 {
-font-size: 2em;
-margin: 0.67em 0;
-}
-hr {
-height: 0;
-overflow: visible;
-}
-pre {
-font-family: monospace, monospace;
-font-size: 1em;
-}
-a {
-background-color: transparent;
-}
-abbr[title] {
-border-bottom: none;
-text-decoration: underline;
-text-decoration: underline dotted;
-}
-b, strong {
-font-weight: bolder;
-}
-code, kbd, samp {
-font-family: monospace, monospace;
-font-size: 1em;
-}
-small {
-font-size: 80%;
-}
-sub, sup {
-font-size: 67%;
-line-height: 0;
-position: relative;
-vertical-align: baseline;
-}
-sub {
-bottom: -0.25em;
-}
-sup {
-top: -0.5em;
-}
-img {
-border-style: none;
-}
-body {
-font-family: serif;
-font-size: 100%;
-text-align: left;
-margin-top: 2.4em;
-}
-div.front, div.body {
-margin-bottom: 7.2em;
-}
-div.back {
-margin-bottom: 2.4em;
-}
-.div0 {
-margin-top: 7.2em;
-margin-bottom: 7.2em;
-}
-.div1 {
-margin-top: 5.6em;
-margin-bottom: 5.6em;
-}
-.div2 {
-margin-top: 4.8em;
-margin-bottom: 4.8em;
-}
-.div3 {
-margin-top: 3.6em;
-margin-bottom: 3.6em;
-}
-.div4 {
-margin-top: 2.4em;
-margin-bottom: 2.4em;
-}
-.div5, .div6, .div7 {
-margin-top: 1.44em;
-margin-bottom: 1.44em;
-}
-.div0:last-child, .div1:last-child, .div2:last-child, .div3:last-child,
-.div4:last-child, .div5:last-child, .div6:last-child, .div7:last-child {
-margin-bottom: 0;
-}
-blockquote div.front, blockquote div.body, blockquote div.back {
-margin-top: 0;
-margin-bottom: 0;
-}
-.divBody .div1:first-child, .divBody .div2:first-child, .divBody .div3:first-child, .divBody .div4:first-child,
-.divBody .div5:first-child, .divBody .div6:first-child, .divBody .div7:first-child {
-margin-top: 0;
-}
-h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, .h1, .h2, .h3, .h4, .h5, .h6 {
-clear: both;
-font-style: normal;
-text-transform: none;
-}
-h3, .h3 {
-font-size: 1.2em;
-}
-h3.label {
-font-size: 1em;
-margin-bottom: 0;
-}
-h4, .h4 {
-font-size: 1em;
-}
-.alignleft {
-text-align: left;
-}
-.alignright {
-text-align: right;
-}
-.alignblock {
-text-align: justify;
-}
-p.tb, hr.tb, .par.tb {
-margin: 1.6em auto;
-text-align: center;
-}
-p.argument, p.note, p.tocArgument, .par.argument, .par.note, .par.tocArgument {
-font-size: 0.9em;
-text-indent: 0;
-}
-p.argument, p.tocArgument, .par.argument, .par.tocArgument {
-margin: 1.58em 10%;
-}
-td.tocDivNum {
-vertical-align: top;
-}
-td.tocPageNum {
-vertical-align: bottom;
-}
-.opener, .address {
-margin-top: 1.6em;
-margin-bottom: 1.6em;
-}
-.addrline {
-margin-top: 0;
-margin-bottom: 0;
-}
-.dateline {
-margin-top: 1.6em;
-margin-bottom: 1.6em;
-text-align: right;
-}
-.salute {
-margin-top: 1.6em;
-margin-left: 3.58em;
-text-indent: -2em;
-}
-.signed {
-margin-top: 1.6em;
-margin-left: 3.58em;
-text-indent: -2em;
-}
-.epigraph {
-font-size: 0.9em;
-width: 60%;
-margin-left: auto;
-}
-.epigraph span.bibl {
-display: block;
-text-align: right;
-}
-.trailer {
-clear: both;
-margin-top: 3.6em;
-}
-span.abbr, abbr {
-white-space: nowrap;
-}
-span.parnum {
-font-weight: bold;
-}
-span.corr, span.gap {
-border-bottom: 1px dotted red;
-}
-span.num, span.trans, span.trans {
-border-bottom: 1px dotted gray;
-}
-span.measure {
-border-bottom: 1px dotted green;
-}
-.ex {
-letter-spacing: 0.2em;
-}
-.sc {
-font-variant: small-caps;
-}
-.asc {
-font-variant: small-caps;
-text-transform: lowercase;
-}
-.uc {
-text-transform: uppercase;
-}
-.tt {
-font-family: monospace;
-}
-.underline {
-text-decoration: underline;
-}
-.overline, .overtilde {
-text-decoration: overline;
-}
-.rm {
-font-style: normal;
-}
-.red {
-color: red;
-}
-hr {
-clear: both;
-border: none;
-border-bottom: 1px solid black;
-width: 45%;
-margin-left: auto;
-margin-right: auto;
-margin-top: 1em;
-text-align: center;
-}
-hr.dotted {
-border-bottom: 2px dotted black;
-}
-hr.dashed {
-border-bottom: 2px dashed black;
-}
-.aligncenter {
-text-align: center;
-}
-h1, h2, .h1, .h2 {
-font-size: 1.44em;
-line-height: 1.5;
-}
-h1.label, h2.label {
-font-size: 1.2em;
-margin-bottom: 0;
-}
-h5, h6 {
-font-size: 1em;
-font-style: italic;
-}
-p, .par {
-text-indent: 0;
-}
-p.firstlinecaps:first-line, .par.firstlinecaps:first-line {
-text-transform: uppercase;
-}
-.hangq {
-text-indent: -0.32em;
-}
-.hangqq {
-text-indent: -0.42em;
-}
-.hangqqq {
-text-indent: -0.84em;
-}
-p.dropcap:first-letter, .par.dropcap:first-letter {
-float: left;
-clear: left;
-margin: 0 0.05em 0 0;
-padding: 0;
-line-height: 0.8;
-font-size: 420%;
-vertical-align: super;
-}
-blockquote, p.quote, div.blockquote, div.argument, .par.quote {
-font-size: 0.9em;
-margin: 1.58em 5%;
-}
-.pageNum a, a.noteRef:hover, a.pseudoNoteRef:hover, a.hidden:hover, a.hidden {
-text-decoration: none;
-}
-.advertisement, .advertisements {
-background-color: #FFFEE0;
-border: black 1px dotted;
-color: #000;
-margin: 2em 5%;
-padding: 1em;
-}
-.footnotes .body, .footnotes .div1 {
-padding: 0;
-}
-.fnarrow {
-color: #AAAAAA;
-font-weight: bold;
-text-decoration: none;
-}
-.fnarrow:hover, .fnreturn:hover {
-color: #660000;
-}
-.fnreturn {
-color: #AAAAAA;
-font-size: 80%;
-font-weight: bold;
-text-decoration: none;
-vertical-align: 0.25em;
-}
-a {
-text-decoration: none;
-}
-a:hover {
-text-decoration: underline;
-background-color: #e9f5ff;
-}
-a.noteRef, a.pseudoNoteRef {
-font-size: 67%;
-line-height: 0;
-position: relative;
-vertical-align: baseline;
-top: -0.5em;
-text-decoration: none;
-margin-left: 0.1em;
-}
-.displayfootnote {
-display: none;
-}
-div.footnotes {
-font-size: 80%;
-margin-top: 1em;
-padding: 0;
-}
-hr.fnsep {
-margin-left: 0;
-margin-right: 0;
-text-align: left;
-width: 25%;
-}
-p.footnote, .par.footnote {
-margin-bottom: 0.5em;
-margin-top: 0.5em;
-}
-p.footnote .fnlabel, .par.footnote .fnlabel {
-float: left;
-margin-left: -0.1em;
-margin-top: 0.9em;
-min-width: 1.0em;
-padding-right: 0.4em;
-}
-.apparatusnote {
-text-decoration: none;
-}
-.apparatusnote:target, .fndiv:target {
-background-color: #eaf3ff;
-}
-table.tocList {
-width: 100%;
-margin-left: auto;
-margin-right: auto;
-border-width: 0;
-border-collapse: collapse;
-}
-td.tocPageNum, td.tocDivNum {
-text-align: right;
-min-width: 10%;
-border-width: 0;
-white-space: nowrap;
-}
-td.tocDivNum {
-padding-left: 0;
-padding-right: 0.5em;
-}
-td.tocPageNum {
-padding-left: 0.5em;
-padding-right: 0;
-}
-td.tocDivTitle {
-width: auto;
-}
-p.tocPart, .par.tocPart {
-margin: 1.58em 0;
-font-variant: small-caps;
-}
-p.tocChapter, .par.tocChapter {
-margin: 1.58em 0;
-}
-p.tocSection, .par.tocSection {
-margin: 0.7em 5%;
-}
-table.tocList td {
-vertical-align: top;
-}
-table.tocList td.tocPageNum {
-vertical-align: bottom;
-}
-table.inner {
-display: inline-table;
-border-collapse: collapse;
-width: 100%;
-}
-td.itemNum {
-text-align: right;
-min-width: 5%;
-padding-right: 0.8em;
-}
-td.innerContainer {
-padding: 0;
-margin: 0;
-}
-.index {
-font-size: 80%;
-}
-.index p {
-text-indent: -1em;
-margin-left: 1em;
-}
-.indexToc {
-text-align: center;
-}
-.transcriberNote {
-background-color: #DDE;
-border: black 1px dotted;
-color: #000;
-font-family: sans-serif;
-font-size: 80%;
-margin: 2em 5%;
-padding: 1em;
-}
-.missingTarget {
-text-decoration: line-through;
-color: red;
-}
-.correctionTable {
-width: 75%;
-}
-.width20 {
-width: 20%;
-}
-.width40 {
-width: 40%;
-}
-p.smallprint, li.smallprint, .par.smallprint {
-color: #666666;
-font-size: 80%;
-}
-span.musictime {
-vertical-align: middle;
-display: inline-block;
-text-align: center;
-}
-span.musictime, span.musictime span.top, span.musictime span.bottom {
-padding: 1px 0.5px;
-font-size: xx-small;
-font-weight: bold;
-line-height: 0.7em;
-}
-span.musictime span.bottom {
-display: block;
-}
-ul {
-list-style-type: none;
-}
-.splitListTable {
-margin-left: 0;
-}
-.splitListTable td {
-vertical-align: top;
-}
-.numberedItem {
-text-indent: -3em;
-margin-left: 3em;
-}
-.numberedItem .itemNumber {
-float: left;
-position: relative;
-left: -3.5em;
-width: 3em;
-display: inline-block;
-text-align: right;
-}
-.itemGroupTable {
-border-collapse: collapse;
-margin-left: 0;
-}
-.itemGroupTable td {
-padding: 0;
-margin: 0;
-vertical-align: middle;
-}
-.itemGroupBrace {
-padding: 0 0.5em !important;
-}
-.titlePage {
-border: #DDDDDD 2px solid;
-margin: 3em 0 7em 0;
-padding: 5em 10% 6em 10%;
-text-align: center;
-}
-.titlePage .docTitle {
-line-height: 1.7;
-margin: 2em 0 2em 0;
-font-weight: bold;
-}
-.titlePage .docTitle .mainTitle {
-font-size: 1.8em;
-}
-.titlePage .docTitle .subTitle, .titlePage .docTitle .seriesTitle,
-.titlePage .docTitle .volumeTitle {
-font-size: 1.44em;
-}
-.titlePage .byline {
-margin: 2em 0 2em 0;
-font-size: 1.2em;
-line-height: 1.5;
-}
-.titlePage .byline .docAuthor {
-font-size: 1.2em;
-font-weight: bold;
-}
-.titlePage .figure {
-margin: 2em auto;
-}
-.titlePage .docImprint {
-margin: 4em 0 0 0;
-font-size: 1.2em;
-line-height: 1.5;
-}
-.titlePage .docImprint .docDate {
-font-size: 1.2em;
-font-weight: bold;
-}
-div.figure {
-text-align: center;
-}
-.figure {
-margin-left: auto;
-margin-right: auto;
-}
-.floatLeft {
-float: left;
-margin: 10px 10px 10px 0;
-}
-.floatRight {
-float: right;
-margin: 10px 0 10px 10px;
-}
-p.figureHead, .par.figureHead {
-font-size: 100%;
-text-align: center;
-}
-.figAnnotation {
-font-size: 80%;
-position: relative;
-margin: 0 auto;
-}
-.figTopLeft, .figBottomLeft {
-float: left;
-}
-.figTopRight, .figBottomRight {
-float: right;
-}
-.figure p, .figure .par {
-font-size: 80%;
-margin-top: 0;
-text-align: center;
-}
-img {
-border-width: 0;
-}
-td.galleryFigure {
-text-align: center;
-vertical-align: middle;
-}
-td.galleryCaption {
-text-align: center;
-vertical-align: top;
-}
-tr, td, th {
-vertical-align: top;
-}
-tr.bottom, td.bottom, th.bottom {
-vertical-align: bottom;
-}
-td.label, tr.label td {
-font-weight: bold;
-}
-td.unit, tr.unit td {
-font-style: italic;
-}
-td.leftbrace, td.rightbrace {
-vertical-align: middle;
-}
-span.sum {
-padding-top: 2px;
-border-top: solid black 1px;
-}
-table.inlinetable {
-display: inline-table;
-}
-table.borderOutside {
-border-collapse: collapse;
-}
-table.borderOutside td {
-padding-left: 4px;
-padding-right: 4px;
-}
-table.borderOutside .cellHeadTop, table.borderOutside .cellTop {
-border-top: 2px solid black;
-}
-table.borderOutside .cellHeadBottom {
-border-bottom: 1px solid black;
-}
-table.borderOutside .cellBottom {
-border-bottom: 2px solid black;
-}
-table.borderOutside .cellLeft, table.borderOutside .cellHeadLeft {
-border-left: 2px solid black;
-}
-table.borderOutside .cellRight, table.borderOutside .cellHeadRight {
-border-right: 2px solid black;
-}
-table.verticalBorderInside {
-border-collapse: collapse;
-}
-table.verticalBorderInside td {
-padding-left: 4px;
-padding-right: 4px;
-border-left: 1px solid black;
-}
-table.verticalBorderInside .cellHeadTop, table.verticalBorderInside .cellTop {
-border-top: 2px solid black;
-}
-table.verticalBorderInside .cellHeadBottom {
-border-bottom: 1px solid black;
-}
-table.verticalBorderInside .cellBottom {
-border-bottom: 2px solid black;
-}
-table.verticalBorderInside .cellLeft, table.verticalBorderInside .cellHeadLeft {
-border-left: 0 solid black;
-}
-table.borderAll {
-border-collapse: collapse;
-}
-table.borderAll td {
-padding-left: 4px;
-padding-right: 4px;
-border: 1px solid black;
-}
-table.borderAll .cellHeadTop, table.borderAll .cellTop {
-border-top: 2px solid black;
-}
-table.borderAll .cellHeadBottom {
-border-bottom: 1px solid black;
-}
-table.borderAll .cellBottom {
-border-bottom: 2px solid black;
-}
-table.borderAll .cellLeft, table.borderAll .cellHeadLeft {
-border-left: 2px solid black;
-}
-table.borderAll .cellRight, table.borderAll .cellHeadRight {
-border-right: 2px solid black;
-}
-tr.borderTop td, tr.borderTop th, th.borderTop, td.borderTop {
-border-top: 1px solid black !important;
-}
-tr.borderRight td, tr.borderRight th, th.borderRight, td.borderRight {
-border-right: 1px solid black !important;
-}
-tr.borderLeft td, tr.borderLeft th, th.borderLeft, td.borderLeft {
-border-left: 1px solid black !important;
-}
-tr.borderBottom td, tr.borderBottom th, th.borderBottom, td.borderBottom {
-border-bottom: 1px solid black !important;
-}
-tr.borderHorizontal td, tr.borderHorizontal th, th.borderHorizontal, td.borderHorizontal {
-border-top: 1px solid black !important;
-border-bottom: 1px solid black !important;
-}
-tr.borderVertical td, tr.borderVertical th, th.borderVertical, td.borderVertical {
-border-right: 1px solid black !important;
-border-left: 1px solid black !important;
-}
-tr.borderAll td, tr.borderAll th, th.borderAll, td.borderAll {
-border: 1px solid black !important;
-}
-tr.noBorderTop td, tr.noBorderTop th, th.noBorderTop, td.noBorderTop {
-border-top: none !important;
-}
-tr.noBorderRight td, tr.noBorderRight th, th.noBorderRight, td.noBorderRight {
-border-right: none !important;
-}
-tr.noBorderLeft td, tr.noBorderLeft th, th.noBorderLeft, td.noBorderLeft {
-border-left: none !important;
-}
-tr.noBorderBottom td, tr.noBorderBottom th, th.noBorderBottom, td.noBorderBottom {
-border-bottom: none !important;
-}
-tr.noBorderHorizontal td, tr.noBorderHorizontal th, th.noBorderHorizontal, td.noBorderHorizontal {
-border-top: none !important;
-border-bottom: none !important;
-}
-tr.noBorderVertical td, tr.noBorderVertical th, th.noBorderVertical, td.noBorderVertical {
-border-right: none !important;
-border-left: none !important;
-}
-tr.borderAll td, tr.borderAll th, th.borderAll, td.noBorderAll {
-border: none !important;
-}
-.cellDoubleUp {
-border: 0 solid black !important;
-width: 1em;
-}
-td.alignDecimalIntegerPart {
-text-align: right;
-border-right: none !important;
-padding-right: 0 !important;
-margin-right: 0 !important;
-}
-td.alignDecimalFractionPart {
-text-align: left;
-border-left: none !important;
-padding-left: 0 !important;
-margin-left: 0 !important;
-}
-td.alignDecimalNotNumber {
-text-align: center;
-}
-.lgouter {
-margin-left: auto;
-margin-right: auto;
-display: table;
-}
-.lg {
-text-align: left;
-padding: .5em 0 .5em 0;
-}
-.lg h4, .lgouter h4 {
-font-weight: normal;
-}
-.lg .lineNum, .sp .lineNum, .lgouter .lineNum {
-color: #777;
-font-size: 90%;
-left: 16%;
-margin: 0;
-position: absolute;
-text-align: center;
-text-indent: 0;
-top: auto;
-width: 1.75em;
-}
-p.line, .par.line {
-margin: 0 0 0 0;
-}
-span.hemistich {
-visibility: hidden;
-}
-.verseNum {
-font-weight: bold;
-}
-.speaker {
-font-weight: bold;
-margin-bottom: 0.4em;
-}
-.sp .line {
-margin: 0 10%;
-text-align: left;
-}
-.castlist, .castitem {
-list-style-type: none;
-}
-.castGroupTable {
-border-collapse: collapse;
-margin-left: 0;
-}
-.castGroupTable td {
-padding: 0;
-margin: 0;
-vertical-align: middle;
-}
-.castGroupBrace {
-padding: 0 0.5em !important;
-}
-body {
-padding: 1.58em 16%;
-}
-.pageNum {
-display: inline;
-font-size: 8.4pt;
-font-style: normal;
-margin: 0;
-padding: 0;
-position: absolute;
-right: 1%;
-text-align: right;
-letter-spacing: normal;
-}
-.marginnote {
-font-size: 0.8em;
-height: 0;
-left: 1%;
-position: absolute;
-text-indent: 0;
-width: 14%;
-text-align: left;
-}
-.right-marginnote {
-font-size: 0.8em;
-height: 0;
-right: 3%;
-position: absolute;
-text-indent: 0;
-text-align: right;
-width: 11%
-}
-.cut-in-left-note {
-font-size: 0.8em;
-left: 1%;
-float: left;
-text-indent: 0;
-width: 14%;
-text-align: left;
-padding: 0.8em 0.8em 0.8em 0;
-}
-.cut-in-right-note {
-font-size: 0.8em;
-left: 1%;
-float: right;
-text-indent: 0;
-width: 14%;
-text-align: right;
-padding: 0.8em 0 0.8em 0.8em;
-}
-span.tocPageNum, span.flushright {
-position: absolute;
-right: 16%;
-top: auto;
-text-indent: 0;
-}
-.pglink::after {
-content: "\0000A0\01F4D8";
-font-size: 80%;
-font-style: normal;
-font-weight: normal;
-}
-.catlink::after {
-content: "\0000A0\01F4C7";
-font-size: 80%;
-font-style: normal;
-font-weight: normal;
-}
-.exlink::after, .wplink::after, .biblink::after, .qurlink::after, .seclink::after {
-content: "\0000A0\002197\00FE0F";
-color: blue;
-font-size: 80%;
-font-style: normal;
-font-weight: normal;
-}
-.pglink:hover {
-background-color: #DCFFDC;
-}
-.catlink:hover {
-background-color: #FFFFDC;
-}
-.exlink:hover, .wplink:hover, .biblink:hover, .qurlink:hover, .seclin:hover {
-background-color: #FFDCDC;
-}
-body {
-background: #FFFFFF;
-font-family: serif;
-}
-body, a.hidden {
-color: black;
-}
-h1, h2, .h1, .h2 {
-text-align: center;
-font-variant: small-caps;
-font-weight: normal;
-}
-p.byline {
-text-align: center;
-font-style: italic;
-margin-bottom: 2em;
-}
-.div2 p.byline, .div3 p.byline, .div4 p.byline, .div5 p.byline, .div6 p.byline, .div7 p.byline {
-text-align: left;
-}
-.figureHead, .noteRef, .pseudoNoteRef, .marginnote, .right-marginnote, p.legend, .verseNum {
-color: #660000;
-}
-.rightnote, .pageNum, .lineNum, .pageNum a {
-color: #AAAAAA;
-}
-a.hidden:hover, a.noteRef:hover, a.pseudoNoteRef:hover {
-color: red;
-}
-h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 {
-font-weight: normal;
-}
-table {
-margin-left: auto;
-margin-right: auto;
-}
-.tablecaption {
-text-align: center;
-}
-.arab { font-family: Scheherazade, serif; }
-.aran { font-family: 'Awami Nastaliq', serif; }
-.grek { font-family: 'Charis SIL', serif; }
-.hebr { font-family: Shlomo, 'Ezra SIL', serif; }
-.syrc { font-family: 'Serto Jerusalem', serif; }
-/* CSS rules generated from rendition elements in TEI file */
-.titlePage .docTitle .smallTitle {
-font-size: smaller;
-}
-/* CSS rules generated from @rend attributes in TEI file */
-.cover-imagewidth {
-width:492px;
-}
-.frontispiecewidth {
-width:416px;
-}
-.titlepage-imagewidth {
-width:456px;
-}
-.xd31e170 {
-font-size:x-small;
-}
-.xd31e323 {
-background:url(images/initial-f.png) no-repeat top left;
-background-size:73px;
-}
-.xd31e323init {
-float:left;
-width:73px;
-height:100px;
-background:url(images/initial-f.png) no-repeat;
-background-size:73px;
-text-align:right;
-color:white;
-font-size:1px;
-}
-.xd31e333 {
-font-style:italic;
-}
-.xd31e337 {
-text-align:center;
-}
-.xd31e372 {
-background:url(images/initial-i.png) no-repeat top left;
-background-size:75px;
-}
-.xd31e372init {
-float:left;
-width:75px;
-height:101px;
-background:url(images/initial-i.png) no-repeat;
-background-size:75px;
-text-align:right;
-color:white;
-font-size:1px;
-}
-.xd31e393 {
-background:url(images/initial-a.png) no-repeat top left;
-background-size:73px;
-}
-.xd31e393init {
-float:left;
-width:73px;
-height:100px;
-background:url(images/initial-a.png) no-repeat;
-background-size:73px;
-text-align:right;
-color:white;
-font-size:1px;
-}
-.p016-1width {
-width:541px;
-}
-.p016-2width {
-width:583px;
-}
-.p024width {
-width:490px;
-}
-.p024-2width {
-width:358px;
-}
-.xd31e453 {
-background:url(images/initial-t.png) no-repeat top left;
-background-size:75px;
-}
-.xd31e453init {
-float:left;
-width:75px;
-height:101px;
-background:url(images/initial-t.png) no-repeat;
-background-size:75px;
-text-align:right;
-color:white;
-font-size:1px;
-}
-.p025-1width {
-width:588px;
-}
-.p025-2width {
-width:577px;
-}
-.indentxd31e568 {
-padding-left: 2em;
-}
-.xd31e602 {
-text-align:center;
-}
-.xd31e626 {
-text-indent:1em;
-}
-.tbl033 {
-width:100%; font-size:smaller;
-}
-.p033-1width {
-width:235px;
-}
-.p033-2width {
-width:237px;
-}
-.p033-3width {
-width:238px;
-}
-.p033-4width {
-width:239px;
-}
-.xd31e691 {
-text-indent:2em;
-}
-.xd31e693 {
-text-align:right;
-}
-.p040width {
-width:420px;
-}
-.p041width {
-width:406px;
-}
-.xd31e815 {
-background:url(images/initial-o.png) no-repeat top left;
-background-size:75px;
-}
-.xd31e815init {
-float:left;
-width:75px;
-height:100px;
-background:url(images/initial-o.png) no-repeat;
-background-size:75px;
-text-align:right;
-color:white;
-font-size:1px;
-}
-.p048width {
-width:720px;
-}
-.p054width {
-width:720px;
-}
-.xd31e876 {
-background:url(images/initial-r.png) no-repeat top left;
-background-size:73px;
-}
-.xd31e876init {
-float:left;
-width:73px;
-height:103px;
-background:url(images/initial-r.png) no-repeat;
-background-size:73px;
-text-align:right;
-color:white;
-font-size:1px;
-}
-.p056-1width {
-width:393px;
-}
-.p056-2width {
-width:420px;
-}
-.p057-1width {
-width:414px;
-}
-.p057-2width {
-width:414px;
-}
-.p060width {
-width:720px;
-}
-.p071width {
-width:720px;
-}
-.p072-1width {
-width:407px;
-}
-.p072-2width {
-width:420px;
-}
-.p073-1width {
-width:418px;
-}
-.p073-2width {
-width:422px;
-}
-.p074-1width {
-width:432px;
-}
-.p074-2width {
-width:564px;
-}
-.xd31e1197 {
-background:url(images/initial-l.png) no-repeat top left;
-background-size:75px;
-}
-.xd31e1197init {
-float:left;
-width:75px;
-height:103px;
-background:url(images/initial-l.png) no-repeat;
-background-size:75px;
-text-align:right;
-color:white;
-font-size:1px;
-}
-.p088-1width {
-width:589px;
-}
-.p088-2width {
-width:592px;
-}
-.p089-1width {
-width:406px;
-}
-.p089-2width {
-width:420px;
-}
-.p091width {
-width:560px;
-}
-.p096-1width {
-width:587px;
-}
-.p096-2width {
-width:586px;
-}
-@media handheld {
-.xd31e323 {
-background-image:none;
-padding-top:0;
-}
-.xd31e323init {
-float:none;
-width:auto;
-height:auto;
-background-image:none;
-text-align:right;
-color:inherit;
-font-size:inherit;
-}
-.xd31e372 {
-background-image:none;
-padding-top:0;
-}
-.xd31e372init {
-float:none;
-width:auto;
-height:auto;
-background-image:none;
-text-align:right;
-color:inherit;
-font-size:inherit;
-}
-.xd31e393 {
-background-image:none;
-padding-top:0;
-}
-.xd31e393init {
-float:none;
-width:auto;
-height:auto;
-background-image:none;
-text-align:right;
-color:inherit;
-font-size:inherit;
-}
-.xd31e453 {
-background-image:none;
-padding-top:0;
-}
-.xd31e453init {
-float:none;
-width:auto;
-height:auto;
-background-image:none;
-text-align:right;
-color:inherit;
-font-size:inherit;
-}
-.xd31e815 {
-background-image:none;
-padding-top:0;
-}
-.xd31e815init {
-float:none;
-width:auto;
-height:auto;
-background-image:none;
-text-align:right;
-color:inherit;
-font-size:inherit;
-}
-.xd31e876 {
-background-image:none;
-padding-top:0;
-}
-.xd31e876init {
-float:none;
-width:auto;
-height:auto;
-background-image:none;
-text-align:right;
-color:inherit;
-font-size:inherit;
-}
-.xd31e1197 {
-background-image:none;
-padding-top:0;
-}
-.xd31e1197init {
-float:none;
-width:auto;
-height:auto;
-background-image:none;
-text-align:right;
-color:inherit;
-font-size:inherit;
-}
-}
-/* ]]> */ </style>
-</head>
-<body>
-<p style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The old frontier: Te Awamutu, the story of the Waipa Valley, by James Cowan</p>
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
-most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
-of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
-at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you
-are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the
-country where you are located before using this eBook.
-</div>
-
-<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The old frontier: Te Awamutu, the story of the Waipa Valley</p>
-<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: James Cowan</p>
-<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: February 24, 2022 [eBook #67490]</p>
-<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p>
- <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net/ for Project Gutenberg (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)</p>
-<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLD FRONTIER: TE AWAMUTU, THE STORY OF THE WAIPA VALLEY ***</div>
-<div class="front">
-<div class="div1 cover"><span class="pageNum">[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]</span><div class="divBody">
-<p class="first"></p>
-<div class="figure cover-imagewidth"><img src="images/front.jpg" alt="Original Front Cover." width="492" height="720"></div><p>
-</p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="div1 frontispiece"><span class="pageNum">[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]</span><div class="divBody">
-<p class="first"></p>
-<div class="figure frontispiecewidth"><img src="images/frontispiece.jpg" alt="REV. JOHN MORGAN" width="416" height="571"><p class="figureHead">REV. JOHN MORGAN</p>
-<p class="first">(The man who civilised the Waipa)
-</p>
-<p>Photo about 1864, lent by Mrs. B. Crispe</p>
-</div><p>
-</p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="div1 titlepage"><span class="pageNum">[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]</span><div class="divBody">
-<p class="first"></p>
-<div class="figure titlepage-imagewidth"><img src="images/titlepage.png" alt="Original Title Page." width="456" height="720"></div><p>
-</p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="titlePage">
-<div class="docTitle">
-<div class="mainTitle">THE OLD FRONTIER</div>
-<div class="subTitle">TE AWAMUTU<br>
-THE STORY OF THE WAIPA VALLEY</div>
-<div class="subTitle smallTitle">The Missionary<br>
-Early Colonization<br>
-The Soldier<br>
-The War in Waikato<br>
-The Pioneer Farmer<br>
-Life on the Maori Border<br>
-and Later-Day Settlement</div>
-</div>
-<div class="byline">By<br>
-<span class="docAuthor">JAMES COWAN, F.R.G.S.</span></div>
-<div class="docImprint"><i>COPYRIGHT</i>
-<br>
-Published by The Waipa Post Printing and Publishing Company, Limited<br>
-Te Awamutu, New Zealand<br>
-<span class="docDate">1922</span></div>
-</div>
-<p><span class="pageNum" id="pb3">[<a href="#pb3">3</a>]</span></p>
-<div class="div1 preface"><span class="pageNum">[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]</span><div class="divHead">
-<h2 class="main">PREFACE</h2>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="first">This sketch of the history of the Waipa district centreing in Te Awamutu has been
-written especially with a view to interesting the younger generation of colonists,
-and the now large population on both sides of the old Maori border, in the uncommonly
-dramatic story of the beautiful country in which their homes are set. The original
-settlers to whom many of the events here described were matters of personal knowledge
-are fast passing away, and a generation has arisen which has but a vague idea of the
-local history and of the old heroic life on the Waipa plains. The book is designed
-to convey accurate pictures of this pioneer life and the successive eras of the missionary
-and the soldier, and to invest with a new interest for many the familiar home landscapes.
-</p>
-<p>Much of the information given herein is published for the first time, and therefore
-should be of special value to students of New Zealand history. For the story of missionary
-enterprise the writer has drawn on a MS. journal written by the Rev. John Morgan,
-the first civiliser of the Waipa country; for the military history use has been made
-of an exceedingly readable MS. narrative left by the celebrated Major Von Tempsky,
-of the Forest Rangers. For the rest, it has been a peculiar pleasure to the writer,
-as one bred on the old Aukati border, to recall scenes in a phase of life which has
-passed away for ever.
-</p>
-<p class="signed">J. C.
-</p>
-<p class="dateline">Wellington, N.Z.,<br>
-September, 1922.
-<span class="pageNum" id="pb5">[<a href="#pb5">5</a>]</span></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div id="toc" class="div1 contents"><span class="pageNum">[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]</span><div class="divHead">
-<h2 class="main">CONTENTS</h2>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="first"> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class="tocPageNum xd31e170">Page</span>
-</p>
-<p>CHAPTER I.—<a href="#ch1" id="xd31e175">TOPOGRAPHICAL AND LEGENDARY</a> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class="tocPageNum">7</span>
-</p>
-<p class="tocArgument">The beautiful Waipa country. The garden lands of Te Awamutu and Rangiaowhia. Hills
-of the Maori border. The cone of Kakepuku. Ancient fortresses. Maori tribes of the
-Waipa basin.
-</p>
-<p>CHAPTER II.—<a href="#ch2" id="xd31e185">THE MISSIONARY ERA</a> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class="tocPageNum">11</span>
-</p>
-<p class="tocArgument">In cannibal days. Rev. B.&nbsp;Y. Ashwell the first missionary in Te Awamutu. A feast on
-human flesh in Otawhao pa. End of the inter-tribal wars. Rev. John Morgan comes to
-Te Awamutu. His useful mission work. How Mr Morgan sowed the good seed.
-</p>
-<p>CHAPTER III.—<a href="#ch3" id="xd31e195">PLOUGH AND FLOUR-MILL</a> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class="tocPageNum">14</span>
-</p>
-<p class="tocArgument">Mr Morgan introduces English methods of agriculture. Maori tribes become industrious
-farmers. The coming of the wheat. Large cultivations at Te Awamutu, Rangiaowhia, Kihikihi,
-and Orakau. Grinding the wheat. The first flour-mills. Mr Morgan’s narrative. Clatter
-of the water-mill in many Maori settlements. Exporting wheat and flour to Auckland.
-Rangiaowhia flour sent to England. Sir George Grey’s practical sympathy with the Maori.
-</p>
-<p>CHAPTER IV.—<a href="#ch4" id="xd31e205">THE GOLDEN AGE BEFORE THE WAR</a> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class="tocPageNum">18</span>
-</p>
-<p class="tocArgument">Te Awamutu and Rangiaowhia in 1852. Mr Heywood Crispe’s description. A land of corn-fields
-and fruit-groves. The peach-groves of Rangiaowhia. Visit to the large Maori village.
-Old King Potatau. Hochstetter’s view in 1859.
-</p>
-<p>CHAPTER V.—<a href="#ch5" id="xd31e215">JOHN GORST AT TE AWAMUTU</a> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class="tocPageNum">23</span>
-</p>
-<p class="tocArgument">Mr Gorst as Magistrate and Commissioner. The educational institution at Te Awamutu.
-A newspaper established. Rewi’s raid on the “Pihoihoi Mokemoke.” Mr Gorst leaves Waikato.
-Te Awamutu re-visited. The last canoe voyage.
-</p>
-<p>CHAPTER VI.—<a href="#ch6" id="xd31e226">THE WAIKATO WAR, 1863–64</a> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class="tocPageNum">35</span>
-</p>
-<p class="tocArgument">Fighting on the Waikato. British and Colonial troops invade the Waipa country. Paterangi
-and Waiari. The Forest Rangers. Von Tempsky’s narrative of the war. Bishop Selwyn
-at the Front.
-</p>
-<p>CHAPTER VII.—<a href="#ch7" id="xd31e236">THE CAPTURE OF RANGIAOWHIA</a> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class="tocPageNum">40</span>
-</p>
-<p class="tocArgument">Von Tempsky’s story. A summer morning invasion. Skirmishing through the village. Siege
-of a Maori whare. Colonel Nixon shot. Dramatic death of an old warrior. Heroic little
-garrison annihilated.
-</p>
-<p>CHAPTER VIII.—<a href="#ch8" id="xd31e246">THE ENGAGEMENT AT HAIRINI</a> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class="tocPageNum">48</span>
-</p>
-<p class="tocArgument">Sharp action at Hairini Hill. Field Artillery shells the Maori lines. A great bayonet
-charge. Defeat of the Maoris. Work of the Forest Rangers. Looting Rangiaowhia village.
-Comedy at the Catholic Church. Von Tempsky and an Imperial Colonel. The return to
-Te Awamutu. A curious spectacle. “Those rascally Rangers have got all the loot!”
-</p>
-<p>CHAPTER IX.—<a href="#ch9" id="xd31e256">THE INVASION OF KIHIKIHI</a> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class="tocPageNum">55</span>
-</p>
-<p class="tocArgument">Rewi Maniapoto’s headquarters. British force occupies Kihikihi village. Burning of
-the council house. Von Tempsky’s night expedition. A fruitless march. Harmless skirmishing.
-Redoubt built at Kihikihi. Te Awamutu the army’s headquarters. The first expedition
-to Orakau.
-<span class="pageNum" id="pb6">[<a href="#pb6">6</a>]</span></p>
-<p>CHAPTER X.—<a href="#ch10" id="xd31e267">THE BATTLE OF ORAKAU</a> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class="tocPageNum">59</span>
-</p>
-<p class="tocArgument">Most memorable battle in New Zealand’s history. Brigadier-General Carey’s expedition.
-Von Tempsky’s narrative. Animated description of the siege. Work of the Forest Rangers.
-Heroism of the Maori garrison. The last day. A break for freedom. The soldiers in
-pursuit. Maori narratives. The reply to General Cameron’s message. Incidents of the
-siege.
-</p>
-<p>CHAPTER XI.—<a href="#ch11" id="xd31e278">CAMP LIFE AT TE AWAMUTU</a> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class="tocPageNum">79</span>
-</p>
-<p class="tocArgument">The troops in winter quarters. Description of camp life. The soldiers’ whares. The
-house-opening dance. Sawyers near Rangiaowhia. The 65th, a model regiment. Soldiers
-become capitalists. Looting the Maori horses. The romance of Ariana. The hunchback
-and his flute. A militiaman’s heart and hand, and Ariana’s scorn.
-</p>
-<p>CHAPTER XII.—<a href="#ch12" id="xd31e288">PIONEER LIFE ON THE OLD FRONTIER</a> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class="tocPageNum">84</span>
-</p>
-<p class="tocArgument">Perils of the King Country border. An unknown, sullen land. Picture from the north
-side of the Puniu. The pioneer settlers’ life in the Seventies. The peach-groves of
-Orakau. A chain of blockhouses and redoubts. The murder of Timothy Sullivan. Grave
-danger of another war. Te Awamutu Cavalry Volunteers. Patrolling the out-settlements.
-The return of peace. When Tawhiao came out. “The King of the Cannibal Islands.” The
-peace-making dance in Kihikihi. The capture of Winiata. Mahuki’s raid on Alexandra.
-Peaceful pakeha conquest of the King Country.
-</p>
-<p>CHAPTER XIII.—<a href="#ch13" id="xd31e298">KIHAROA THE GIANT</a> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class="tocPageNum">96</span>
-</p>
-<p class="tocArgument">A Folk-Tale of the Maori Border. The “Giant’s Grave” at Tokanui. Fortified hills of
-“The Three Sisters.” The story of an invasion. An army in ambush. The battle of Whenuahou.
-The death of Kiharoa. Matau, the Giant of the Wairaka.
-</p>
-<p><a href="#app" id="xd31e307">APPENDICES</a> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class="tocPageNum">101</span>
-</p>
-<p class="tocArgument">Maori place names. The capture of Winiata. Mr Hursthouse’s adventure in the King Country.
-Mahuki’s raid on Alexandra, and his capture. The King Country railway.
-<span class="pageNum" id="pb7">[<a href="#pb7">7</a>]</span></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="body">
-<div id="ch1" class="div1 chapter"><span class="pageNum">[<a href="#xd31e175">Contents</a>]</span><div class="divHead">
-<h2 class="super">THE OLD FRONTIER</h2>
-<h2 class="label">CHAPTER I.</h2>
-<h2 class="main">TOPOGRAPHICAL AND LEGENDARY.</h2>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="xd31e323"><span class="xd31e323init">F</span>or landscape interest conjoined to the traditional and historic I know of no part
-of New Zealand more attractive than the zone along the old frontier line of the Waipa
-country of which Te Awamutu may be described as the metropolis to-day. Beauty of physical
-configuration! fertility of soil, poetic Maori folklore, memories of the heroic pioneer
-days, tales of sadness and glory of the war years—all these elements combine to invest
-the border line of the Waipa and the Rohepotae with a singular value, above all to
-those who have had the fortune to be reared on this well-favoured land. The physiographic
-charm of the country on the north side of the Puniu and the east side of the Waipa
-River is produced by the gently-rolling lie of the land with its countless sheltered
-valleys and its well-sunned slopes, with its leisurely-winding streams, with here
-and there a small lake; the old Maori garden lands of Te Awamutu, Rangiaowhia, Kihikihi,
-and Orakau, now covered with pakeha farms and tree-groves, with fat flocks and herds,
-and wearing all the aspect of a comfortable countryside enriched by the tillage of
-two generations of white farmers. The south side of the old Aukati line, more recently
-broken in from the wilderness of fern and tutu, is even more promising as a land of
-fat stock and good crops, of dairy herds and meat; and it is singularly interesting
-to the physiographer and the geologist. Pirongia, Kakepuku, the tattooed cone of Kawa,
-the fort-scarped “Three Sisters” of Tokanui, Tauranga-Kohu and its neighbour hills,
-the Maunga-tautari Ranges, curve sicklewise along the old-time frontier, a romantically-shaped
-ceinture of volcanic saliencies which seem to mount guard like giant sentries over
-the Rohepotae, just as they formed a belt of fiery lava mouths and cones in the remote
-geological past. Kakepuku, a Ngauruhoe in miniature, is a peak to hold the eye for
-many a mile. I came to look on that lone mountain with very much the kind of affection
-in which it is held by the Maori people who live around its base, whose local folklore
-and poetry enshrine many a reference to Kakepuku. The fair blue hills of boyhood!
-Once upon a time when we rode in daily from the other side of Kihikihi to school at
-Te Awamutu the uplift of Kakepuku, <span class="pageNum" id="pb8">[<a href="#pb8">8</a>]</span>looming a few miles across the valley to the westward, seemed an enchanted mountain,
-holding infinite suggestion of mystery and adventure. Pirongia is twice its altitude,
-building up a noble rugged western skyline, but Kakepuku’s indigo-blue cone, with
-the crater hollow scooped out of its top, was the peak to capture the imagination.
-On clear days as we viewed it from the Kihikihi hills every line of the deep ravines
-which scored its sides stood up as bold and sharp as the singularly scarped terraces
-of Kawa’s nippled hill. Kakepuku almost seemed shaped and hewn from the landscape
-by the hands of veritable mountain gods, so regular and symmetrical its outline. Truly
-a picture mountain. Moreover, it was our weather glass. When Kakepuku put on his fog-cap,
-and the mists filled the long-dead crater of the volcano and crept down the upper
-slopes, the countryside knew that rain was at hand. The other mountains, such as Pirongia,
-might cloud themselves with mist and the sign go unheeded, but Kakepuku’s tohu-ua
-never failed. Then there is the curious nature-myth which tells how gently-rounded
-Kawa was Kakepuku’s wife, a story told with much circumstantial detail by the old
-Maoris of the Waipa and the Puniu, a story over-long to be told here with its tale
-of battle between the jealous Kakepuku and that mountain Lothario Karewa—now Gannet
-Island, off Kawhia; one which seems dimly to reveal the geological past of these volcanic
-peaks.<a class="noteRef" id="xd31e327src" href="#xd31e327">1</a>
-</p>
-<p>This singular beauty of landscape setting cannot but enhance the love of one’s native
-land in those whose lives are cast within sight of the mountains and hills of the
-border. The Maori loved the country, albeit he made comparatively little use of it,
-with an intensity which not many pakehas realise. There is a song of Ngati-Maniapoto
-often chanted in the old days when a fighting column paraded in the village marae
-before setting out on the warpath. The chief, facing the parade of warriors, uplifted
-his taiaha and shouted as he pointed to the blue mountain looming near:
-</p>
-<div lang="mi" class="lgouter xd31e333">
-<p class="line">Ko whea, ko whea—
-</p>
-<p class="line">Ko whea tera maunga
-</p>
-<p class="line">E tu mai ra ra?</p>
-</div>
-<p class="first xd31e337">(“What is yonder mountain soaring high above us?”)
-</p>
-<p>And with one voice the warriors yelled, as they burst into the ferocious <span class="pageNum" id="pb9">[<a href="#pb9">9</a>]</span>stamp and weapon-thrusting of the tutu-ngarahu or peruperu dance:
-</p>
-<div class="lgouter xd31e333">
-<p class="line">’Tis Kakepuku!
-</p>
-<p class="line">’Tis Pirongia!
-</p>
-<p class="line">Ah, ’tis Kakepuku!
-</p>
-<p class="line">Ah, draw close to me,
-</p>
-<p class="line">Draw close to me,
-</p>
-<p class="line">That I may embrace thee,
-</p>
-<p class="line">That I may hold thee to my breast!
-</p>
-<p class="line">A—a—ah!</p>
-</div>
-<p class="first">A similar chant, applying to Mount Egmont, was used by the Taranaki Maoris. In each
-case the mountain was regarded as a lover, and symbolised nationality and clanship,
-and a reference to it never failed as a patriotic stimulus.
-</p>
-<p>Now the ancient owners of the Waipa and Puniu plains are but a remnant and their tales
-and songs are but the faintest memory; but the old volcano-gods remain, graceful nature-carved
-monuments, and their poetry no less than their beauty of form should inspire even
-the matter-of-fact pakeha with something of the Maori love and veneration for the
-high places of the land.
-</p>
-<p>The ancient Maori story of the Waipa plains and downs, as preserved by the word-of-mouth
-historians, the old men of the tribes, is a record of land-seeking, exploration, and
-place-naming by the chiefs who came in the Tainui canoe, and by Rakataura the priest;
-then a succession of tribal feuds and wars, raids, pa-buildings and pa-stormings,
-ambush, massacre, slave-taking, and man-eating. That warrior tale need not be gone
-into here; we take up our story of Te Awamutu with the first introduction of the pakeha
-interest, and in truth the place was savage and rough enough then. Here and there,
-on the well-settled lands to-day, one finds relics of the old cannibal era, when every
-tribe’s hand, and often every little hapu’s, was against its neighbours. Round about
-Te Awamutu, even, the lines of ancient trenched forts remain, particularly on the
-banks of the Mangapiko, where the numerous crooks and elbows of the river provided
-pa sites readily made formidable strongholds. The celebrated Waiari, a few miles from
-Te Awamutu and a mile from Paterangi, is an example. Another excellent specimen of
-Maori <span class="pageNum" id="pb10">[<a href="#pb10">10</a>]</span>military engineering is an old earthwork called Tauwhare, on the Mangapiko, a mile
-south of Mr Harry Rhodes’ “Parekura” homestead; this is distinguished by a series
-of enormously deep trenches and high parapets, on the cliffy verge of the river. These
-forts on the Mangapiko belonged to the Ngati-Apakura tribe. But the King Country,
-on the south side of the Puniu River, is the land for hill-forts. Every cone, big
-or little, is trenched and scarped; every eligible river-elbow has its double or triple
-earthwork. Even on the very top of Mount Kakepuku, crowning the ancient crater rim,
-are the ruins of two fortresses of the Ngati-Unu tribe.
-</p>
-<p>Te Awamutu was inhabited, when the first pakeha ventured into these parts, by the
-Ngati-Ruru, a section of the great Waikato tribe. Rangiaowhia was peopled by two other
-large Waikato clans, Ngati-Apakura and Ngati-Hinetu. Ngati-Maniapoto held all the
-Puniu country and the land to the southward; their northern outpost was Kihikihi.
-The Orakau district was held by the Ngati-Raukawa and a hapu of Waikato called Ngati-Koura.
-</p>
-<div class="div2 section"><span class="pageNum">[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]</span><div class="divHead">
-<h3 class="main">NOTES.</h3>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="first">The terms “King Country,” “Rohepotae,” and “Aukati” require a little explanation for
-those who are unacquainted with the origin of the phrases.
-</p>
-<p>The King Country, embracing a vast area of territory south of the Puniu River and
-west of the Upper Waikato, with the Tasman Sea as the western boundary, was so called
-because the Maori King Tawhiao with his adherents took refuge there in 1864 after
-being dispossessed of Waikato. For some years Tawhiao’s headquarters were at Tokangamutu,
-close to the site of the present town of Te Kuiti. The name Te Kuiti is an abbreviation
-of Te Kuititanga, meaning “the narrowing in,” a designation given by the Kingites
-in reference to the conquest of Waikato and the consequent hemming in of the Maoris
-in the country south of the Puniu.
-</p>
-<p>“Rohe-potae” means a circular boundary line, literally a boundary resembling a head-covering.
-The term was applied to the King Country in the early Eighties by Wahanui and his
-fellow-chiefs, when defining the area within which no pakeha surveys or land-buying
-or leasing would be permitted.
-</p>
-<p>“Aukati” means a line which may not be passed; a frontier or pale. It was particularly
-applied by the Kingites to the northern border of the King Country, the Government’s
-confiscation boundary; pakeha trespass over this line was forbidden.
-<span class="pageNum" id="pb11">[<a href="#pb11">11</a>]</span></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="footnotes">
-<hr class="fnsep">
-<div class="footnote-body">
-<div class="fndiv" id="xd31e327">
-<p class="footnote"><span class="fnlabel"><a class="noteRef" href="#xd31e327src">1</a></span> The full name of Kakepuku is Kakepuku-o-Kahurere, or “The Swelled Neck of Kahurere.”
-It was so named nearly six centuries ago by Rakataura, the priest and magician of
-the Tainui people. Rakataura and his wife Kahurere explored all this wild new country
-from Kawhia eastward and southward, giving <span class="pageNum" id="pb9n">[<a href="#pb9n">9</a>]</span>names to the features of the landscape as they travelled. The name alluded to the
-shape of Kakepuku, but in truth it deserves a more poetical one, as, for example,
-that of Tauranga-Kohu, “The Resting Place of the Mists,” a beautiful place-description
-belonging to a mountain a few miles to the eastward on the south side of the Puniu.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd31e327src" title="Return to note 1 in text.">↑</a></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div id="ch2" class="div1 chapter"><span class="pageNum">[<a href="#xd31e185">Contents</a>]</span><div class="divHead">
-<h2 class="label">CHAPTER II.</h2>
-<h2 class="main">THE MISSIONARY ERA.</h2>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="xd31e372"><span class="xd31e372init">I</span>t was the Rev. B.&nbsp;Y. Ashwell who chose the site of the mission station at Te Awamutu.
-This was in 1839. He had made a missionary reconnaissance of Upper Waikato with a
-view to establishing a station among the savage cannibals of the district, great warriors
-and apparently irreclaimable man-eaters, and in July of 1839 he returned to Otawhao
-to carry on the mission. Among Ngati-Ruru there were some who had already gained an
-inkling of the Rongo-Pai, the Good News, from native teachers, but the majority were
-pagan. Shortly after his arrival a war party of Ngati-Ruru, who had been away with
-Ngati-Haua and other tribes raiding the Arawa country, returned from the Maketu and
-Rotorua districts, under their chiefs Puata and Te Mokorou. The party was laden with
-human flesh; there were, as Mr Ashwell recorded, sixty pikau or flax baskets packed
-with the cut-up remains of their slaughtered foes. Then came a fearful feast on cooked
-man (kai-tangata).
-</p>
-<p>Mr Ashwell induced many of Ngati-Ruru to leave Otawhao and establish a Christian pa,
-which was built on the ground now occupied by the old mission station and the Church
-of St. John’s.
-</p>
-<p>Mr Ashwell’s establishment of the mission station at Te Awamutu marked the end of
-the cannibal wars and the periodical fighting expeditions of Waikato in the Rotorua
-and Bay of Plenty districts. The grim old warrior Mokorou became a follower of the
-missionary, and was baptised by the name of Riwai (Levi). Most of the people by this
-time had become tired of wars; there was a general longing for a more settled state
-of life and a desire to obtain pakeha commodities other than weapons and munitions
-of war. So Mr Ashwell soon had large and eager congregations, and his preaching of
-the Rongo-Pai fell on willing ears.
-</p>
-<p>But it was Mr Ashwell’s successor, the Rev. John Morgan, who truly civilised this
-Upper Waikato. Mr Ashwell had confined his teachings to the spiritual side. Mr Morgan
-took a more expansive view of his mission and his responsibilities. He introduced
-English methods of agriculture, brought in English fruit trees, taught the <span class="pageNum" id="pb12">[<a href="#pb12">12</a>]</span>natives to grow wheat, and to grind it in their own water-mills. He it was who by
-his precepts and personal example made the natives of Te Awamutu, Rangiaowhia, Kihikihi,
-and Orakau a farming and fruit-growing people, with the result that long before the
-Waikato War adventurous travellers to this district found to their astonishment a
-series of eye-delighting oases in the wilds, with great fields of wheat, potatoes,
-and maize, and dwellings arranged in neat streets and shaded by groves of peach and
-apple-trees; each settlement with its water-driven flour-mill procured by the community
-and busily grinding into flour the abundant yield of the cornfields.
-</p>
-<p>Mr John Morgan was a missionary of the London Mission Society, and had had some years’
-experience of the hazards of Christianising work on the Waihou, at Matamata, and at
-Rotorua. He and his brave wife lived in the midst of alarms, and more than once had
-to abandon their stations. In the most dangerous period of their life at Rotorua they
-had to take refuge, with the Rev. Thomas Chapman, of Te Ngae, on Mokoia Island, in
-the middle of the lake. After this sort of missionary pioneering it must have been
-a vast relief to Mr Morgan to receive orders in 1841 to take over the newly-established
-station at Te Awamutu. Here he carried on for more than twenty years, the religious
-teacher and counsellor and technical instructor for half a score of tribes in the
-Waipa basin. “Te Mokena” was in an infinite variety of ways the benefactor of his
-Maori flock; never did a missionary take a more liberal view of his duty to the native.
-In the later troubled days, when the war was looming and it was desirable that the
-Government authorities should be informed of the exact political conditions among
-the Maoris, he kept Governor Grey correctly advised of the views and intentions of
-the Kingites, and so came to be called “the watchman of the Waikato.”
-</p>
-<p>At Wharepapa, the site of a one-time large Maori village on the south side of the
-Puniu, a few miles from Waikeria, I heard the story of “Mokena” and the “missionary
-grass.” Here Mr Morgan had a little native church in the days before the war, and
-on his travels from Te Awamutu through the Maori country he did not confine his sowing
-of the good seed to the Gospel brand. On his rides from kainga to kainga he took his
-dog, and to the dog’s neck was tied a little bag filled with English clover-seed and
-grass-seed, which was allowed to drop out a seed at a time by a tiny hole.
-</p>
-<p>In this way the pioneer missionary scattered seeds of civilisation <span class="pageNum" id="pb13">[<a href="#pb13">13</a>]</span>which spread over many a part of this wild countryside. To this day in some of these
-old villages there is a beautiful sward that goes back to the good parson of Te Awamutu,
-and to Wharepapa not many years since the natives used to go for the seed of the “mission
-grass,” esteemed alike by Maori and pakeha for its making of pasture.
-</p>
-<p>“Mokena’s” fame hereabouts rests more, perhaps, on his thoughtful grass-sowing for
-future generations and on his practical teaching of English agriculture than on his
-preaching of the Faith to the Ngati-Maniapoto and Ngati-Ruru of the days before the
-War.
-<span class="pageNum" id="pb14">[<a href="#pb14">14</a>]</span></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div id="ch3" class="div1 chapter"><span class="pageNum">[<a href="#xd31e195">Contents</a>]</span><div class="divHead">
-<h2 class="label">CHAPTER III.</h2>
-<h2 class="main">PLOUGH AND FLOUR-MILL.</h2>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="xd31e393"><span class="xd31e393init">A</span>n illuminating account of the growth of agricultural enterprise among these Upper
-Waikato people and the position about 1850 is contained in an unpublished manuscript
-journal written by the Rev. John Morgan.<a class="noteRef" id="xd31e395src" href="#xd31e395">1</a> The missionary prefaces the narrative of the temporal side of his labours at Te Awamutu
-with the statement that wheat was introduced among the natives chiefly by the missionaries.
-The Ven. Archdeacon Williams encouraged its cultivation in his district of Waiapu,
-East Coast. “It was small in quantity,” said Mr Morgan, “for it was contained in a
-stocking, but it was sown and re-sown, and at the present time the increase from the
-little seed contained in a stocking is being sent by the natives to the Auckland market.
-Much is also ground by the Maoris in steel mills for their own use.
-</p>
-<p>“Shortly after the formation of the Otawhao (Te Awamutu) station,” the missionary’s
-story continued, “in consequence of the difficulty of obtaining supplies of flour
-from the coast I procured some seed wheat. After the reaping of the first crop I sent
-Pungarehu, of Rangiaowhia, a few quarts of seed. This he sowed and reaped. The second
-year he had a good-sized field. Other natives now desired to share in the benefit,
-and the applications for seed became so numerous that I could not supply them all,
-and many obtained seed from Kawhia and Aotea (West Coast), where wheat had been introduced
-either by the Wesleyan missionaries or the settlers.
-</p>
-<p>“As a large quantity of wheat was now grown at Rangiaowhia, and the natives had not
-purchased steel mills, I recommended them to erect a water-mill. At the request of
-Kimi Hori, I went to the millwright who was then building a mill at Aotea. In March,
-1846, the millwright arrived, and I drew up a contract for the erection of a mill
-at a cost of £200, not including the carriage of timber, building of the mill dam,
-and the formation of the watercourse, all of which were performed by the natives themselves.
-Seven men <span class="pageNum" id="pb15">[<a href="#pb15">15</a>]</span>were set to work, the natives promising to pay the first £50 instalment within a very
-short time. Instead of leaving immediately for Auckland with pigs to raise the required
-amount, they began to take up their potatoes and then the kumara to store them for
-winter use. They then promised to leave for town as soon as the crops were secured.
-An invitation, however, arrived from Maketu, and the entire tribe left Rangiaowhia
-to partake of a feast at that place, the millwright threatening to give up the contract.
-On their return they accepted a second invitation, and went to another distant village.
-It was with the greatest difficulty that I now detained the millwright. In this manner
-four months passed away. The millwright demanded compensation for loss of time, and
-a chief agreed to give him a piece of land of about 200 acres, but for which no Government
-grant has as yet been made. Still the natives delayed. The required sum (£200) was
-large for a tribe of New Zealanders to raise. The Aotea mill was now useless, and
-many feared that this (Rangiaowhia) would also be a failure, and there were several
-Europeans who had come up to trade in pigs who from interested motives freely gave
-their opinion that the whole scheme would fail. In this way two months passed away,
-and it required many personal visits to Rangiaowhia—first, to persuade the millwright,
-who was several times on the point of leaving, to remain, and, secondly, to urge the
-natives to take their pigs to town. At length they started. In a few weeks the £50
-was raised, and paid into my hands to be paid to the millwright. After this I had
-no more trouble. The work went forward while the money was being collected, and the
-last instalment of £50 being paid into my hands, I had the pleasure of handing it
-to the millwright the day the work was completed.”
-</p>
-<p>This water-driven flour-mill, it may be explained here, was built at Pekapeka-rau,
-the lower part of the swampy valley between Hairini Hill and Rangiaowhia, through
-which a watercourse flows toward the Mangapiko. Here a dam was constructed, and a
-lagoon was formed; the water collected here turned the mill-wheel.
-</p>
-<p>Later, another mill was constructed, on the watercourse called Te Rua-o-Tawhiwhi,
-on the eastern side of Rangiaowhia village.
-</p>
-<p>Mr Morgan, continuing his story of the new flour-mills, wrote:
-</p>
-<p>“The Rangiaowhia mill was not completed before other tribes became jealous and wished
-for mills. I drew up two more contracts, one for the erection of a mill at Maunga-tautari,
-and the other at Otawhao, at the cost respectively of £110 and £120, not including
-<span class="pageNum" id="pb16">[<a href="#pb16">16</a>]</span>native labour. Both of these mills have been erected. A new difficulty now arose at
-Rangiaowhia, that of finding a miller to take charge of the mill. In the arrangement
-I experienced more vexations and difficulty than in the erection of the mills. There
-was a person ready to take charge, but the natives, not knowing the value of European
-labour, refused to give him a proper remuneration. One old chief offered one quart
-of wheat per day! At length, after two months, this knotty point was settled. On the
-following day the miller commenced work. In the year 1848 the natives of Rangiaowhia
-took down some flour to Auckland, which they sold for about £70. The neighbouring
-tribes, seeing the benefit likely to arise from the erection of mills, began earnestly
-to desire them. One was contracted for at Kawhia, and the sum of about £315 has been
-paid on account. About 1850 a contract was entered into for the erection at Mohoaonui
-[near Otorohanga], on the Waipa, of the largest mill yet built, at a cost of £300.
-The natives of Kawhia are anxious for the erection of a second mill, and the natives
-at Whatawhata and two other villages on the Waipa, and of Kirikiriroa and Maungapa,
-on the Waikato, and also Matamata, propose to erect mills; at several of these places
-the funds are being collected.
-<div class="compositeFigure">
-<p class="figureHead">THE OLD MISSION CHURCHES</p>
-<div class="figure p016-1width"><img src="images/p016-1.jpg" alt="ST. JOHN’S CHURCH, TE AWAMUTU" width="541" height="322"><p class="figureHead">ST. JOHN’S CHURCH, TE AWAMUTU</p>
-</div>
-<div class="figure p016-2width"><img src="images/p016-2.jpg" alt="THE ENGLISH CHURCH AT RANGIAOWHIA" width="583" height="407"><div class="figAnnotation p016-2width"><span class="figBottomLeft">W. Beattie, Photo.</span><span class="figTop">&nbsp;</span></div>
-<p class="figureHead">THE ENGLISH CHURCH AT RANGIAOWHIA</p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<p>“Wheat is very extensively grown in the Waikato district. At Rangiaowhia the wheat
-fields cover about 450 acres of land. I have also introduced barley and oats at that
-place. Many of the people at various villages are now forming orchards, and they possess
-many hundreds of trees budded or grafted by themselves, consisting of peach, apple,
-pear, plum, quince, and almond; also gooseberry bushes in abundance. For flowers or
-ornamental trees they have no taste; as they do not bear fruit, it is, in their opinion,
-loss of time to cultivate them.”
-</p>
-<p>The missionary, concluding his interesting narrative, described a visit paid to the
-district by Sir George Grey, Governor.
-</p>
-<p>“His Excellency,” wrote the missionary, “spent half a day at Rangiaowhia, and expressed
-himself much pleased with the progress of the natives at that place. He visited the
-mill, which was working at the time. Two bags of flour were presented to him for Her
-Majesty the Queen, and they have since been forwarded to London. The Governor has
-since that time presented the Rangiaowhia natives with a pair of fine horses, a dray
-and harness, and a plough and harness. He also requested me to engage a farm servant
-to instruct <span class="pageNum" id="pb17">[<a href="#pb17">17</a>]</span>the natives in the use of the plough, etc.<a class="noteRef" id="xd31e426src" href="#xd31e426">2</a> The value of the flour sent down this year from Rangiaowhia and now ready for the
-Auckland market may be estimated at about £330. Of this sum upward of £240 was, or
-will be, spent in the purchase of horses, drays, and ploughs. Each little tribe is
-now endeavouring to procure a plough and a pair of horses, and the people expect during
-the next year to have at least ten ploughs at work. The rapid advancement in cultivation
-is the fruit of Sir George Grey’s kind present to introduce the plough at those places.
-One of the chiefs at Rangiaowhia has erected a small boarded house. He has also several
-cows, one of which he generally milks in the morning.”
-</p>
-<p class="tb">*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*</p><p>
-</p>
-<p>Such is the story of the very practical missionary work in this district. “Te Mokena”
-truly tamed the people; old cannibals followed the plough and spent days in discussing
-the Auckland market prices of wheat and flour. Distant white communities, too, came
-to depend largely on the Maori farmers of the Upper Waikato for their breadstuffs;
-and when the great gold rushes began in California and Victoria, in 1849–52, the cargoes
-of New Zealand produce sent to far-away San Francisco and to Melbourne often contained
-shipments from Rangiaowhia and other Maori farm-villages.
-</p>
-<div class="figure p024width"><img src="images/p024.jpg" alt="THE RIGHT HON. SIR JOHN E GORST&#xA;" width="490" height="695"><div class="figAnnotation p024width"><span class="figBottomLeft">From a photo., 1906]</span><span class="figTop">&nbsp;</span></div>
-<p class="figureHead">THE RIGHT HON. SIR JOHN E GORST
-</p>
-<p class="first">(Died 1916)
-</p>
-</div><p>
-</p>
-<p></p>
-<div class="figure p024-2width"><img src="images/p024-2.png" alt="Dedication with signature: Yours very truly John E. Gorst." width="358" height="133"></div><p>
-<span class="pageNum" id="pb18">[<a href="#pb18">18</a>]</span></p>
-</div>
-<div class="footnotes">
-<hr class="fnsep">
-<div class="footnote-body">
-<div class="fndiv" id="xd31e395">
-<p class="footnote"><span class="fnlabel"><a class="noteRef" href="#xd31e395src">1</a></span> MS. journal lent to the writer by Mr E. Earle Vaile, of Broadlands, Waiotapu.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd31e395src" title="Return to note 1 in text.">↑</a></p>
-</div>
-<div class="fndiv" id="xd31e426">
-<p class="footnote"><span class="fnlabel"><a class="noteRef" href="#xd31e426src">2</a></span> The old man Pou-patate Huihi, of Te Kopua, told the writer: “Before we procured European
-ploughs we made wooden ones, and these were sometimes drawn by men—<span lang="mi">Ko te tangata te hoiho tuatahi</span> (Man was the first horse).”
-</p>
-<p class="footnote cont">Pou-patate also said that when wheat-growing was at its height on the Waipa, before
-the war, his people received as much as ten or eleven shillings a bushel for the wheat
-in the Auckland market.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd31e426src" title="Return to note 2 in text.">↑</a></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div id="ch4" class="div1 chapter"><span class="pageNum">[<a href="#xd31e205">Contents</a>]</span><div class="divHead">
-<h2 class="label">CHAPTER IV.</h2>
-<h2 class="main">THE GOLDEN AGE BEFORE THE WAR.</h2>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="xd31e453"><span class="xd31e453init">T</span>he period from about 1845 to 1860 was the era of peaceful progress and industry among
-Waikato and Ngati-Maniapoto. It was not until the latter year that the outbreak of
-the Taranaki War, the forerunner of that in Waikato, interrupted the new and profitable
-era of wheat-growing and flour-milling and the pleasures of the annual canoeing expeditions
-down the Waipa and Waikato to the city markets.
-</p>
-<p>These farm-settlements of Morgan’s making were in what may be called their zenith
-of prosperity in the year 1852, when prices for produce were high. In February of
-that year a visit was paid to Te Awamutu and Rangiaowhia by a party of travellers
-from Auckland and Onehunga, among whom was young Heywood Crispe, later a well-known
-Mauku settler and volunteer rifleman. Describing long afterwards this memorable Waikato
-expedition, Mr Crispe said, after narrating that the canoe voyage ended at Te Rore,
-on the Waipa:
-</p>
-<p>“I can well remember the first sight we got in the distance of the steeple of the
-church at the Rev. Mr Morgan’s mission station at Te Awamutu, for some of the party
-were getting a bit tired when it came into sight, and it seemed to put new life into
-them. The natives at Rangiaowhia had made preparations for a goodly party, as they
-had two days’ racing in hand. They allotted to us a large, newly-erected whare, the
-floor being covered with native mats, and it was on them that we indulged in sweet
-sleep. There was a line of whares erected on the crown of Rangiaowhia Hill, from which
-we could obtain a fine view of the surrounding country, and it all had a grand appearance
-in our eyes. There was a long grove of large peach trees and very fine fruit on them.
-Such a waste of fruit it seemed to us, but of course they were of no value there.
-One never sees such trees of peaches now. We, the Europeans, must be the cause by
-the importation of pests from other countries. A large portion of the ground round
-the hill was carrying a very good crop of wheat, for the Maoris believed in that as
-a crop, and they used to convert it into flour at the various flour-mills they had.
-It was of a very good quality, and some of the Waikato mills had a name for <span class="pageNum" id="pb19">[<a href="#pb19">19</a>]</span>the flour they produced, a good deal of which was put on the Auckland market, being
-taken down the Waikato, via Waiuku and Onehunga. It had taken our canoe party about
-three weeks to reach this, our journey’s end, but there was no iron horse then by
-which to make a rapid journey. Now it is only part of a day’s journey to get to the
-same spot.
-</p>
-<p>“We spent several days in our camp on the Rangiaowhia Hill, taking walks and viewing
-the country. We attended the races, which afforded some good sport, all being managed
-by the natives, assisted by some pakeha-Maoris of the neighbourhood. They were white
-men living a Maori life. Some of them had been well-brought-up young men, rather wild
-perhaps, who had drifted away from home and had taken up an idle life among the natives,
-getting regular remittances from their people at Home.
-</p>
-<p>“The Maoris provided all their pakeha friends with a most excellent meal on the ground,
-and peaches galore, as well as horses to ride. We rode some distance round to view
-the country, the Maori flour-mills, and cultivation. There were a lot of good cattle
-and horses about, and the crops of wheat and patches of potatoes were particularly
-good, although no bonedust was used in those days. The Roman Catholics had a very
-nice place of worship at Rangiaowhia, where regular worship was conducted. There were
-mission stations all up the Waikato and Waipa Rivers in those days, and as far as
-Te Awamutu.”
-</p>
-<p>Everywhere the Maoris of those days showed the travellers on their six weeks’ trip
-the greatest hospitality. On the canoe voyage the pakehas called in here and there
-at native settlements and got a supply of pork, potatoes, and peaches.
-</p>
-<p>When the aged Potatau te Wherowhero was made Maori King (1858) there were great gatherings
-at Ngaruawahia and Rangiaowhia. At the latter place the Europeans in the district—the
-mission people, the traders, and artisans—were invited to the festivities. The abundance
-of food at Rangiaowhia was probably the reason why that large village of Ngati-Apakura
-was selected as one of the principal gathering places of the Waikato in 1858–60. Rangiaowhia
-in those days was a beautiful place, with its comfortable thatched houses, shaded
-by groves of peach and apple trees, dotted along the crown of a gently-sloping hill,
-among the fields of wheat, maize, potatoes, and kumara, and its flour-mills in the
-valley. On the most commanding mound was the Roman Catholic Church in front of <span class="pageNum" id="pb20">[<a href="#pb20">20</a>]</span>Hoani Papita’s home; a few hundred yards to the south was the English Church, locally
-greatly admired because of its large stained-glass window, sent out from England by
-Bishop Selwyn. The Maori congregations have vanished long ago, and the pre-war wharekarakia
-are used by the white settlers.
-</p>
-<p>A pioneer colonist, Mrs B.&nbsp;A. Crispe, widow of the late Heywood Crispe, the only survivor
-of the Europeans who witnessed the gathering, recalls some of the scenes in the Rangiaowhia
-of 1858, when she was a girl at school at Mr Morgan’s mission station at Te Awamutu.
-She describes the venerable Potatau as a feeble old man with his face completely tattooed;
-he wore a long black coat and a dark cloth cap with a gold band round it.
-</p>
-<p>Mrs Crispe has memories of the Upper Waikato district as it was toward the end of
-the Fifties, before the Kingite war had destroyed the prosperous agricultural life
-of the Maoris, who then constituted the whole population of the interior with the
-exception of a few missionaries and their families and several traders and other pakeha-Maoris.
-Mrs Crispe, who was the daughter of Mr Mellsop, a pioneer settler of the Mauku district,
-was taken up by her father to the Rev. John Morgan’s mission station at Te Awamutu—in
-those days usually called Otawhao, after the old pa. She was then a young girl, and
-she was placed with the Morgans to be educated; schooling for children was a difficult
-problem with the back-blocks settlers in those days. All communication with the Waikato
-and Waipa country was carried on by canoe, for there were no roads into the interior
-until the troops opened up the country in the Waikato War. In about 1858 the Mellsops
-embarked at Waiuku and passed through the narrow and crooked Awaroa Creek in kopapa,
-or small canoes, the only craft which could navigate this stream, connecting the Manukau
-harbour with the Waikato River. In the Waikato they transferred to a large canoe,
-about sixty feet long, well loaded with goods from Auckland for the mission station
-and the Maori settlements. Their Maori crew paddled them up to Te Rore, on the Waipa;
-the voyage occupied three days. Two nights were spent in camp on the Waikato banks;
-the third day was spent in working up the Waipa River from its junction with the Waikato
-at Ngaruawahia. From Te Rore the party rode across the plain to Te Awamutu. Here Mrs
-Crispe spent two years at school.
-</p>
-<p>The farming missionary had succeeded in giving the wilds of Te Awamutu a thoroughly
-settled and home-like appearance, with <span class="pageNum" id="pb21">[<a href="#pb21">21</a>]</span>wheat fields enclosed by hedges of hawthorn. The wheat grown by the natives in the
-Rangiaowhia-Te Awamutu district was ground at the mills, bagged, and sent down to
-the white settlements for sale. The flour-bags were sewn by the native girls in Mrs
-Morgan’s sewing class at the mission boarding school; and when the flour was being
-ground there would be sewing-bees at the mills, where the girls stitched up the bags
-as they were filled. The flour was carted in bullock drays to Te Rore, where it was
-loaded into canoes. The cargoes were paddled down the Waipa and Waikato, along the
-Awaroa to Waiuku, there loaded into a cutter for Onehunga, and finally carted across
-the isthmus to Auckland town, a journey of over a hundred miles from the Rangiaowhia
-water-mills. The Maoris would invest the proceeds in clothes, blankets, tea, sugar,
-and all kinds of European goods, and then begin their homeward journey. Time was no
-object in those golden years, and a marketing party from Rangiaowhia and Te Awamutu
-would sometimes spend several weeks on the trip, returning with pakeha commodities
-to delight the hearts of their families and endless tales of all the sights they had
-seen in the distant town.
-</p>
-<p>An incident of the visits to Rangiaowhia over sixty years ago is recalled by Mrs Crispe.
-She and the Morgan girls noticed a peach tree loaded with great white korako in an
-enclosure near the English Church, and presently they were enjoying a feast of fruit.
-A Maori woman came up to them in great alarm and told them that they must not touch
-the peaches; the tree was tapu, and she was afraid that the fruit would kill them
-as it assuredly would have killed any Maori who ate it. It often happened that the
-choicest fruit trees were under the ban of tapu for some reason, such as the recent
-death of the owner.
-</p>
-<p>In front of Mr Morgan’s mission house at Te Awamutu there was a row of almond trees.
-These almonds—so seldom seen in a New Zealand orchard now—were widely distributed
-among the natives; hence the remarkably large trees, up to about thirty feet in height,
-which grew on the old Maori cultivations at Orakau and elsewhere, and survived long
-after the land had been confiscated by the Crown and settled by white farmers.
-</p>
-<p>Dr Ferdinand von Hochstetter, the famous Austrian geologist, on his expedition through
-the interior of the North Island in 1859, admired the settled aspect of Te Awamutu
-and the neighbouring country. He made an ascent of Mount Kakepuku, setting out from
-<span class="pageNum" id="pb22">[<a href="#pb22">22</a>]</span>the Rev. Alexander Reid’s Wesleyan mission station at Te Kopua, and from the summit
-viewed the valley of the Waipa: “The beautiful, richly-cultivated country about Rangiaowhia
-and Otawhao lay spread out before us like a map. I counted ten small lakes and ponds
-scattered about the plains. The church steeples of three places were seen rising from
-among orchards and fields. Verily I could hardly realise that I was in the interior
-of New Zealand.”
-</p>
-<p>Now the scene has vastly changed. A far more richly-cultivated country than that which
-the wandering geologist saw in 1859 stretches in all directions, and the railway engine
-trails the smoke-banner of the pakeha past Kakepuku’s foot, between him and his hill-wife
-Kawa. But some relics of Hochstetter’s day remain. The picture-like spires of the
-English mission church at Te Awamutu and the English and Roman Catholic Churches at
-Rangiaowhia still rise above the tree-groves, heaven-pointing fingers that carry a
-suggestion of antiquity all too rare in man’s work in New Zealand.
-<span class="pageNum" id="pb23">[<a href="#pb23">23</a>]</span></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div id="ch5" class="div1 chapter"><span class="pageNum">[<a href="#xd31e215">Contents</a>]</span><div class="divHead">
-<h2 class="label">CHAPTER V.</h2>
-<h2 class="main">JOHN GORST AT TE AWAMUTU.</h2>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="xd31e453"><span class="xd31e453init">T</span>he determination of the Maori tribes to establish a King was not in the beginning
-hostile to the white Government. On the contrary, Wiremu Tamehana, of Ngati-Haua,
-a man of lofty ideals and altogether admirable character, continually emphasised the
-fact that the kingdom must be on a footing of friendship with the pakeha; it was simply
-to govern the Maoris within their own district and to ensure a measure of peace and
-order which the Queen’s Government could not maintain. The King movement was originated
-in 1851–52 by Tamehana te Rauparaha—son of the great Rauparaha—who had been on a voyage
-to England and returned with ideas for the betterment of his race, and by Matene te
-Whiwhi, of Otaki. The difficulty was to select a suitable chief as King, and one man
-after another declined the honour, until at last Matene and his fellow-chiefs persuaded
-the aged warrior Potatau te Wherowhero, of Waikato, to take the position. Potatau,
-like Tawhiao his son after him, was merely a figurehead; the destinies of the native
-confederation were decided by the runangas or tribal councils at Ngaruawahia and Kihikihi.
-Tawhiao succeeded Potatau on the latter’s death in 1860.
-</p>
-<p>A variety of elements, social and political, combined to produce a war feeling in
-Waikato. Iwikau te Heuheu, of Taupo, on his way to a great Waikato meeting in 1857,
-stayed at the mission station and gave Mr Morgan his reasons for supporting the King.
-He contrasted the uncouth and inhospitable treatment of Maori chiefs when visiting
-the towns with the kindness shown by the Maoris to even the lowest grade of pakeha
-who came to their settlements. Tamehana pointed to the inability of the Government
-to preserve peace and order among the tribes; this could only be done by means of
-a native king, and he quoted Scripture and modern history in support of his argument.
-The blundering of the Government in offering civil institutions and then withdrawing
-them without a fair trial, the construction of the military road from Drury to the
-Mangatawhiri River, and finally the heavy losses of the Ngati-Haua and Ngati-Maniapoto
-in the Taranaki War had a cumulative effect in hastening the outbreak in Waikato.
-It was when this feeling <span class="pageNum" id="pb24">[<a href="#pb24">24</a>]</span>was simmering in the Waikato that Mr John Gorst—as he was then—was induced by the
-Government to undertake the difficult task of staying the growing tide of anti-pakeha
-agitation and of diverting the energies of the Kingite tribes to peaceful industries
-and crafts. He came several years too late. The institutions and the measure of home
-rule which Sir George Grey offered to the Kingites in 1863 only to have them rejected
-would have met with a cordial acceptance had they been put forward five or six years
-previously. But Grey was in South Africa then, and his predecessor, Governor Gore-Browne,
-and his advisers went from blunder to blunder in their determination to stifle the
-natives’ legitimate desire for local self-government.
-</p>
-<p>Mr John Gorst arrived at Auckland from England in 1860, and, being a young man of
-brilliant University attainments, he attracted the attention and friendship of Bishop
-Selwyn, Sir George Grey, and other notable people of the day. It was Mr (afterwards
-Sir William) Fox, then Premier of the Colony, who determined to establish him as resident
-magistrate in the Upper Waikato, and a house was procured for him at Te Tomo, about
-half a mile from the centre of the present town of Te Awamutu. (Te Tomo is now marked
-by an acacia grove in a field south of Te Awamutu, near the Kihikihi Road.) This establishment
-was built on thirty acres of grass land which had been sold to the Crown many years
-before the war began. Here Mr Gorst set up his home in the beginning of 1861; later
-he removed to the mission house opposite the church.
-</p>
-<p>During the first part of his residence in Te Awamutu district Mr Gorst was a magistrate
-and a kind of intelligence officer for the Government. During the latter part he was
-styled Commissioner of Upper Waikato, and lived at the mission station in charge of
-a technical school and hospital. In the early period, as Gorst narrated in after years,
-he was rather the officer of Mr Fox’s Ministry than of the Government. He was a magistrate,
-but as a matter of fact his jurisdiction was derided by the Maoris, and he found none
-except a few pakehas to obey him. “The Maori from the first,” he said, “refused to
-consent to my exercising any kind of authority among them.” Even his great friend
-Wiremu Tamehana, though anxious to receive advice and instruction, objected to the
-admission into the Kingite district of a magistrate who received his authority from
-the Queen.
-<span class="pageNum" id="pb25">[<a href="#pb25">25</a>]</span></p>
-<p>In 1862–63 Mr Gorst was rather the officer of Sir George Grey than of the Ministry
-(then Mr Domett’s). The Church Mission estate of about 200 acres, with school buildings
-and dwelling-house, was lent to the Governor for Maori educational purposes. Describing
-the establishment then formed, Gorst wrote:
-</p>
-<p>“Everyone in the school was clothed, lodged, and fed in plain but wholesome and civilised
-style. Clothes and bedding were regularly inspected and kept scrupulously clean. A
-schoolmaster was appointed, who taught reading, writing, and arithmetic to all, and
-besides this each young man was employed for five hours daily in one of the various
-mechanical trades carried out within the school. Thus each had an opportunity, not
-only of acquiring a sound elementary education, but of fitting himself to gain a livelihood
-by practising some handicraft taught at the school. The trades carried on were those
-of carpenter, blacksmith, wheelwright, shoemaker, tailor, and, later on, printer.
-A few were employed in agriculture and in tending cattle and sheep upon the school
-estate, some as regular occupations and others as an occasional change from indoor
-employment. English artisans employed as teachers were chiefly men who had been living
-in the neighbourhood and were familiar with the Maoris and their language. Most had
-previously been exercising their trades for the benefit of the district, and the only
-difference was that they were now more systematically at work and were instructing
-native apprentices. The Maoris of the district had therefore to resort to the Government
-establishment for the repair of their ploughs and carts and for their shoes and clothes.
-The demand for all these services was far greater than the supply, so there was a
-prospect of being able to supply a great number of Maori apprentices in every department
-with certain profit. Even Rewi and Tamehana themselves visited the school. The latter
-extended his patronage so far as to be measured for a pair of trousers, for which
-he paid £1 in advance, but Te Oriori intercepted them on their way to Matamata, and
-was so charmed with the fit that he refused to part with them, and told Tamehana he
-would agree to take them as a present.”
-</p>
-<p>The school establishment certainly did very useful work, and thus far was appreciated
-by the Maoris; but they could never forget that Gorst was a Government official.
-</p>
-<div class="figure p025-1width"><img src="images/p025-1.jpg" alt="THE LAST CANOE VOYAGE" width="588" height="409"><div class="figAnnotation p025-1width"><span class="figBottomLeft">W. Beattie, Photo.]</span><span class="figTop">&nbsp;</span></div>
-<p class="figureHead">THE LAST CANOE VOYAGE</p>
-<p class="first">Sir John Gorst and party in the “Tangi-te-Kiwi” at Ngaruawahia, December 6th, 1906<span class="corr" id="xd31e505" title="Not in source">.</span>
-</p>
-</div><p>
-</p>
-<div class="figure p025-2width"><img src="images/p025-2.jpg" alt="THE REV. B. Y. ASHWELL’S MISSION STATION, KAITOTEHE, WAIKATO RIVER" width="577" height="408"><p class="figureHead">THE REV.&nbsp;B.&nbsp;Y. ASHWELL’S MISSION STATION, KAITOTEHE, WAIKATO RIVER</p>
-<p class="first">The site of this pre-war mission station was on the left bank of the Waikato, opposite
-Taupiri. This picture is a sketch made shortly before the war in 1863, by Lieut. (afterwards
-Colonel) H.&nbsp;S. Bates of the 65th Regiment, who was an A.D.C. to Sir George Grey and
-Staff Interpreter to General Cameron. Governor Grey’s camp, on one of his Waikato
-expeditions, is shown on the river bank (see Note in Appendices, p. 103).</p>
-</div><p>
-</p>
-<p>It was presently decided by the Government that a native hospital should be erected
-on an area of Crown land about three-quarters <span class="pageNum" id="pb26">[<a href="#pb26">26</a>]</span>of a mile from Te Awamutu. The position of Medical Commissioner of the Waikato was
-offered to and accepted by the Rev. A. Purchas, of Onehunga. At the same time Sir
-George Grey sanctioned the establishment of a Maori newspaper to reply to the “Hokioi,”
-the Kingite print issued at Ngaruawahia. Mr E.&nbsp;J. von Dadelszen<a class="noteRef" id="xd31e518src" href="#xd31e518">1</a> (afterwards Registrar-General of New Zealand) was appointed printer; he had learned
-the trade on Bishop Selwyn’s printing-press in Auckland.
-</p>
-<p>A press and type were bought in Sydney, and set up in Te Awamutu early in 1863. This
-was the beginning of the end for Mr Gorst’s establishment.
-</p>
-<p>The Government Maori newspaper was called “<span lang="mi">Te Pihoihoi Mokemoke i Runga i te Tuanui</span>” (“The Lonely Lark on the House-top”—the Maori having no word for sparrow), and it
-set about briskly replying to the Kingite propaganda of “<span lang="mi">Te Hokioi e Rere Atu Na</span>” (“The Soaring War Bird”), which was edited and printed by Patara te Tuhi, afterwards
-a great friend of Sir John Gorst. The first number of the “Pihoihoi” was published
-at Te Awamutu on 2nd February, 1863, and was widely distributed over Waikato, arousing
-intense interest among the Kingites.
-</p>
-<p>The “copy” for the first issue was revised by Sir George Grey himself, and was published
-under his authority. It contained an article which greatly excited the resentment
-of Rewi and the more truculent section of the Kingite natives. The article was entitled,
-“The Evil of the King Movement,” and it criticised a letter from King Tawhiao—or Matutaera
-(Methusaleh), as he was then generally known—to the Governor, dated 8th December,
-1862, which had been printed in the “Hokioi,” and which inquired what evil had been
-done by the King and on what account he was blamed. The “Pihoihoi” gave an answer
-to these inquiries from the pakeha Government point of view; Gorst’s leader was translated
-into forceful and idiomatic Maori by Miss Ashwell, daughter of the missionary at Kaitotehe,
-opposite Taupiri. The strong criticism of the Kingite aspirations quickly provoked
-action among Mr Gorst’s neighbours, who asked, “Why is this troublesome printing-press
-allowed in our midst?” Only five numbers of the “Pihoihoi” were printed before the
-indignant Rewi intervened with his war-party.
-</p>
-<p>The coup planned by Ngati-Maniapoto in the tribal council-house “Hui-te-Rangiora”
-at Kihikihi was executed on 24th March, <span class="pageNum" id="pb27">[<a href="#pb27">27</a>]</span>1863. A war-party of eighty men and lads, most of them armed with guns, marched into
-Te Awamutu that afternoon, led by Aporo Taratutu, and accompanied by Rewi Maniapoto,
-and also by the old Taranaki chief Wiremu Kingi te Rangitaake. (The unjustifiable
-seizure of Kingi’s land at Waitara by the Government had been the cause of the first
-Taranaki War.) Rewi and Wiremu Kingi remained at Porokoru’s house, which stood in
-the middle of the present town of Te Awamutu, while Aporo led his taua down to the
-mission station, halted them there, and had prayers by way of sanctifying the afternoon’s
-operations. Young von Dadelszen and a Maori youth were busy at the time in the little
-printing-office printing the fifth number of the “Pihoihoi Mokemoke.” Mr Gorst was
-absent; he had ridden over to the mission station at Te Kopua, on the Waipa, to inquire
-about some bullocks which were being purchased for the <span class="corr" id="xd31e536" title="Source: Governmen">Government</span> station. A report had reached him that a taua from Kihikihi would visit Te Awamutu
-that day, but he treated it as an idle rumour.
-</p>
-<p>The actions of Ngati-Maniapoto are described by Mr von Dadelszen in the following
-report which Mr Gorst sent to Sir George Grey with his own account of the breaking-up
-of the station:
-</p>
-<p>“About 3 o’clock in the afternoon of Tuesday, 24th March, while the newspapers for
-that day were being printed, a number of natives arrived, about 50 of them armed with
-guns, and the remainder with native weapons, and stationed themselves in front of
-the printing-office. I locked the door before their faces, put the key in my pocket,
-and went a little distance off. After a short prayer, they broke the door open, and
-proceeded to take the press down, and carry it outside to some drays they had there.
-While they were doing this, Patene, the Ngaruawahia chief, arrived, and partly succeeded
-in stopping them, turning about six out of the printing-office (it being then quite
-full of natives). After some time, however, he came away, and the work went on. Everything
-connected with the printing was taken away, together with a port-manteau belonging
-to Mr Mainwaring, and a box containing some of my clothes. When all was gone, they
-stationed sentinels at the door, and allowed no one inside. Before breaking open the
-door they had a scuffle with the native teacher, who placed himself before it, and
-was dragged away after some resistance. They also broke down about twenty yards of
-the fence between the printing-office and the road. They camped all round the house,
-but about 6 o’clock <span class="pageNum" id="pb28">[<a href="#pb28">28</a>]</span>allowed us to enter and take our clothes from the little bedroom at the back. They
-did not attempt to touch anything in the main building. In the evening they stationed
-their soldiers all round the house. About 8 o’clock, Mr Gorst, Mr White, and Mr Mainwaring
-arrived. There was some talk of setting fire to the place, and one or two fire-sticks
-were brought, but they determined not to do it in the end. A good many guns were loaded
-with ball, but none fired. A great many slept in the printing-office that night. During
-the remainder of the afternoon, Taati, Patene, and Te Oriori on one side, and the
-leaders of the soldiers on the other, talked a great deal in the road. William King
-[Wiremu Kingi], Rewi, and a few others stayed some distance off, and gave their orders
-from there. The mail box, etc., were also taken, with the mail money.—E.&nbsp;J. von Dadelszen.”
-</p>
-<p>The printing-press, the Kingites’ <span lang="fr">bete noir</span>, was carried out, with all the type, reams of paper, and printed copies of the fifth
-number of the “Pihoihoi,” and the whole plant was loaded on to bullock drays and carted
-off to Kihikihi. Nothing else, however, was taken; some private belongings, such as
-boxes of clothes, were scrupulously returned as soon as it was discovered that they
-were not part of the printing plant. Then the leader of the war-party surrounded the
-mission buildings with a cordon of sentries, and awaited Mr Gorst’s return. The Maoris
-camped on the road and in the adjacent field opposite the church, and their watch-fires
-blazed as evening came down.
-</p>
-<p>Mr Gorst rode in after dark, and was permitted to pass unmolested. A message was sent
-in to him that if he refused to go away in the morning he would be shot. Resistance
-was impossible, for although the youths in the school establishment declared that
-they would stand by “Te Kohi” there were no arms, and in any case a conflict could
-only have ended in the victory of Rewi’s veterans of the Taranaki war and in the slaughter
-of the Government people.
-</p>
-<p>Next morning there were scenes of intense excitement on the gathering road between
-the mission station and the church where the present main road runs. Mr Gorst was
-ordered to depart. He replied that nothing would induce him to leave his post but
-orders from the Governor. Rewi for his part declared that he and his men would not
-stir from the spot until his object was accomplished.
-<span class="pageNum" id="pb29">[<a href="#pb29">29</a>]</span></p>
-<p>Presently, through the intervention of the Rev. A. Reid, the Wesleyan missionary at
-Te Kopua, Rewi, at a personal interview with Mr Gorst, agreed to withdraw his men
-and give the Commissioner three weeks in which to communicate with Sir George Grey.
-Rewi then in a speech gave his reasons for raiding the station. The Governor, he said,
-had shown himself hostile to the Maori King movement, and had been ceaseless in his
-machinations against the confederation of the tribes. Sir George Grey had begun to
-make a military road to the Waikato, and finally at Taupiri he had made a speech in
-which he said he “would dig around the King until he fell.” They looked round to see
-where the spades were at work, and they saw “Te Kohi”; they were resolved to have
-no digging of that kind in Waikato, and so they had determined to remove him from
-the land of the Maori.
-</p>
-<p>Rewi then, at Mr Gorst’s invitation, went into the house and wrote the following letter
-for transmission to the Governor:
-</p>
-<blockquote>
-<p class="first xd31e337">(Translation.)
-</p>
-<p class="dateline">“Te Awamutu,
-<br>“March 25, 1863.
-</p>
-<p class="salute">“Friend Governor Grey:
-</p>
-<p>“Greeting. This is my word to you. Mr Gorst has been killed [has suffered] through
-me. I have taken away the press. These are my men who took it—eighty, armed with guns.
-The object of this is to expel Mr Gorst, so that he may return to town; it is on account
-of the great trouble occasioned by his being sent here to stay and beguile us, and
-also on account of your words, ‘I shall dig at the sides, and your kingdom will fall.’
-Friend, take Mr Gorst back to the town; do not leave him to stay with me at Te Awamutu.
-Enough; if you say he is to stay, he will die. Enough; send speedily your letter to
-fetch him in three weeks. It is ended.
-</p>
-<p class="signed">“From your friend,
-<br><span class="indentxd31e568"></span>“From REWI MANIAPOTO.”</p>
-</blockquote><p>
-</p>
-<p>Mr Gorst also wrote a letter, informing Sir George Grey of the occurrences, and saying
-that the natives had beaten him utterly, and that Rewi said if the Governor left him
-it would be to certain death. The letters were sent off to the Governor, who was then
-in Taranaki. While an answer was awaited, Wiremu Tamehana came to see Mr Gorst, and
-sorrowfully told him that he and others of the friendly-disposed party could not protect
-him now. The Governor did not answer Rewi’s letter, but sent instructions to Mr Gorst
-that in the event of there being any danger whatever to life he was to return at once
-to Auckland, with the other Europeans in the employment of the Government.
-</p>
-<p>As the Upper Waikato was now inflamed with the war feeling, <span class="pageNum" id="pb30">[<a href="#pb30">30</a>]</span>Mr Gorst realised that the evacuation of Te Awamutu was the only possible course.
-He left the station on 18th April, 1863. It was more than forty years before he set
-eyes again on the olden scene of his labours for the Maori.
-</p>
-<p>The after-history of the “Pihoihoi Mokemoke” press has been cleared up by dint of
-many inquiries. Practically the whole of the plant was restored to the Government
-after Mr Gorst’s departure. It was placed in a canoe and taken down the Waipa and
-Waikato to Te Iaroa, just below the mouth of the Mangatawhiri River, near Mercer;
-there Mr Andrew Kay—later of Orakau—had a trading store. The press and other material
-were handed over to Mr Kay, who sent word to the Government, and carts were sent to
-take it to Auckland. The press was afterwards used for a time in printing the Government
-“Gazette.” A legend gained currency, and was repeated by writer after writer, each
-copying his equally ill-informed predecessor, that the Kingites melted the type into
-bullets to use in the war. The fact, however, is that the plant was returned to the
-Government very nearly complete. Sir John Gorst told me (1906) that some of Rewi’s
-young men helped themselves to a little of the type as curiosities, but there could
-have been very little missing in that way. As for the “Hokioi” press, the Ngati-Maniapoto
-informed me that it was taken up from Ngaruawahia to Te Kopua for safe-keeping when
-the war began, and there it was lying, rusted and broken, when I last heard of it;
-some of the scattered type was now and again ploughed up on the bank of the Waipa.
-</p>
-<p>Sir John Gorst, re-visiting New Zealand after forty-three years, set foot once more
-in Te Awamutu on 3rd December, 1906, and renewed his acquaintance with some of his
-old native pupils and travelled over the old familiar ground. He was welcomed with
-immense enthusiasm by pakeha and Maori alike, and there was a peculiarly pathetic
-touch in the speeches made by the few Maori survivors of the old regime in Waikato.
-Sir John, with Miss Gorst, visited Captain D. Bockett, one of the original military
-settlers of Rangiaowhia, who occupied the historic mission-house. He went through
-the old buildings and the well-remembered church. Then, with a large party, he visited
-Mr Andrew Kay at his farm at Otautahanga, and talked over the old Waikato days; and
-on the day’s drive passed over the battlefields of Hairini, Rangiaowhia, and Orakau.
-At a great gathering at Te Awamutu to welcome “Te <span class="pageNum" id="pb31">[<a href="#pb31">31</a>]</span>Kohi” one of the speakers was the veteran Tupotahi, one of the heroes of the Orakau
-defence; he had been a member of Aporo’s war-party which invaded the Government station
-in 1863. Ngati-Maniapoto greeted with a quite extraordinary enthusiasm the distinguished
-manuhiri whom they had driven from their midst in the days of the racial quarrels,
-now happily buried for ever.
-</p>
-<p>There was more than a touch of the poetic in the farewell to “Te Kohi” and his daughter
-at the railway station, Te Awamutu, when the venerable man bade good-bye for ever
-to his friends old and new. Two pretty native girls, Victoria and Ngahuia Kahu Hughes,
-daughters of William Hughes, of Kakepuku—one of Mr Gorst’s old pupils at the mission
-station before the debacle of 1863—stood hand-in-hand on the platform and sang very
-sweetly this parting waiata:
-</p>
-<div lang="mi" class="lgouter xd31e333">
-<div class="lg">
-<p class="line">Hoki hoki tonu mai
-</p>
-<p class="line">Te wairua a Te Kohi.
-</p>
-<p class="line">Kia awhi-reinga
-</p>
-<p class="line">Ki tenei kiri—ee—ii!
-</p>
-</div>
-<div class="lg">
-<p class="line">Ka huri koe i Te Awamutu
-</p>
-<p class="line">Ka tahuri whakamuri;
-</p>
-<p class="line">Mokemoke rere a te aroha—ee—ii!
-</p>
-</div>
-<div class="lg">
-<p class="line">Ka eke ki tereina,
-</p>
-<p class="line">Ka tahuri whakamuri;
-</p>
-<p class="line">Mokemoke te rere a te auahi—ee—ii!
-</p>
-</div>
-<div class="lg">
-<p class="line">Ka pinea korua
-</p>
-<p class="line">Ki te pine o te aroha,
-</p>
-<p class="line">Ki te pine e kore nei e waikura—ee—ii!</p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="lgouter">
-<h4 class="xd31e602">(Translation.)</h4>
-<div class="lg">
-<p class="line">Return, return, the spirit of Te Kohi,
-</p>
-<p class="line">To greet me once again
-</p>
-<p class="line">In the shadowy land of dreams.
-</p>
-</div>
-<div class="lg">
-<p class="line">When you look your last on Te Awamutu
-</p>
-<p class="line">Send back your love to us,
-</p>
-<p class="line">To the lonely ones you ne’er will see again!
-</p>
-</div>
-<div class="lg">
-<p class="line">And as the railway bears you far away,
-</p>
-<p class="line">O backward turn your gaze;
-</p>
-<p class="line">Like the smoke that backward drifts—ah, me!
-</p>
-<p class="line">Farewell, a fond farewell!
-</p>
-</div>
-<div class="lg">
-<p class="line">We will pin you both to our hearts
-</p>
-<p class="line">With the pin of love,
-</p>
-<p class="line">The pin that will never rust!</p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<p class="first">It was a pathetic little song with something of the sentiment breathed in Tom Moore’s
-beautiful old Irish melody:
-<span class="pageNum" id="pb32">[<a href="#pb32">32</a>]</span></p>
-<div class="lgouter xd31e333">
-<p class="line">As slow our ship her foamy track
-</p>
-<p class="line xd31e626">Against the wind was cleaving,
-</p>
-<p class="line">Her trembling pennant still looked back
-</p>
-<p class="line xd31e626">To that dear isle ‘twas leaving.
-</p>
-<p class="line">So loth we part from all we love,
-</p>
-<p class="line xd31e626">From all the links that bind us;
-</p>
-<p class="line">So turn our hearts, where’er we rove,
-</p>
-<p class="line xd31e626">To those we’ve left behind us.</p>
-</div>
-<div class="div2 section"><span class="pageNum">[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]</span><div class="divHead">
-<h3 class="main">THE LAST CANOE VOYAGE.</h3>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="first">Of a picturesque quality, too, was “Te Kohi’s” passage to Auckland down the Waikato
-River. It had been arranged with Mahuta, the King of Waikato—son of Tawhiao—that Sir
-John should be taken down the river from Ngaruawahia to Waahi, near Huntly, by Maori
-canoe, passing the scenes once familiar to him in his before-the-war journeyings and
-reviving memories of the primitive old days. Ngaruawahia in his era in the Waikato
-was the capital of the Maori King, and no craft but dug-out canoes floated on the
-great river. It was a glorious summer morning when Sir John Gorst and his daughter
-and their party embarked at the green delta in a fine, roomy, white-pine canoe, the
-“Tangi-te-Kiwi,” 70 feet in length, with a crew of fifteen Maori paddlers, for the
-voyage down the Waikato to Waahi. The sun drove away the early mists, and the bush-clad
-range of the Hakarimata “stood up and took the morning,” high above the willows that
-fringed the low banks of the shining river. Down the long curving reaches the big
-waka swept with the powerful current aiding the paddles, and the canoe captain, old
-Hori te Ngongo, standing amidships, gave the time to his crew with voice and gesture,
-now and again breaking into a high chanted song of the ancient days. One of Hori’s
-songs was peculiarly appropriate, for it had been composed in 1863 with special reference
-to Gorst and the Mangatawhiri River, the frontier line of those days. Thus chanted
-old Hori, the kai-hau-tu, in a long-drawn high song to which the paddlers kept time
-as they dipped and lifted their blades:
-</p>
-<div lang="mi" class="lgouter xd31e333">
-<p class="line">Koia e Te Kohi,
-</p>
-<p class="line">Purua i Mangatawhiri,
-</p>
-<p class="line">Kia puta ai ona pokohiwi,
-</p>
-<p class="line">Kia whato tou
-</p>
-<p class="line">E hi na wa!</p>
-</div>
-<p class="first">In this waiata the Commissioner of Waikato was requested to <span class="pageNum" id="pb33">[<a href="#pb33">33</a>]</span>“plug up” the boundary river between pakeha and Maori lands and make it a close frontier,
-and thus prevent the King’s followers passing below its mouth to trade in Auckland,
-so that presently, for want of European clothing, their naked bodies might be seen
-protruding from their scanty native garments.
-</p>
-<p>Now and again as the “Tangi-te-Kiwi” approached a native hamlet on the west bank of
-the river the crew would redouble their strokes and the captain would chant in a louder,
-wilder key the old-time song for “Te Kohi,” and from the village women would come
-a shrill reply and long, wailing cries of “Haere-mai! Haere mai!” The canoe swept
-past the sites of the old mission station and mission schools at Hopuhopu and at Kaitotehe
-(opposite Taupiri)—the latter was Mr Ashwell’s station before the war—and Sir John’s
-eyes lingered with a pathetic interest on the scenes he knew in 1861–63 until a change
-of course or bend in the river hid them from his view.
-</p>
-<div class="table">
-<table class="tbl033">
-<tr>
-<td class="cellLeft cellTop">
-<div class="figure p033-1width"><img src="images/p033-1.jpg" alt="COLONEL WADDY, C.B., 50th Regiment" width="235" height="351"><p class="figureHead">COLONEL WADDY, C.B., 50th Regiment</p>
-<p class="first">(This veteran soldier was affectionately called by his men “Old Daddy.”)</p>
-</div>
-</td>
-<td class="cellRight cellTop">
-<div class="figure p033-2width"><img src="images/p033-2.jpg" alt="CAPTAIN H. C. RYDER" width="237" height="354"><p class="figureHead">CAPTAIN H.&nbsp;C. RYDER</p>
-<p class="first">(Capt. H.&nbsp;C. Ryder, father of Col. H.&nbsp;R. Ryder of Te Awamutu, was paymaster of the
-40th Regiment and was stationed at Te Awamutu, 1863–7)</p>
-</div>
-</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="cellLeft cellBottom">
-<div class="figure p033-3width"><img src="images/p033-3.jpg" alt="SIR GEORGE GREY" width="238" height="353"><p class="figureHead">SIR GEORGE GREY</p>
-<p class="first">(From a photograph about 1860)</p>
-</div>
-</td>
-<td class="cellRight cellBottom">
-<div class="figure p033-4width"><img src="images/p033-4.jpg" alt="GEORGE AUGUSTUS SELWYN" width="239" height="343"><p class="figureHead">GEORGE AUGUSTUS SELWYN</p>
-<p class="first">(First Bishop of New Zealand)</p>
-</div>
-</td>
-</tr>
-</table>
-</div><p>
-</p>
-<p>High-peaked Taupiri, beloved of the old-time Maori, tapu and legend-haunted, was passed
-on the right; and then, as the canoe glided down the broad, glimmering reach, willow-walled,
-toward Huntly town, we saw another long Maori waka appear in the distance ahead, its
-two rows of paddles flashing in the sun with beautiful regularity. In a few moments
-the two canoes met. The stranger was the royal canoe, “Te Wao-nui-a Tane” (“The Great
-Forest of Tane”—the Maori god of the woods), which had been sent up by Mahuta to meet
-Sir John Gorst’s canoe, challenge us in true Maori style, and escort us down to the
-meeting-place at Waahi. A splendid picture the “Wao-nui-a Tane” made as she swept
-up under the strong strokes of twenty-six paddlers, all stripped to the waist, their
-brown shoulders bowing and rising as one. Amidships stood a red-capped captain, the
-chief Te Paki, giving the time to his crew and chanting the old war-time songs. The
-crew were all picked men of the Ngati-Whawhakia tribe of Waahi, the best canoe-men
-on the Waikato. The canoe itself was about 70 feet in length, like our waka, the “Tangi-te-Kiwi.”
-As the King’s canoe came alongside, Miss Gorst and the Minister of the Crown (the
-Hon. George Fowlds) who accompanied the Dominion’s guests were transferred to her,
-and away down the glistening river shot the “Wao-nui-a Tane,” easily distancing our
-canoe. Down the river she flashed at racing speed, her paddles glinting like wet wings
-in the sun. Ngati-Whawhakia gave an exhibition of faultless time <span class="pageNum" id="pb34">[<a href="#pb34">34</a>]</span>and paddling that day as they swept down far ahead of us to Waahi, their old kai-hau-tu
-yelling himself hoarse with his boat-songs. It was a perfect picture of old Maoridom
-revived, bringing once more to the honoured guest’s mind the romantic and adventurous
-scenes in the days before the war, when hundreds of canoes, large and small, made
-lively this noble waterway; the days before ever a pakeha steamboat’s paddle-wheel
-startled the Waikato.
-</p>
-<p>And after the great welcome chants of the powhiri at the crowded marae of Waahi, “Te
-Kohi” gripped hands once again with the venerable and benevolent-looking veteran Patara
-te Tuhi, the chivalrous Kingite who edited and printed the “Hokioi” at Ngaruawahia
-in the Sixties, and who, when Mr Gorst had been ejected from Te Awamutu, gave him
-shelter one night—the ironical humour of fate!—in the raupo-thatched printing-office
-of the rebel “War Bird.”
-<span class="pageNum" id="pb35">[<a href="#pb35">35</a>]</span></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="footnotes">
-<hr class="fnsep">
-<div class="footnote-body">
-<div class="fndiv" id="xd31e518">
-<p class="footnote"><span class="fnlabel"><a class="noteRef" href="#xd31e518src">1</a></span> Died in Wellington, 1922.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd31e518src" title="Return to note 1 in text.">↑</a></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div id="ch6" class="div1 chapter"><span class="pageNum">[<a href="#xd31e226">Contents</a>]</span><div class="divHead">
-<h2 class="label">CHAPTER VI.</h2>
-<h2 class="main">THE WAIKATO WAR.</h2>
-<div class="epigraph">
-<div class="lgouter xd31e333">
-<p class="line">We broke a King and we built a road—
-</p>
-<p class="line">A courthouse stands where the reg’ment goed,
-</p>
-<p class="line">And the river’s clean where the raw blood flowed,
-</p>
-<p class="line xd31e691">When the Widow give the party.
-</p>
-</div>
-<p class="first xd31e693">—“<i>Barrack-Room Ballads.</i>”</p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="xd31e453"><span class="xd31e453init">T</span>he eviction of Mr Gorst from Te Awamutu served to precipitate the Waikato War, but
-in truth a conflict had become inevitable. There was a widespread feeling that the
-time had come for a racial trial of strength, and the conflict was due as much to
-the aggressive policy of the Government and the anti-Maori tone of the newspapers
-and the politicians as to the martial preparations of the Kingites.
-</p>
-<p>The construction of the military road and the establishment of military posts in obvious
-readiness for an advance into the Waikato confirmed the natives in their belief that
-the Government meant to force a way into the interior and shatter their home-rule
-plans.
-</p>
-<p>The first definite act of war was Lieutenant-General Cameron’s despatch of troops
-across the frontier, the Mangatawhiri River, on 12th July, 1863.
-</p>
-<p>Te Huirama, with a body of Waikato, barred the way with rifle-pits on the Koheroa
-ridge, near Mercer, and on 17th July the first engagement took place. The troops under
-Cameron charged the Maori position with the bayonet, and the Kingites were driven
-out with the loss of their leader and about thirty others. Numerous skirmishes followed
-in the South Auckland country on the northern side of the Mangatawhiri; the Lower
-Waikato and Wairoa and Hauraki war-parties carried gun and tomahawk into their enemy’s
-country, following their favourite tactics of ambuscade and plunder. There were many
-bush fights, in which the Forest Rangers and the Forest Rifle Volunteers, as well
-as Imperial troops and militia, were engaged.
-</p>
-<p>The three principal fortified posts of the Kingites in the early stages of the war
-were Paparata, Meremere, and Pukekawa. These positions were designed to stop the southward
-progress of the troops and enable the Maoris to levy war on the frontier settlements.
-<span class="pageNum" id="pb36">[<a href="#pb36">36</a>]</span>Pukekawa is the beautiful round green hill on the west side of the great elbow of
-the Waikato, where the river bends westward below Mercer; anciently a fortified pa
-of the Ngati-Tamaoho stood on its summit. When the Waikato War began the Ngati-Maniapoto
-came down the river in their canoes and selected it as their headquarters, and from
-Pukekawa as a convenient base they made raids on Patumahoe, Mauku, Camerontown, and
-other frontier districts. They expected to be attacked there, and entrenched themselves,
-but General Cameron did not carry the war to the west side of the Waikato.
-</p>
-<p>Presently the arrival of gunboats specially adapted for the river war enabled Cameron
-to outflank and capture the strongholds on the east bank of the Waikato and to occupy
-Ngaruawahia, the Maori King’s headquarters, unopposed. His only serious check was
-at Rangiriri, where in disastrous frontal attacks the Imperial naval and military
-forces sustained heavy casualties—47 dead and 85 wounded. The pa surrendered next
-day, and 183 prisoners were taken. The Lower Waikato was conquered, and the General
-with his steam flotilla shifted the army to the Waikato-Waipa delta for the final
-blows to the Kingite cause.
-</p>
-<div class="div2 section"><span class="pageNum">[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]</span><div class="divHead">
-<h3 class="main">PATERANGI AND WAIARI.</h3>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="first">Falling back from pa to pa, Waikato and Ngati-Maniapoto at last concentrated their
-forces in the great series of entrenchments at Pikopiko, Paterangi, and Rangiatea,
-defensive works intended to block the march of the Imperial and Colonial troops on
-the principal Kingite cultivations and food stores at Rangiaowhia. The chief fortification
-was Paterangi; the traces of this elaborate system of earthworks can be seen to-day
-close to Mr Harry Rhodes’ farmhouse on Paterangi Hill.
-</p>
-<p>General Cameron’s headquarters were at Te Rore, on the Waipa, and there he camped
-for several weeks early in 1864. The principal engagement during this period of waiting—for
-Paterangi was too strong for frontal attack—was a lively skirmish at Waiari, on the
-Mangapiko River. Forty Maoris fell that day (14th February, 1864), and six British
-soldiers lost their lives.
-</p>
-<p>Here, at Waiari, that free-roving and adventurous colonial corps the Forest Rangers
-had their first taste of sharp fighting in the Waipa country. We shall hear a good
-deal of those Rangers in the succeeding chapters. There were two companies of them,
-each <span class="pageNum" id="pb37">[<a href="#pb37">37</a>]</span>fifty strong. No. 1 Company was commanded by Captain William Jackson—afterwards Major
-Jackson and M.H.R. for Waipa—and No. 2 Company by Captain G.&nbsp;F. Von Tempsky, who as
-Major of Armed Constabulary fell in the bush battle of Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu, in Taranaki,
-in 1868. The Rangers were armed with Terry and Calisher breech-loading carbines and
-five-shot revolvers, and Von Tempsky’s men also used bowie-knives, made in Auckland
-from a pattern supplied by him, somewhat on the model of the bowie-knife of Arkansas
-and Texan fame.
-</p>
-<p>The Rangers at Waiari were ordered to clear the Maoris out of the scrub which covered
-the old pa in the river-loop. They dived into the thickets, and soon killed or dispersed
-the Kingite warriors, and then covered the retreat of the main body of troops to Te
-Rore and Colonel Waddy’s advanced camp. The Rangers enjoyed the work so much that
-it was difficult to get them home to camp at Te Rore for their tea. The British dead
-and wounded had been removed, and as many as possible of the Maori dead were brought
-across to the north bank of the Mangapiko. General Cameron had ridden up from the
-main camp at Te Rore in time to witness the defeat of the Maoris in Waiari. The Rangers,
-covering the return of the troops, came under a heavy fire in front and from both
-flanks, and returned it with coolness and accuracy from the cover of the manuka and
-fern.
-</p>
-<p>A veteran corporal of No. 1 Company (Jackson’s) recalls Colonel Havelock’s ire at
-the indifference of the frontiersmen to the bugle calls. “It was getting dusk,” he
-says, “and still all our Rangers had not come out of the scrub, and we could hear
-their carbines cracking in reply to the heavy banging of the double-barrel guns. Captain
-Jackson was standing alongside Colonel Havelock, A.D.C.—the son of the famous hero
-of the Indian Mutiny—who asked why the Rangers had not returned. Jackson replied in
-his blunt fashion that he didn’t know; he supposed they’d come out when they had finished
-their job. The ‘Retire’ was sounded again, but still our fellows kept popping away
-in the dusk. At last, Colonel Havelock, swearing that he would turn out the 40th Regiment
-and fire on the Rangers if they did not obey orders, called up all the buglers that
-could be found and told them to sound the ‘Retire’ all together. Presently our boys
-came out of the manuka and joined us, as pleased as kings with their afternoon’s hot
-work.”
-</p>
-<p>A very few of those hard-fighting Rangers are left to recall the <span class="pageNum" id="pb38">[<a href="#pb38">38</a>]</span>incidents of a vanished phase of New Zealand life. Some—like Major Jackson—settled
-down to pioneer farming, but for others the warpath had attractions irresistible,
-and long after the battle of Orakau many of the young veterans strapped on their fighting
-gear again and followed “old Von” to Wanganui and Taranaki to do battle against the
-Hauhaus. The corps ceased to bear its distinctive name; most of its members returned
-to their sections of land in the military settlements on the confiscated Waikato land;
-some joined the Armed Constabulary. And when Von Tempsky fell to a Hauhau bullet before
-the stockade of Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu it was a young officer who had been his subaltern
-in 1863–64, J.&nbsp;M. Roberts—now Colonel, and holder of the New Zealand Cross for valour—who
-coolly and competently extracted the rearguard after a terrible night in the forest
-of death. He had learnt his work well in Von Tempsky’s practical school in many a
-scout and in many a skirmish in a country where the name of the Forest Rangers is
-already but a dim legend, so quickly has the work of nation-making marched in New
-Zealand.
-</p>
-<p>Von Tempsky was a clever artist in water-colours, and had a gift of writing animated
-narrative. He wrote a journal of events covering his service in the Waikato War, and
-his story of the fighting at Rangiaowhia, Hairini, and Orakau will be given in the
-chapters which follow. His account has the merit of being a participant’s direct description
-of the engagements; moreover, it now sees print for the first time.<a class="noteRef" id="xd31e723src" href="#xd31e723">1</a>
-</p>
-<p>Among the notable figures of that day whom Von Tempsky describes in his journal was
-Bishop George Augustus Selwyn. There is a word-vignette of the great Bishop, riding
-unostentatiously with the army, his old pack-horse ambling along laden with his tent
-and simple camp gear. “What comfort the wounded and sick derived from his presence
-may be imagined,” wrote Von Tempsky. “Often have I followed with my eye his fine,
-manly figure wending its way on errands for the good of others; and the study of that
-man’s character, strongly impressed in a face where hard work has stamped its signet
-on high-bred features, would yield materials for an epic poem. How that man’s being
-has clung to a preconceived idea of his work in this country! How every fibre of his
-existence has wrapped itself round that one object, the improvement of the <span class="pageNum" id="pb39">[<a href="#pb39">39</a>]</span>aboriginal! Through good and evil times he has stood by his work, strong, fresh, after
-years of disappointment, unalterable in his purpose, even if in opposition to the
-good of his own race. There perhaps we find the one flaw in an otherwise almost perfect
-character.”
-<span class="pageNum" id="pb40">[<a href="#pb40">40</a>]</span></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="footnotes">
-<hr class="fnsep">
-<div class="footnote-body">
-<div class="fndiv" id="xd31e723">
-<p class="footnote"><span class="fnlabel"><a class="noteRef" href="#xd31e723src">1</a></span> The original MS. narrative is in the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd31e723src" title="Return to note 1 in text.">↑</a></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div id="ch7" class="div1 chapter"><span class="pageNum">[<a href="#xd31e236">Contents</a>]</span><div class="divHead">
-<h2 class="label">CHAPTER VII.</h2>
-<h2 class="main">THE CAPTURE OF RANGIAOWHIA.</h2>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="xd31e453"><span class="xd31e453init">T</span>he first British soldiers to reach Te Awamutu marched in early on the morning of 21st
-February, 1864. This was General Cameron’s force, which outflanked the Maori defences
-at Paterangi and Rangiatea in a surprise night march, and invaded the chief source
-of food supplies—Rangiaowhia—the decisive strategic movement in the Waikato War.
-</p>
-<div class="figure p040width"><img src="images/p040.jpg" alt="MAJOR WILLIAM JACKSON" width="420" height="596"><p class="figureHead">MAJOR WILLIAM JACKSON</p>
-<p class="first">Major Jackson was a young settler at Papakura when he took command of the Forest Rangers
-in 1863. After serving throughout the Waikato War, he settled at Hairini and afterwards
-at Kihikihi. For many years he commanded the Te Awamutu Cavalry Volunteers. In the
-eighties he was M.H.R. for the Waipa electorate.</p>
-</div><p>
-</p>
-<p>The following is Von Tempsky’s MS. narrative of the night march and the morning’s
-hot work at Rangiaowhia:—
-</p>
-<p>“On 20th February, 1864, the bugle at headquarters, Te Rore camp, sounded, ‘Come for
-orders.’ Everyone, almost, knew what these orders were going to be; and great excitement
-consequently prevailed. The orders were that about half of the troops were to be under
-arms, in heavy marching order, at half past ten that night. The rest, with the luggage
-and so forth, were to follow in the day-time, leaving a sufficient garrison for Te
-Rore. At half past ten the dense columns of our force were drawn up in silence near
-headquarters. No bugle had sounded; the tents were to remain standing, and the cover
-of a moonless night was to hide our circumvention of the wily foe. I had the honour
-to command the advanced guard, composed of my Rangers and 100 men of the 65th under
-Lieutenant Tabuteau. Next followed the Defence Force under Colonel Nixon, and the
-Mounted Artillery, doing troopers’ service, under Lieutenant Rait, an active and energetic
-officer. The rest of the 65th, 70th, some of the 50th, and other detachments followed,
-Westrupp, with No. 1 Company, Forest Rangers, bringing up the rear, as Captain Jackson
-had not yet returned from Auckland. As far as Waiari the road enabled us to march
-in fours. Thence, however, Indian file had to be the order of the march. The importance
-of our redoubt at Waiari became now apparent to me, as its existence there served
-to mask our start. On that point alone was discovery from Paterangi to be apprehended.
-Once past it, our detour of the fern ridges made us nearly safe until we came close
-on to Te Awamutu. Mr James Edwards (half-caste guide) rode ahead of us, Captain Greaves,
-of the staff (70th) by his side, and a better combination of local knowledge <span class="pageNum" id="pb41">[<a href="#pb41">41</a>]</span>and military sagacity never led troops on a difficult march. The high fern had to
-be trodden down, principally by the advanced guard, but we were used to it and knew
-that honour of position had to be paid for. Ridge after ridge was passed, now and
-then a gully, but never very steep, so that packhorses and even bullock drays could
-easily follow our tracks on the morrow.”
-</p>
-<div class="figure p041width"><img src="images/p041.jpg" alt="MAJOR G. F. von TEMPSKY" width="406" height="577"><p class="figureHead">MAJOR G.&nbsp;F. von TEMPSKY</p>
-<p class="first">(Killed at Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu, Taranaki, 1868<span class="corr" id="xd31e750" title="Not in source">.)</span></p>
-</div><p>
-</p>
-<p>At dawn (to summarise Von Tempsky’s story) the troops neared Te Awamutu. It was known
-that at the entrance, by the pass, there was situated an old pa. It was not known
-whether it was now occupied or had been put into repair. The Rangers scouted on ahead
-and found it empty. The cocks at Te Awamutu mission station were now crowing, and
-the steeple of the church came into sight. Bishop Selwyn, and Mr Mainwaring as his
-aide, galloped along ahead to the mission station, whose native inhabitants “were
-under a theocratic flag of truce.” The column pushed on to Rangiaowhia. The young
-troopers of the Colonial Defence Force Cavalry now dashed forward in advance to their
-first serious work.
-</p>
-<p>“Rangiaowhia,” narrated Von Tempsky, “came soon into sight with a blue ridge of mountains
-at the back, its straggling houses between peach groves crowning cultivated ridges,
-with two prominent churches at a short distance from one another. Kahikatea forests
-straggled up to the village, here and there, and when we approached it nearer a succession
-of ridges with some swamp intervening showed us that we had been somewhat deceived
-in the distance. The rapid crack, crack of revolvers and carbines announced to us
-now that the troopers had not forgotten their spurs in getting ahead of us. We listened
-eagerly for the sound of double-barrel guns, and that sound also was soon heard. So
-the conflict had commenced, and that idea lifted our feet with the power of galvanism.
-We probably got there considerably ahead of the main body, but our blood was up, and
-we wanted to support our troopers in the arduous task of riding through streets lined
-with houses whence a desperate foe might have great advantage over mounted men. When,
-however, we got nearer to the thick of the firing, a mounted civilian, with some artillery
-troopers, met me and said that in that direction there was nothing for us to do; if
-we wanted to see a good body of men we should go to the Catholic Church, which was
-crammed full of armed Maoris. I at once took his advice, particularly as I had heard
-but few double-barrels lately in the direction of the Defence Corps. In extended order,
-with 100 of the 65th Regiment in support, <span class="pageNum" id="pb42">[<a href="#pb42">42</a>]</span>we advanced past several rows of deserted whares, from which, however, now and then
-some balls whistled past us. The church being our main object, we paid no attention
-to these minor matters. I sent Lieutenant Roberts with some men round the right flank
-of the church, and our circle gradually drew closer. I could see already some black
-heads at the windows—but of a sudden a white flag went up.
-</p>
-<p>“ ‘Very well, lads,’ I thought, ‘then I shall take you prisoner.’ We advanced still
-nearer. Roberts’ signal announced to me that the church was surrounded, when I heard
-Captain Greaves’ voice calling to me from the rear:
-</p>
-<p>“ ‘The General does not want you to press the Maoris any further.’
-</p>
-<p>“ ‘Not take them prisoner, even?’
-</p>
-<p>“ ‘No.’
-</p>
-<p>“&nbsp;*&nbsp;*&nbsp;* I obeyed, though I was fast consuming my tongue by merciless mastication.
-But honour is due to the order of a man like General Cameron, so I ordered my men
-off and marched to where the firing still continued.<a class="noteRef" id="xd31e764src" href="#xd31e764">1</a>
-</p>
-<p>“The two churches lay more towards the left flank of the village. The firing continued
-more to our right near the centre of the village. As we approached that point we got
-a few long-range shots from distant whares, but took no notice of them.
-</p>
-<p>“In passing a boarded house, however, one more like the building of a European than
-a Maori, two shots were rapidly fired at us from its verandah. I did not believe my
-eyes when I saw there a woman coolly sitting on the verandah and hiding a still smoking
-double-barrel underneath it. She was decently dressed in the semi-European style adopted
-by influential Maoris. She was oldish, and not very fair to look at, particularly
-as her time-worn features were bent into one concentrated expression of hatred—such
-a hatred as Johnson revered and you read of occasionally in old plays.
-</p>
-<p>“I went up to her and had the gun taken away, looking at her all the time, not knowing
-whether I should laugh or feel pathetic—the coolness, the ugliness, and reckless hatred
-of this specimen of Maoridom puzzling my choice of sentiment exceedingly. I thought
-of passing on, just with a warning for future good behaviour, when <span class="pageNum" id="pb43">[<a href="#pb43">43</a>]</span>some officers shouted to me that ‘the old wretch’ had also fired at them, wounded
-a man of the 65th, and been warned already, and that I had better take her prisoner.
-</p>
-<p>“Reluctantly I gave her in charge of one of my men, but accompanied the order with
-a Freemason’s sign which my man understood, the result of which was that the woman
-afterwards quietly slipped away unnoticed.
-</p>
-<p>“Just as we started again we heard another couple of shots from the same house, and
-now thinking that some men might be inside I had the house surrounded.
-</p>
-<p>“Just as Roberts got to the back part, another fairy burst from its door, and, running
-with the fleetness of a deer, dropped her gun just in time to have her sex recognised
-and respected. I was glad that her fleetness saved me from another female responsibility,
-and proceeded onward.
-</p>
-<p>“I met Captain Bower, Adjutant of the Defence Corps, one of the Six Hundred at Balaklava.
-He looked fearfully excited, and hurriedly told me that Colonel Nixon had just been
-shot, and that the bullet had gone through his lung.”
-</p>
-<p>Von Tempsky, describing what he then saw, says that a circle of soldiers of all regiments
-surrounded at some distance a nearly solitary whare with a very narrow and low door;
-in the open doorway lay the body of a soldier of the 65th, shot through the head.
-A constant firing of rifles into the house was carried on with little regard to the
-effects of cross-fire, and the narrator formed his men in a half-circle, in the safe
-radius of the “dead angle” of the house. It seemed that after the house had been first
-surrounded Colonel Nixon sent Lieut. T. McDonnell and Mr Mair, the interpreter, to
-ask the Maoris in it to surrender, assuring them of good treatment. A volley was the
-concise answer. Then the firing into the house commenced, but as the floor was below
-the level of the outside ground the Maoris were comparatively secure for some time.
-Then of a sudden an excited trooper of the Defence Corps dismounted, and dashed, sword
-and revolver in hand, into the whare. Some quick shots were heard, and nothing more
-was seen or heard of him. A man of the 65th rushed forward to ascertain the fate of
-the trooper, but, being covered and hampered by his roll of blankets and other paraphernalia,
-he stuck in the door and was shot in the head. The firing into the whare now became
-a perfect cannonade, and even Colonel Nixon could not abstain from firing with his
-revolver <span class="pageNum" id="pb44">[<a href="#pb44">44</a>]</span>at the open door. Stepping incautiously from behind the corner of a neighbouring whare,
-he received a bullet, fired from that open door.
-</p>
-<p>“When we arrived,” resumes Von Tempsky, “some neighbouring whares had been set fire
-to with the view to communicating the fire to the all-dreaded one. But somehow this
-seemed to me an uncertain process, and unfair. So, looking round at my nearest men,
-I said, ‘We will rush the whare, boys.’
-</p>
-<p>“ ‘Aye! Rush it, rush it!’ was echoed, and with one ‘Forward!’ about a dozen of us
-were round the door in an instant. Sergeant Carron had got ahead of me, and had poked
-his head into the low doorway. I stood impatiently behind him, just on one side of
-the door, thinking that we ought to take the body of the 65th man out of the way first.
-Carron then drew back his head and said to me:
-</p>
-<p>“ ‘There is only one dead man inside, sir.’
-</p>
-<p>“I could not quite understand this, though I could see that it was pitch dark inside,
-and so Carron might have been mistaken.
-</p>
-<p>“At this moment Corporal Alexander, of the Defence Corps, had pushed his way between
-myself and Carron, and, squatting down in the low doorway, commenced to arrange his
-carbine for taking aim, evidently puzzled by the darkness—I urging him either to make
-room for us or jump in.
-</p>
-<p>“A double-barrel thunders, discharged from the interior of the house, a bullet knocks
-through Alexander’s brain, and he drops backward. The doorway was now completely chocked
-with the two bodies. My men dragged away Alexander, and, after firing five shots of
-my revolver quickly into the corner from which I had heard the last report, I dragged
-the 65th man out of the door myself. At that moment, also, one of my men got shot
-in the hip—a fine young fellow, John Ballender. He staggered forward and dropped,
-never more to rise, though he lingered for months in hospital. (Note.—A Canadian by
-birth, by profession a surgeon, he served as a private with me. An excellent shot,
-and brave to a fault. I had known him first at Mauku. His comrades have erected a
-handsome marble slab over his grave at Queen’s Redoubt.)
-</p>
-<p>“I now debated within myself whether the rush might not be renewed, as the door was
-clear now; but I saw that my men, even, had had enough of it, and were pointing significantly
-and triumphantly <span class="pageNum" id="pb45">[<a href="#pb45">45</a>]</span>to the flames that now commenced to lap over from the nearest burning whare to the
-fatal and now fated house. What the feelings of the inmates of that doomed fortress
-must have been passes almost the power of imagination. They must have heard by this
-time the crackling of the approaching fire; they must have felt the heat already.
-Could human nature hold out any longer in resistance?
-</p>
-<p>“No! Behold, one man, in a white blanket, quickly steps from the door and approaches
-the fatal circle at some distance from us. He holds up his arms to show himself unarmed;
-he makes a gesture of surrender; he is an old-looking man.
-</p>
-<p>“ ‘Spare him! Spare him!’ is shouted by all the officers and most of my men. But some
-ruffians—and some men blinded by rage at the loss of comrades, perhaps—fired at the
-Maori.
-</p>
-<p>“The expression of that Maori’s face, his attitude on receiving the first bullet,
-is now as vivid before my mind’s eye as when my heart first sickened over that sight.
-When the first shots struck him he smiled a sort of sad and disappointed smile; then,
-bowing his head, and staggering already, he wrapped his blanket over his face, and,
-receiving his death bullets without a groan, dropped quietly to the ground. (Note.—Had
-all the men been with their regiments—that is to say, had had their own officers near
-them—this would not have happened. In that promiscuous crowd no one knew who one belonged
-to.)
-</p>
-<p>“The flames now caught the roof. Could there be another being yet in that house of
-death? The roaring sound of approaching destruction inside the house, the certainty
-of death outside! What man can bear such wrath of fate?
-</p>
-<p>“Behold! There is one such man! Like an apparition he suddenly stands in front of
-the door—stands bolt upright—and fires his last two shots at us. Defiance flashes
-from his eyes even as he sinks under a shower of bullets.
-</p>
-<p>‘The house is one mass of flame—it is near falling—when another Maori bursts from
-it, gun in hand, and drops pierced by bullets while dauntlessly aiming at the foe.
-As he fell the timbers of the roof bent inward, the house tottered, and with a crash
-crumbled to pieces on the well-fought ground.
-</p>
-<p>“Seven charred bodies of Maoris and the first Defence Corps man were found among the
-blackened ruins. That fortress had held ten defenders. What would not ten hundred
-of such defenders do when properly armed and commanded? Yet I am sorry to say <span class="pageNum" id="pb46">[<a href="#pb46">46</a>]</span>that much of this unyielding desperate disposition is based upon one of the worst
-if the strongest features in Maori character.
-</p>
-<p>“After the fall of the house there remained nothing to do at Rangiaowhia. The General,
-fearing the results of straggling in such a rambling, extensive community as this,
-together with the presumed absence of water in the most important military points,
-decided on returning to Te Awamutu.
-</p>
-<p>“On our way to Te Awamutu I had occasion to observe the peculiar insensibility to
-wounds in Maoris; the same that I had previously observed in North American Indians.
-I had seen an immense, brawny Maori lying on the ground covered with blood, Dr. Mouat,
-V.C., of the Staff, attending him with his usual skill and celerity. I thought that
-kindly attention but thrown away, for the Maori had a sabre cut over the head, a revolver
-bullet in his mouth, a shot through the liver, and a sabre cut over the back. He was
-carried in a stretcher half way to Te Awamutu, when he insisted on getting out, and
-walked the remainder of the way. I saw him the following day in hospital, sitting
-up among the female prisoners, chatting in such an unconcerned way and with such equanimity
-of expression in his features that I doubted the evidence of my eyes that this could
-be the same man I had seen on the previous day with four wounds, each of which would
-have prostrated for some time a European.”
-</p>
-<p>A veteran of No. 1 Company of Forest Rangers, Mr Wm. Johns, of Auckland (formerly
-of Te Rahu), gives the following account of his experiences at Rangiaowhia:
-</p>
-<p>“About a dozen whares were burned in the village. The fight extended from the head
-of the swamp, where Colonel Nixon was shot, right up to the Catholic Church, whence
-we drove the Maoris over the crest into the swamps, next the native racecourse. Some
-shots were fired at us from the English Church; some Maoris were inside the building.
-It was an open skirmish from then right along. There were not more than 200 Maoris
-altogether in Rangiaowhia that day, but they fought well, and had plenty of ammunition.
-After one of our fellows had been shot, my commanding officer said to me, ‘Corporal,
-take two men and see if there are any Maoris in the whare there,’ pointing to a house
-about twenty yards away. I posted the two men outside and stooped to enter the house,
-which was sunk in the ground, with a low entrance. As I entered I was felled by a
-terrific blow on the side of the neck, but deflected somewhat <span class="pageNum" id="pb47">[<a href="#pb47">47</a>]</span>by the edge of the doorway. I lay there stunned for some moments, and when I recovered
-I saw a Maori weapon, a long taiaha, lying beside me. [It is now in the Old Colonists’
-Museum in Auckland; a small piece was nicked out of the blade of it by the doorway
-edge.] My men told me that the inmates of the whare had escaped by bursting through
-the thatch at the back, and got clear away. It was a very narrow escape for me, and
-I took the taiaha as a memento of it. I took no further share in the fight that day,
-but I was able to march back to Te Awamutu.”
-<span class="pageNum" id="pb48">[<a href="#pb48">48</a>]</span></p>
-</div>
-<div class="footnotes">
-<hr class="fnsep">
-<div class="footnote-body">
-<div class="fndiv" id="xd31e764">
-<p class="footnote"><span class="fnlabel"><a class="noteRef" href="#xd31e764src">1</a></span> Later in the day the Rangers had a skirmish with armed Maoris who occupied the Catholic
-Church, and drove them out of it, the natives finding that the walls were not bullet-proof.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd31e764src" title="Return to note 1 in text.">↑</a></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div id="ch8" class="div1 chapter"><span class="pageNum">[<a href="#xd31e246">Contents</a>]</span><div class="divHead">
-<h2 class="label">CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
-<h2 class="main">THE ENGAGEMENT AT HAIRINI.</h2>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="xd31e815"><span class="xd31e815init">O</span>n the afternoon of 22nd February, 1864—the day following the capture of Rangiaowhia—the
-British and Colonial forces were involved in a much sharper affair, a heavy engagement
-in which all three arms—horse, foot, and artillery—were used. This was the battle
-of Hairini Hill, a steep elevation about half way between Te Awamutu and Rangiaowhia;
-the name has since been transferred mistakenly to Rangiaowhia village. The present
-road follows exactly the military route of 1864.
-</p>
-<div class="figure p048width"><img src="images/p048.jpg" alt="OFFICERS OF THE 50th REGIMENT" width="720" height="503"><div class="figAnnotation p048width"><span class="figBottomLeft">From a photo in Ceylon]</span><span class="figTop">&nbsp;</span></div>
-<p class="figureHead">OFFICERS OF THE 50th REGIMENT</p>
-<p class="first">(The 50th Regiment, 819 strong, arrived in Auckland from Colombo on 14th November,
-1863. Colonel Waddy in the centre of the front row.)
-</p>
-</div><p>
-</p>
-<p>Here the Maoris who came pouring out of Paterangi immediately they discovered that
-their works had been outflanked had hastily fortified themselves, burning to avenge
-the surprise capture of Rangiaowhia and the killing of their comrades. An incident
-of the day’s work was a sabre charge by the Colonial Defence Force Cavalry; this was
-one of the very few occasions on which cavalry charges were practicable in the Maori
-Wars.
-</p>
-<p>Von Tempsky wrote the following narrative of his Rangers’ share in the afternoon’s
-fighting:
-</p>
-<p>“At last about 1 o’clock orders came (to Te Awamutu camp), and away went the Rangers.
-I had received no order relative to my position or further operations; so, calculating
-to commit any errors on the safe side, I hurried my men past as many detachments as
-I could, and got them well in front by the time we had reached a commanding fern ridge,
-on which line of battle was formed. The firing had been going on already for some
-time between our skirmishers and the Maoris. I could now see their position plainly.
-There is a considerable rise just at the entrance to Rangiaowhia proper; the first
-considerable whares are on that hill; the brow of the same was crowned with a long
-stake fence, ditch, and low parapet, having been the common enclosure of a large field.
-It had been strengthened during the night and morning, and a very respectable length
-of line of black heads was bobbing up and down behind it. A swamp was at the foot
-of this hill, the main road avoiding it and turning more to our right flank. The right
-flank of the Maoris was covered by a still more impassable swamp [Pekapeka-rau], <span class="pageNum" id="pb49">[<a href="#pb49">49</a>]</span>so that their left flank was the only point needing much defence, a dense forest on
-that side giving them also contingent advantages.
-</p>
-<p>“The 50th, under their brave old Colonel Waddy, and the Defence Cavalry Corps, under
-Captain Walmsley, as staunch an officer as ever put spurs to a horse, were on our
-extreme right; and were destined to do the work of that day, General Cameron and Staff
-personally superintending this particular work.
-</p>
-<p>“We saw the 50th fix bayonets, and as they advanced on the main road the Maoris commenced
-a perfect <span lang="fr">feu d’enfer</span>, and I, looking in vain for directions, led my men against the right flank of the
-Maoris.
-</p>
-<p>“We had to cross several little gullies and rises; at each place affording the least
-shelter I breathed my men for a moment, and then dashed them again over the next exposed
-space. Three severe instalments of a lead shower rattled, thumped, and whistled round
-us; each time I put the men under shelter till the shower passed, and then rushed
-on again. As yet I had seen only one of my men hit.
-</p>
-<p>“As we got into the swamp we just saw the gleam of the bayonets of the 50th close
-upon the left flank of the Maoris. We heard the British cheer, echoed it, and rushed
-on to the right of the position, where I also saw a peach-grove that might be of use
-to us.
-</p>
-<p>“Of a sudden, while panting up the hillside, with an upper stratum of lead travelling
-over our heads towards our friends we had left behind us, I saw that long black line
-of heads waver. I heard confused cries and shouts presaging disorder—and lo!—it broke
-and fled—some to the right, where I saw the Defence Corps after them; and some to
-the left; to these we lent our company. Maoris have a natural affinity to swamp; there
-is a strong amphibious tendency in the brown man. Ducks are no more at home in the
-swamps than Maoris. Only in this instance the ‘being at home’ was extended perhaps
-beyond the wish of many by our carbines. So soon as we had reached the peach-grove
-which commanded the swamp to our left, we had a fine play upon the greater part of
-the Maoris who were trying to make their escape. I had some soldiers of the 70th with
-me who, seduced by the example of my men, had followed my fortunes faithfully that
-day. They were, however, despatched back to their regiment by the arrival of Colonel
-Carey of the Staff.
-<span class="pageNum" id="pb50">[<a href="#pb50">50</a>]</span></p>
-<p>“Some skirmishers still lurked between us and that part of Rangiaowhia where the two
-churches stood; so we took our way in that direction, getting now and then a sight
-of a Maori and a hearing of their bullets. I was just directing one of my foremost
-skirmishers to aim at a figure of a man which I could see behind a bush, when something
-struck me in the attitude as being nerveless like that of a wounded man. I gave the
-word to stop firing, and, surrounding the Maori carefully, as some sham being dead
-and then blaze into you, then approached him. Resting on his right elbow, his back
-against a stump, the left leg stretched from him with a large pool of blood around
-it, the Maori surveyed our approach without a start or a movement of a muscle in his
-face, even. Now, let me tell you that my men in the day of battle are not very confidence-inspiring
-objects to look at. What with dust, smoke, their wild dress, their armament, and faces
-wild with excitement of the hour, a man would be quite justified in hesitating to
-trust his life altogether to their keeping, not being able to see the golden sub-stratum
-of that desperado exterior. A calm, steady, almost indifferent look was fixed on me
-by the dark eye of the Maori. I made to him a gesture of friendship, and proceeded
-to examine his wound. An Enfield bullet had shattered his left leg below the calf,
-and he was rapidly bleeding to death. A boot-lace twisted under the knee had to do
-duty as a tourniquet, and the Maori’s shirt had to supply the bandages. One of our
-men who spoke a little Maori told him we would come back for him, and left him with
-water and some rum; the latter he refused taking.
-</p>
-<p>“I had an idea that as the Catholic Church had proved once an asylum to the Maori,
-it might be occupied the same way to-day. I was determined to be beforehand with the
-Staff to-day at least, and pushed on by short-cut. Everything seemed quiet about the
-neighbourhood. The church door was locked, but as it might have been locked from the
-inside I had a carbine pointed into the lock, which pass-key proved to fit our requirements.
-I entered the church, found it empty, turned my men out again, and re-fastened the
-door to the best of my ability.
-</p>
-<p>“Colonel Carey, of the Staff, then arrived, and gave me orders to guard the adjoining
-dwelling-house of the priest and permit no one to enter it. My men had by my permission
-gone to plunder the nearest whares. Their whole plunder was then put into the verandah
-of the priest’s house, and, putting a sentry over it, I dispersed <span class="pageNum" id="pb51">[<a href="#pb51">51</a>]</span>my men once more for ‘loot,’ as they now deserved to have a pull at Rangiaowhia. I
-remained to guard the priest’s house myself and ruminate over the day’s work.
-</p>
-<p>“Colonel Weare, of the 50th, then made his appearance, and informed me that he had
-received orders to take charge of this house and grounds. I had no great objection
-to a transfer of responsibility, but when I was informed that nothing was to be removed
-from the ground, not even the loot my men had taken from the neighbourhood, now lying
-piled in the verandah, I most decidedly objected to such an unfair arrangement. A
-picket under a subaltern was then put over the premises, and Colonel Weare departed.
-I recalled my Rangers by my whistle, drew them up outside, and carried out myself
-every individual article belonging to them, not forgetting one or two articles of
-loot belonging to Colonel Weare, accidentally mixed with ours, considered already
-as safely acquired by right of seniority. It was to me about as interesting an interlude
-as could be found amongst the sad realities of higher interests around me. And I look
-back to my struggle with Colonel Weare for the loot of my men probably with the same
-amount of amusement as he does himself by this time. He put me under arrest. I took
-no notice of it, nor did General Cameron, who joked me the next day about it.”
-</p>
-<p>The Forest Rangers’ entry into Te Awamutu that evening must have been a grotesquely
-picturesque spectacle. Von Tempsky wrote:
-</p>
-<p>“An advanced guard under myself surrounded the stretcher of the chief Paul, whom we
-had picked up on the way back according to promise. This was serious and respectable,
-but the main body of the two companies that followed, borne down with the most promiscuous
-loot ever gathered, were a sight fit for the pencil of Hogarth. There were men representing
-a walking museum of fowls strung and hung all over their persons. There were men having
-the carcases of pigs strapped to their bodies; one even carried a live young sow,
-baby-wise in his arms, restraining its desperate struggles and screams by the strength
-of a powerful arm. There were men mounted on Maori horses, one of them my half-caste
-Sergeant Southee, decorated with feathers used at the Maori war dance. The whole two
-companies bristled with Maori spears, tomahawks, double-barrel guns, and so forth.
-I myself had a magnificent long-handled tomahawk, given to me by one of my men, who
-picked it up on the battlefield. I gave it to General Cameron.
-<span class="pageNum" id="pb52">[<a href="#pb52">52</a>]</span></p>
-<p>“I have since heard that our entry into Te Awamutu created not only admiration but
-envy, loot being such a scarce article in this war that even Commodore Wiseman could
-not help saying to a friend of mine, ‘Those rascally Rangers have got all the loot.’
-In former days the Naval Brigade generally got ahead of the soldiers in that business,
-but now the agility of the Rangers had put the long-armed Jack Tar into the shade.
-</p>
-<p>“In dismissing my men that evening, I could not but testify to their gallant conduct,
-particularly No. 1 Company, under Lieutenant Westrupp, who had followed me when I
-went a considerable pace, and when my own men, being in high fern, could not keep
-up with me. General Cameron, in acknowledging the good behaviour of the men, had another
-ration of rum served out to them that night, so that at the camp-fire our battles
-were fought over again with even more gusto and less risk.”
-</p>
-<p>Another old-timer, an ex-Ranger in the Waikato, thus described to the present writer
-that triumphal march back from Rangiaowhia:
-</p>
-<p>“We had found great stores of potatoes, pigs, and fowls lying ready to be carted to
-the big pa at Paterangi. The stuff was stacked here and there along the middle of
-the village between the two churches. When we marched back to Te Awamutu that night
-one of our fellows, Johnny Reddy, was leading, or rather driving, a pig by a rope.
-As we came near the mission station gate at Te Awamutu we saw General Cameron standing
-there with Bishop Selwyn. Reddy called out, ‘Make way for the Maori prisoner!’ The
-General ordered, ‘Arrest that man!’ But Johnny dropped his rope, left the pig, and
-bolted. All the same, he had a fair whack of that porker for his supper.”
-</p>
-<p>The Royal Navy men, as a veteran recalls, did not come home from the battle quite
-empty-handed, for when they hauled their six-pounder field-piece in that evening it
-was loaded with Maori pigs and potatoes.
-</p>
-<p>The day’s casualties numbered two soldiers killed, one of the Defence Force Cavalry
-mortally wounded, and fifteen others wounded, including Ensign Doveton, of the 50th.
-The Maoris lost about a score killed, beside many wounded, some of whom were captured
-and treated in the field hospital at Te Awamutu.
-</p>
-<div class="div2 section"><span class="pageNum">[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]</span><div class="divHead">
-<h3 class="main">THE RANGIAOWHIA BLOCKHOUSE.</h3>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="first">A veteran Forest Ranger (Mr Wm. Johns, of Auckland) says:
-<span class="pageNum" id="pb53">[<a href="#pb53">53</a>]</span></p>
-<p>“About 1870 the Rangiaowhia blockhouse, designed exactly like that at Orakau, was
-built close to where the Hairini school now stands. It was constructed of four-inch
-planks. We used it as a refuge place in the panic times. Being doubtful of its strength,
-I proposed to my fellow-settlers one day that I would test whether it was really bullet-proof.
-We all went out, and with an Enfleld rifle at fifty yards I put a bullet not only
-through the front wall of four-inch planks but also nearly through the rear wall.
-Then I took one of the solid plugs of the floor-loopholes in the overhanging upper
-storey, a piece of timber seven inches thick, set it up, and drilled it through with
-a bullet. We decided that we could not stay in the blockhouse, as it would only be
-a death-trap in case of attack; so we represented its condition to Major Jackson,
-our commanding officer. Then the blockhouse was made really bullet-proof by giving
-it a plank lining and filling the intervening space, four inches or so, with sand
-and gravel.”
-<span class="pageNum" id="pb54">[<a href="#pb54">54</a>]</span>
-</p>
-<div class="figure p054width"><img src="images/p054.png" alt="PLAN OF TE AWAMUTU REDOUBT, 1874." width="720" height="495"><p class="figureHead">PLAN OF TE AWAMUTU REDOUBT, 1874.</p>
-</div><p>
-<span class="pageNum" id="pb55">[<a href="#pb55">55</a>]</span></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div id="ch9" class="div1 chapter"><span class="pageNum">[<a href="#xd31e256">Contents</a>]</span><div class="divHead">
-<h2 class="label">CHAPTER IX.</h2>
-<h2 class="main">THE INVASION OF KIHIKIHI.</h2>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="xd31e876"><span class="xd31e876init">R</span>ewi Maniapoto’s headquarters were at Kihikihi, three miles from Te Awamutu, and General
-Cameron made no delay in paying his adversary a military call. Rewi had not fought
-at Hairini; the fact is that he was a more sagacious soldier than most of his fellow-countrymen,
-and perceived the impossibility of making a successful stand at such a vulnerable
-spot. No doubt he fully realised that with the bloodless fall of Paterangi the pakeha
-conquest of the Waipa was practically complete.
-</p>
-<p>On 23rd February, 1864, a mixed force of troops marched from Te Awamutu, and without
-resistance entered the large village of Kihikihi, an attractive sight with its cultivations
-of root and grain crops and its peach and apple orchards. The Ngati-Maniapoto retired
-to the Puniu River without firing a shot.
-</p>
-<p>After burning the large carved council-house (which stood at the south end of the
-present township) and destroying the tall flagstaff, the force returned to Te Awamutu.
-The troops were now well established in encampments around the mission station, and
-several redoubts were soon built. The principal redoubt, occupied by Imperial troops
-during 1864–65, was built in the middle of the present town, in rear of the post office,
-as shown on the plan here given. The site of this earthwork can still be traced, although
-it is intersected by a road. There were also British garrisons in occupation of Pikopiko,
-Paterangi, and Rangiaowhia.
-</p>
-<p>The soldiers in the various camps revelled in an abundance of fruit and potatoes,
-and the horses of the cavalry and field artillery throve on the maize that grew in
-every settlement.
-</p>
-<p>A few days after the first expedition to Kihikihi a scouting party of the Colonial
-Defence Force Cavalry brought news that the Maoris had returned to the neighbourhood
-of the settlement. It was decided, therefore, that a redoubt should be built at Kihikihi,
-and an expedition made a start from Te Awamutu before daylight one morning, in an
-attempt to surprise Ngati-Maniapoto. Colonel Waddy, of the 50th, was in command. The
-two companies of Forest Rangers composed the advance guard.
-<span class="pageNum" id="pb56">[<a href="#pb56">56</a>]</span></p>
-<p>Von Tempsky, describing this expedition, wrote:
-</p>
-<p>“As we approached Kihikihi I went somewhat in advance, and seeing some Maoris near
-a bush adjoining the village, we gave chase, and sent word back to that effect. We
-skirmished through some maize-fields, with a dense bush to our left, to which bush
-I gave a wide berth. But we could not get well at them as they had the start of us,
-and we were suddenly brought up by a swamp. We skirmished with them across the swamp,
-but got little good out of it. I saw them retreating into some distant whares, and
-making themselves quite comfortable, proving to me thereby that they were now supported,
-and that their position was strong. As we found the swamp altogether impassable without
-making a detour of miles, I returned, having formed, however, my plan already to look
-after these gentlemen.
-</p>
-<p>“That night I entered the bush which I had skirted the previous day, thinking of heading
-the swamp by these means, and surprising the whares. We had a fearful march of it.
-It was a kahikatea bush, with swamp inside, and night to add to the difficulties.
-However, we persevered, and by the time it was morning we were opposite the whares.
-With one ‘Hurrah!’ we rushed across the open space on to one, then to the other, whare,
-but found both empty and everything in them smashed to atoms—to the very cats of the
-domicile. The houses belonged to Mr Gage, a half-caste, who had not joined the Maori
-cause.
-</p>
-<p>“While my men were overhauling the premises for anything useful, I surveyed the neighbourhood,
-and saw that between us and the bush, which formed a perfect bight around us, there
-was still another swamp to cross if we wanted to get into the bush. Also, I saw that
-if there were any Maoris lurking there we presented a fair target for their pleasure,
-without even the chance of retaliation.
-</p>
-<div class="figure p056-1width"><img src="images/p056-1.jpg" alt="REWI MANIAPOTO (MANGA)" width="393" height="583"><p class="figureHead">REWI MANIAPOTO (MANGA)</p>
-<p class="first">Rewi was the principal chief in the defence of Orakau. From the first, however, he
-was opposed to building the pa in such an exposed position, and he regarded the defence
-as hopeless. He died in 1894 and was buried at Kihikihi. This picture is from a photo
-by Pulman, of Auckland, about 1883.</p>
-</div><p>
-</p>
-<div class="figure p056-2width"><img src="images/p056-2.jpg" alt="TE ROHU, WIDOW OF REWI MANIAPOTO" width="420" height="593"><p class="figureHead">TE ROHU, WIDOW OF REWI MANIAPOTO</p>
-<p class="first">(From a photo by J. Cowan, at the Puniu, 1920)</p>
-</div><p>
-</p>
-<p>“At that moment Sergeant Carron, who had been sniffing around with his usual acuteness,
-reported to me that there were Maoris in the bush. This decided me in relinquishing
-my position at once, as we could do no harm to our antagonists if they persisted in
-remaining in the bush. I had hardly drawn my men down the knoll on which the dwelling-house
-stood when down came a volley over the heads of the last men disappearing behind the
-hill. I took up a better position within 300 yards of it, where logs and fern gave
-good cover to the ground in our favour. But the Maoris would no more cross that swamp
-in front of us than we would in front of <span class="pageNum" id="pb57">[<a href="#pb57">57</a>]</span>them; so, looking at one another wrathfully, and shaking a figurative fist, we parted
-at last without much harm done to either side.”
-</p>
-<p>The redoubt now built on the highest part of the Kihikihi village (the spot is just
-behind the present police station) was garrisoned by Imperial troops for a time, and
-then by Waikato Militia. In the Seventies, and, in fact, until about 1883, it was
-occupied by the Armed Constabulary. Unfortunately it was demolished in the Eighties
-by the townspeople, who did not realise the value of this large and picturesquely-set
-earthwork as a place of future historic interest.
-</p>
-<div class="figure p057-1width"><img src="images/p057-1.jpg" alt="HITIRI TE PAERATA" width="414" height="585"><p class="figureHead">HITIRI TE PAERATA</p>
-<p class="first">Hitiri was a chief of Ngati-Raukawa and Ngati-te-Kohera, and fought in the defence
-of Orakau pa, where his father and brother were killed. His sister, Ahumai, who suffered
-several wounds, was the heroine who declared that if the men died the women and children
-must die also.</p>
-</div><p>
-</p>
-<div class="figure p057-2width"><img src="images/p057-2.jpg" alt="WINITANA TUPOTAHI" width="414" height="590"><div class="figAnnotation p057-2width"><span class="figBottomLeft">From a photo by Mr. J. McDonald, Dominion Museum, Wellington.]</span><span class="figTop">&nbsp;</span></div>
-<p class="figureHead">WINITANA TUPOTAHI</p>
-<p class="first">Tupotahi, who was one of the leading chiefs of Ngati-Maniapoto, was severely wounded
-at Orakau.
-</p>
-</div><p>
-</p>
-<p>The Forest Rangers now camped at Kihikihi for some time. On 29th February, 1864, the
-first expedition was made to Orakau village. Von Tempsky, describing this bit of work,
-wrote:
-</p>
-<p>“The Maoris at Orakau kept hanging about, irresolute what to do, till we saw them
-commencing to dig rifle-pits, and then it was high time to give them notice to quit.
-Colonel Waddy mustered his whole strength, and away we went under the firm impression
-that we would have a warm afternoon of it. The Forest Rangers were in the advance.
-There was much scrub on each side of the road, and we had also orders to break down
-any fence that might impede the action of the cavalry. We had broken down one or two
-across our road already, when the Maoris commenced with some desultory shots at cannon
-range. But suddenly I saw a peculiar sort of fence across the road—a stake fence bound
-with new flax, therefore a new work—a rising bank behind it, with a suspicious look
-about the crown.
-</p>
-<p>“ ‘Listen, men,’ I said. ‘We must make one broad rush at that place—one long, strong,
-all-together push—and that fence must go down. Then up the bank like lightning.’
-</p>
-<p>“Thus arranged—thus it was done. With a cheer a wave of sprightly fellows dashed against
-that fence. Down it went—up the bank we flew. There were the masked rifle-pits just
-dug and just deserted. They had stuck sprigs and branches of tea-tree into the newly-thrown-up
-earth to hide the presence of those pits.
-</p>
-<p>“Thence we entered the village, still with considerable precaution, as we would not
-believe that the Maoris would make no resistance whatever, particularly in such broken
-ground as the village, straggling amongst gullies and ridges covered with peach-groves,
-afforded. Thus, however, it was. We went right through the village, and seeing the
-fugitives in the far-off distance making <span class="pageNum" id="pb58">[<a href="#pb58">58</a>]</span>for an old pa [probably Otautahanga], I gave chase, but was soon recalled, as the
-orders of Colonel Waddy were to confine himself strictly to Orakau. The next time
-I entered that village a few weeks after we did not complain about the reluctance
-of fighting in the Maoris.”
-<span class="pageNum" id="pb59">[<a href="#pb59">59</a>]</span></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div id="ch10" class="div1 chapter"><span class="pageNum">[<a href="#xd31e267">Contents</a>]</span><div class="divHead">
-<h2 class="label">CHAPTER X.</h2>
-<h2 class="main">THE BATTLE OF ORAKAU.</h2>
-<div class="epigraph">
-<div class="lgouter xd31e333">
-<p class="line">And how can man die better
-</p>
-<p class="line">Than facing fearful odds,
-</p>
-<p class="line">For the ashes of his fathers,
-</p>
-<p class="line">And the temples of his gods?
-</p>
-</div>
-<p class="first xd31e693">—“<i>Horatius</i>” (“<i>Lays of Ancient Rome</i>.”)</p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="xd31e453"><span class="xd31e453init">T</span>he defence of Orakau Pa by the three hundred Maoris who deserve lasting fame as surely
-as the three hundred of Thermopylæ has passed into imperishable history as an inspiring
-example of heroism and devotion to a national cause. Many and many a story of that
-three days’ siege has been written, and yet new narratives with much that is thrilling
-are still to be gathered from the very few survivors. Far away in the wild forest
-glens of the Urewera Country I have heard the story of Orakau told in the meeting-houses
-at night by the old warriors, and travelling over the Huiarau Mountains to Waikaremoana,
-my companion, a Hauhau veteran, told me how his father fell at Orakau and he himself
-escaped from the field with a severe wound, and proudly he exhibited the deep scars.
-</p>
-<div class="figure p060width"><img src="images/p060.png" alt="A PLAN OF THE BATTLEFIELD OF ORAKAU. 1864." width="720" height="471"><p class="figureHead">A PLAN OF THE BATTLEFIELD OF ORAKAU. 1864.</p>
-</div><p>
-</p>
-<p>Orakau was one of those defeats and retreats that are grander than a victory. The
-spirit of Bannockburn was in the defenders’ scornful defiance of terrible odds; but
-even Bannockburn was outdone by the Maori garrison’s indifference to the foe’s superiority
-in numbers and arms and by the devotion of the women who remained to share the fall
-of their husbands and brothers. The pakeha’s cattle graze over the unfenced, unmarked
-trenches where scores of brave men were laid to rest. Technically they were rebels,
-holding stubbornly to nationalism and a broken cause, but the glory of Orakau rests
-with those rebels. And now that the old racial animosities have disappeared Briton
-and Maori join in fraternal worship of the men and women who died for a sentiment.
-A Waikato Regiment has taken for its motto the war-cry of the people whom Cameron
-defeated but could not conquer, and has inscribed on its colours the words, “<span lang="mi">Ka whawhai tonu matou, ake, ake, ake!</span>” To New Zealanders of the blended races in the years to <span class="pageNum" id="pb61">[<a href="#pb61">61</a>]</span>come that slogan of the soil should carry as thrilling a call in battle-test as the
-last words of Burns’s ode hold for the Scot: “Liberty’s in every blow—let us do or
-die!”
-</p>
-<hr class="tb"><p>
-</p>
-<p>Of Ngati-Maniapoto themselves there were but fifty or so in Orakau; the defence fell
-chiefly on the Urewera—who had come fully a hundred and fifty miles to fight the pakeha—and
-on the Ngati-Raukawa and Ngati-te-Kohera and other West Taupo hapus.
-</p>
-<p>Very nearly all those dogged heroes of Orakau have passed to the Reinga; I know of
-only five now living—three Ngati-Maniapoto and two Urewera.
-</p>
-<p>In this sketch of Waipa history I need not enter into the already familiar military
-history of Orakau. There is, however, an immensely interesting MS. narrative at my
-hand—Major Von Tempsky’s account of the siege—and extracts from this animated description
-make a valuable contribution to the story of the three days’ fighting.
-</p>
-<p>Von Tempsky, after describing his march with the Forest Rangers from Te Awamutu, as
-advance guard of Major Blyth’s column, narrates that the force crossed and re-crossed
-the Puniu and came out in rear of Orakau, soon after the main body under Brigadier-General
-Carey had opened the attack. His Rangers (No. 2 Company—No. 1 was in camp at Ohaupo)
-were ordered to guard the east side of the Maori position. Von Tempsky then goes on
-to describe the events of the first day (31st March, 1864):
-</p>
-<p>“For two hours we lay under what cover the inequalities of the ground afforded, with
-a heavy and well-directed fire upon us. We could see the Maoris strengthening their
-works as busy as bees, firing away also with rifles from two or three small embrasures
-with most unpleasant comparative accuracy. There was one gentleman in particular sending
-his shots at me with a wonderful progression of skill. I had a hillock somewhat bigger
-than my head to shelter the same; a gentle incline thence afforded a philosophical
-resting-place for the trunk and limbs; so that I lay in comparative security from
-direct shots, though not from the leaden droppings of high descent. The first indication
-of the notice taken of my insignificant presence was given me by a bullet striking
-the ground in beautiful line with my head about eight or nine yards in front. The
-next shot made the distance six, in the same splendid line, the third five, the fourth
-four, and so on until—he did not hit me after all.
-<span class="pageNum" id="pb62">[<a href="#pb62">62</a>]</span></p>
-<p>“I had had some hopes that the nearness of our circle to the pa indicated an intention
-of a general assault, but nothing of the kind took place. We could not even fire,
-as the danger of a cross-fire was then too imminent, and I must confess that I was
-heartily glad when we were removed at last from that uselessly-exposed position to
-a point further back, where the sudden fall of the ridge gave a comparative shelter
-from bullets. Here I was joined once more by the rest of my men and Lieutenant Roberts,
-and got from him a full account of the proceedings of the main column.
-</p>
-<p>“They were first fired upon from some peach-groves in the beginning of the village.
-The advance guard under Captain Ring, accompanied by Roberts and his Rangers, skirmished
-along the road, the natives retiring before them. It became then apparent that the
-Maoris were going to make a stand in a large peach-grove before them. There was an
-old stock-yard fence visible, but as to the nature of any other defences no one had
-any idea of what was before them. The word for assault was then given, and, Captain
-Ring and Roberts leading gallantly, they advanced in quick time. The Maoris held their
-fire until our force was within fifty yards, and then gave them volley after volley.
-Within a few yards from the ditch, and a parapet now becoming visible, Captain Ring
-fell dead by the side of Roberts. A few Rangers were trying to get into the ditch,
-but were not supported. Several men had fallen, and the bugle from the main body sounded
-the Retire. Another effort to lead the men on to the assault proved as ineffectual
-as the first. Captains Fisher and Hinds, of the 40th, and Captain Baker, of the Staff,
-most gallantly set the example, and urged the men on—but the advance of the latter
-was this time even a milder affair than the first. Captain Fisher was badly wounded,
-several men shared the same fate, and only a few of my men got into the ditch. Roberts
-saw that he was not sufficiently supported, and drew his men back. The two pieces
-of artillery then commenced to play upon the pa. We arrived about that time, and I
-witnessed the harmless flight of shells and other equally ineffectual shots. A little
-dust, and a cheer from the natives, were all the results that I could see. This firing
-of the Armstrong even continued after we were in our encircling position, and I had
-the pleasure of picking up nice pieces of shell dropped amongst us, after the explosion
-had taken place over our heads.”
-</p>
-<p>Von Tempsky here comments on the failure to reconnoitre the pa before the troops were
-rushed against it in premature assaults.
-<span class="pageNum" id="pb63">[<a href="#pb63">63</a>]</span></p>
-<p>“After we had taken up our position on the east side, closing the circle that now
-surrounded the pa on all sides, everyone asked, ‘What next?’ A sort of vague idea
-circulated that ‘the place was going to be blown up that afternoon.’ I heard this
-myself from an officer of high standing, wondering in myself how this wonderful feat
-was going to be accomplished, and particularly in the space of time mentioned. However,
-there was little Hurst of the 12th (acting engineer officer). He suggested sapping.
-The idea was greedily seized and carried out.
-</p>
-<p>“About twelve o’clock we began to see natives trooping along the ranges to the east,
-and making for the forest between us and Rangiaowhia [the Manga-o-Hoi bush]. Their
-numbers increased at every moment. I was stationed in a hollow where the main road
-from the pa [toward Otautahanga and Parawera] crossed a swamp and led up an adjoining
-ridge, on which stood a large weather-board house. I had previously put a picket near
-that house, as the view from it commanded the very point of the forest now that reinforcements
-were gathering.
-</p>
-<p>“The natives in the pa had seen the arrival of succour as well as we had, and repeated
-cheers and volleys announced their appreciation of the sight. From the forest responsive
-cheers soon established a sympathetic intercourse between the two separated bodies,
-and I must confess that as far as I was concerned at least the enthusiasm was all
-on their side. Some Maori trumpeter in the pa now commenced one of those high-pitched
-shouts, half song, half scream, that travel distinctly over long distances, particularly
-from range to range. He was giving the reinforcements some instructions. I never have
-been able to find out what they were, though we had plenty of interpreters with us.
-I went to the picket with reinforcements, and extended a line of skirmishers along
-the brow of the hill in some tea-tree scrub. There was open ground between us and
-the line of forest in which the reinforcements were, and they had to cross that opening
-if they wanted to come to us.
-</p>
-<p>“About this time the natives in the pa commenced a war dance. Of course, we could
-see nothing of it, but we could hear it—the measured chant—the time-keeping yell—the
-snort and roar—the hiss and scream—the growl and bellowing—all coming from three hundred
-throats in measured cadence, working up their fury into a state of maniacal, demoniacal
-frenzy, till the stamping of their feet actually shook the ground.
-<span class="pageNum" id="pb64">[<a href="#pb64">64</a>]</span></p>
-<p>“There was soon an echo in the forest of this pandemoniacal concert. Another chorus
-of three hundred or four hundred throats made the woods tremble with their wrath of
-lung and the thundering stamp of feet. Twice it subsided, and skirmishers appeared,
-firing lustily into us. I must confess there was something impressive in these two
-savage hordes linking their spirits over this distance into a bond of wrathful aid,
-lashing one another’s fury into a higher heat by each succeeding yell echoing responsive
-in each breast. Yet when the result of all this volcanic wrath broke against us, when
-the simple crack of our carbines sent line after line of their skirmishers back into
-the bush, then the third war dance to get the steam up anew became a most laughable
-affair, particularly as its result was equally pusillanimous with the first two. No!
-that open ground under the muzzles of our carbines was not at all to the liking of
-the war-dancers. There they remained in the bush firing at us at long range, their
-bullets coming amongst us with that asthmatic, overtravelled sound denoting exhaustion
-of strength.
-</p>
-<p>“The sap workers were now covered by a good number of Enfield rifles, which dropped
-most of their bullets into our snug hollow. I must say that as night came on I reflected
-upon its probable effects, and I experienced a good deal of uneasiness. I was placed
-on the one point where the Maoris from the pa, trying to effect a junction with the
-forces in the bush, would have to pass or break through. I never for a moment believed
-that they would allow the night to pass without making the attempt, as they had no
-water in the pa. If the forces in the bush, then, favoured by darkness, crossed the
-opening and attacked our rear while we faced the Maoris from the pa, the chances were
-ten to one that the junction would be effected, and that thus our prey would escape
-us after having done irreparable damage.
-</p>
-<p>“I gave Roberts charge of the picket. It could not be in better hands. That day his
-behaviour before the pa, and on many previous instances, had borne me out in my preconceived
-idea of the young man that he was as true as steel. I ranged all my men on one side
-of the road, lying down close to one another in the fern, with strict orders not to
-stir from their positions until I gave the word—to let the Maoris run the gauntlet
-of their fire—and then, when Roberts had barred the narrow pass across the swamp,
-to charge them, bowie-knife and revolver in hand.
-</p>
-<p>“It was an anxious night—so much so, that I even forgot the <span class="pageNum" id="pb65">[<a href="#pb65">65</a>]</span>want of sleep of the night previous, and listened with little need of effort to the
-firing from the pa on the sap and from the sap on the pa. *&nbsp;*&nbsp;* The Maoris had now
-fought for more than twelve mortal hours; they had wrought at the spade with marvellous
-rapidity and pluck; and last, not least, they had hurrah’d and war-danced enough to
-supply all England with consumption, and all that with no adequate supply of water,
-as their store of it inside must have been quickly exhausted. I believe that night
-some daring and devoted slaves managed to creep through our sentries and bring a few
-calabashes-full into the pa. But what was that for the great number of parched throats?
-(Also, raw potatoes assuaged their thirst considerably.) Still the roar of their guns
-did not cease, and allow me to tell you that they had some old-fashioned barrels that
-roared like the bulls of Bashan and threw balls as big as potatoes. Hour after hour
-I listened to the firing and to the pinging of bullets whistling over our heads and
-dropping amongst us the whole life-long night; but the sounds I most listened for
-were footsteps and that indescribable hum that precedes even the most silent body
-of men. I went to the picket several times, and returned each time in great haste,
-fearing the Maoris might break cover during my absence. But I was not the only wakeful
-officer. I think nearly everyone with any responsibility on him slept little that
-night, except those borne down by fatigue. The artillery troopers under Rait had hardly
-ceased their rounds along our whole circle throughout the night, and Rait and I had
-a long chat about the certainty of the Maoris breaking cover that night. Yet the night
-passed and nothing happened.
-</p>
-<p>“This is one convincing proof to me that the Maoris after all, with all their cleverness,
-have not the true military sagacity in them to distinguish when obstinacy of defence
-turns into stupid self-sacrifice. Had they pushed through us that night we would have
-suffered at close quarters with their guns quite as much in ten minutes as in the
-time that the whole siege lasted, and their loss would have been comparatively small,
-as up to that time I believe not half a dozen of theirs had been hit.
-</p>
-<div class="div2 section"><span class="pageNum">[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]</span><div class="divHead">
-<h3 class="main">THE SECOND DAY.</h3>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="first">“The morning of the first of April brought Jackson and his Rangers. I was glad to
-see another half-hundred revolvers <span class="pageNum" id="pb66">[<a href="#pb66">66</a>]</span>make their appearance and strengthen my rather ticklish position. Some of Jackson’s
-men, on passing by the sap, had volunteered to work therein. They did excellent service,
-all having been diggers, and, being strong, daring fellows, they pushed the sap in
-great style. They were under the direction of George Whitfield, who had got his commission
-for his behaviour at Mangapiko. At Orakau his services were quite as prominent, and
-should have been recognised more than they were.
-</p>
-<p>“Another weary, weary day—wait, wait—nothing but waiting. There was not even the fun
-of a war-dance—no water for boilers, so there could be no steam. Now and then yet
-a hurrah or so of the natives, when someone got prominently hit, but the strength
-of voice and lung displayed on the first day had made us hypercritical, so that their
-performance in the vocal department was not appreciated. They made, however, some
-very good shooting, particularly at unconscious amateurs and spectators. There was
-poor Major Hurford, of the 3rd Waikato Regiment. He came to me and said that he had
-just had two very narrow escapes, one ball contusing his breast, another his hip.
-‘I am so glad,’ he said, ‘that my wife will not hear of this until all is over.’ The
-following morning it was all over with him.
-</p>
-<p>“That day the natives began running out a counter-sap to outflank ours, and the firing
-from each covering party became exceedingly hot. We got all our own lead from those
-musical Enfield messengers en masse. When it comes to eating, drinking, and sleeping
-under an unceasing peppering of lead, when it drops into your pannikin, or into the
-bowl of your pipe—a man may be excused for losing his temper—if he has one to lose.
-</p>
-<p>“The natives in the bush showed again that afternoon, but their spirits were not so
-high as the day previous. They would not treat us to any more war-dances, and just
-fired their sullen shots to let their friends in the pa know that they were there.
-That evening the sapping party of Jackson brought home their first victim of the war—Private
-Coglan. Having exposed himself rather imprudently in planting a gabion, he was shot
-dead on the spot.
-</p>
-<p>“I felt a little less anxious that night. More than one hundred revolvers were now
-in a row, which in half a minute would fire 600 shots, and these at close quarters
-should tell. At night there is nothing like a revolver for a struggle.
-<span class="pageNum" id="pb67">[<a href="#pb67">67</a>]</span></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="div2 section"><span class="pageNum">[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]</span><div class="divHead">
-<h3 class="main">THE THIRD DAY.</h3>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="first">“The following morning (2nd April) General Cameron made his appearance with a detachment
-of the Defence Corps and some packhorses with hand-grenades. *&nbsp;*&nbsp;* Our sap was now
-so far advanced that it entered the old stock-yard fence, which surrounded the pa
-at some distance. It was in rashly jumping out of the sap and cutting down gallantly
-one of these posts that Major Hurford received his death-wound in the head. He rallied
-for a short space of time, long enough to receive the attentions of his poor wife,
-but the ball, remaining in his head, caused his death at last at Otahuhu. Many gallant
-deeds were done that day in the sap, but the same being at the opposite extreme of
-the pa from our position I was not an eye-witness to them. I only know from good testimony
-that Captain Baker was amongst the foremost to urge the work by word and example;
-Jackson’s Ensign Whitfield behaved with his usual distinction; Ensign Harrison, of
-the Transport Corps, did good service with his rifle en amateur; my Sergeant Southee
-later in the day, still with the 65th detachment, was the first to change his footing
-from our works into that of the Maoris. (Note.—Poor Whitfield lost his life in one
-of my engagements in the Wanganui district. He was one of the most gallant officers
-I have known.)
-</p>
-<p>“The weariness on our post on that third day was becoming to me almost unbearable.
-There was no excitement to compensate for the constant annoyance of bullets flying
-about you for three days and two nights, and the constant false reports of the assault
-going to take place sickened one at last of the whole affair. There had been a demand
-for volunteers in the morning to go sapping. I knew it did not refer to me, but I
-thought they might accept me after all when the hottest work commenced, so I took
-sixteen volunteers from my company and marched round to the sap. I was close to the
-sap when Baker met me and instantly drove me back in spite of all my expostulations
-and pleas of the morning’s order. ‘No, no! To your post! To your post!’ And as a sweetener
-for this disagreeable treatment the cunning Staff Machiavelli told me to come back
-at four o’clock in the afternoon, when I would be allowed to sap, knowing himself
-perfectly well that by that time I would have found other work to do. I went back
-crestfallen and miserable. My return instantly enfranchised Jackson, who took the
-opportunity of <span class="pageNum" id="pb68">[<a href="#pb68">68</a>]</span>trying his rifle skill en amateur in the sap—and his skill in this department is by
-no means contemptible.
-</p>
-<p>“&nbsp;*&nbsp;*&nbsp;* what means that shout—that hurrah? ‘Stand to your arms, men!’ Another truly
-British cheer! They must be assaulting the pa! ‘Forward, men—forward!’ And away I
-dash with a promiscuous crowd of Rangers and soldiers. But I know the way where we
-can go in reasonable security. Along the slant of the hill the fern is high, and the
-level of the ground scarce shows our heads. If we reach the angle of the pa in front
-of us while attention is concentrated on the diagonally opposite angle where our sap
-leads to we may get into the pa with little opposition, or shoot down fugitives escaping
-thence, if there are any.
-</p>
-<p>“We had to go some distance. The Maoris saw us first just on cresting the hill, and
-sent a heavy fire at us. But all those who followed my guidance were soon safe from
-it. I saw some heaps of rubbish under some trees, with a half-broken-down pig fence,
-at 30 yards from the pa. That was a good halting place to breathe my men and count
-them. Alas! there were not above a dozen. There were my two sergeants, Carron and
-Toovey, Mogul, and little Keena, and a few of Jackson’s company—but we had lost our
-tail by the velocity of our flight forward. Well, the place had a very tenable look
-about it, so, seeing that every man lay well covered, I sent Sergeant Carron back
-for reinforcements, and saw that my men kept the Maoris’ heads well down the parapet.
-Our arrival there had in the first instance driven back a few Maoris attempting to
-escape from the angle I expected they would make use of. After that they kept up a
-pretty close fire upon us, but we had very good cover, and gave it to them better
-than they could. Carron returned in a little, and said that Captain Baker wanted me
-immediately at my post, so nolens volens, I had to return, seeing that a dozen men
-were not enough with which to assault 300 Maoris behind a high parapet. During my
-return I was informed by my men that one of those following me had been hit, and was
-lying in the very path to the pa. This was the first intimation I had of such mishap,
-for all the men close to me and following my guidance had been untouched. This poor
-fellow had chosen the main track to walk upon, probably scorning the fern, and had
-so come by his death. It was Corporal Taylor, an old soldier of the 70th. Sadly we
-carried our burden to our post, where I found my mentor Captain Baker charged to the
-muzzle with military reprimands for me. While he and I and Major <span class="pageNum" id="pb69">[<a href="#pb69">69</a>]</span>Blyth were argumenting on this subject a tremendous shout arose from the pa—a volley,
-and then such an incessant rattle of musketry that I perceived at once what the matter
-was. At last the Maoris had broken cover.
-</p>
-<p>“Leaving my interlocutors very unceremoniously, and calling on my men to follow me,
-I rushed up to the picket house. On the other side of the house, at a glance, I saw
-the state of things. A dense mass of Maoris was rushing through the scrub at the bottom
-of the gully on the further corner from our post. The ridge where the pa stood was
-enveloped in a dense mass of powder-smoke, whence the incessant firing of our troops
-issued as if there never would be a pause to it.
-</p>
-<p>“Giving hurried orders to Westrupp to watch the forest side of the picket hill, and
-taking Roberts with me, we went off at full speed along the ridge to cut off the Maoris
-whom we saw now ascending the furthest extreme of that ridge.
-</p>
-<p>“ ‘Run, men, run! Cut them off! Cut them off!’ And the Rangers bounded over the ground
-as if their feet had wings.
-</p>
-<p>“The Maoris had had a tremendous start of it, but the passage of the swamp and scrub
-in the bottom of the gully had delayed them somewhat. We came within shot of them,
-and as their long, irregular mass ascended the next rise our fire began to tell. Still
-we had to use the utmost exertion to keep within sight and shot of them, and would
-probably have lost half had not Rait with his troopers and some of the Defence Corps
-headed them by a daring break-neck ride across country. But the Maoris, seeing only
-these troopers after them, suddenly turned upon them, and from the other side of the
-swamp commenced to give them some ugly shots, killing in a moment two horses and wounding
-some of the men. Now, Rait’s troopers had only revolvers, which were utterly useless
-at that distance, so they began to be rather doubtful what to do with their Tartar,
-when the Rangers made their appearance, and the presence of their carbines became
-soon painfully evident to the natives. Off they started again, and now at a lesser
-distance they began to drop under our fire very fast; also some of them had outrun
-their fleetness, and, our wind and stamina beginning to tell after the first three
-miles, many a laggard was shot down after giving us the last desperate shot of his
-barrel. *&nbsp;*&nbsp;* The last natives we saw were three or four trotting along the top of
-a distant ridge. Signs of declining day and a bugle sounding the return made us <span class="pageNum" id="pb70">[<a href="#pb70">70</a>]</span>relinquish further pursuit. On re-crossing the river we found Colonel Havelock collecting
-the squads of avengers. He marched them home in a body, myself remaining behind to
-wait for some men of mine who had not yet made their appearance. When these at last
-arrived I also turned my face Orakau-wards.
-</p>
-<p>“We followed pretty much the direction we had taken in the pursuit, and soon came
-upon the silent marks of it. Amongst them, however, I found one poor fellow still
-alive. We bandaged him the best we could, and carried him along. After getting over
-the next mile he expired, and we laid him to his rest. We found another one, not far
-off, and carried him also some distance, when he, too, gave up the ghost and left
-us.”
-</p>
-<p>Other wounded men were carried into the camp, Von Tempsky continued, but not until
-next day did the troops fully realise the terrible nature of the blow they had inflicted
-on their foes. Probably fewer than fifty out of little more than three hundred escaped
-death or wounds. Fully 160 Maoris were killed or died of wounds. The British loss
-was 17 killed and 51 wounded.
-</p>
-<p>On 3rd April, 1864, the Forest Rangers were moved from Orakau, the main body having
-left the previous day. Colonel MacNeil, A.D.C. to General Cameron, had been ambuscaded
-near Ohaupo during the three days of Orakau. It was therefore decided to have a permanent
-post about half way between Pukerimu and Te Awamutu. Major Blyth (40th) and Von Tempsky
-were <span class="corr" id="xd31e1017" title="Source: despached">despatched</span> from Te Awamutu to a place a little beyond the native pa of Ohaupo, and a redoubt
-was built on a commanding ridge. The 40th built the redoubt, while Von Tempsky’s Rangers
-policed the road and scouted the bush.
-</p>
-<p>“There is some lovely lake scenery,” wrote Von Tempsky, “between Te Awamutu and Ohaupo.
-Among sombre patches of forest gleams a water mirror every now and then, with a vivid
-green margin of waving grasses and rushes; here and there a solitary cabbage-tree
-with its long, irradiating leaves giving to the otherwise home-like scenery the New
-Zealand character. By moonlight the lake scenery is quite a fairy effect, and has
-often compensated me for the tediousness of repeated night patrol.”
-</p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="div2 section"><span class="pageNum">[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]</span><div class="divHead">
-<h3 class="main">INCIDENTS OF THE SIEGE.</h3>
-<h3 class="sub">THE MAORI DEFENCE.</h3>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="first">The Maoris’ reason for not building the Orakau pa in a more defensive position is
-explained by the survivors. They say that it <span class="pageNum" id="pb72">[<a href="#pb72">72</a>]</span>was not placed where the native church stood, and where “Kawana” afterwards fixed
-his homestead, because that situation was conspicuous, and would readily be seen from
-the Kihikihi redoubt. This position certainly would have been superior to that selected
-as the site of the fort on the Rangataua rise, for on the western side of the Orakau
-Hill, just in rear of the old homestead, the ground slopes steeply to the Tautoro
-gully and swamp, and that side of the pa could easily have been scarped into an insurmountable
-wall. On the southern side there is a quick incline to the present road; on the east
-and north aspect the land slopes gently from the hill crest.
-</p>
-<div class="figure p071width"><img src="images/p071.png" alt="THE BATTLEFIELD OF ORAKAU" width="720" height="366"><div class="figAnnotation p071width"><span class="figBottomLeft">From a drawing by Mr A.&nbsp;H. Messenger]</span><span class="figTop">&nbsp;</span></div>
-<p class="figureHead">THE BATTLEFIELD OF ORAKAU</p>
-<p class="first">The blockhouse on the hill was built five years after the battle, close to the site
-of the British field headquarters during the siege. This drawing shows the battleground
-as it was about 1870.
-</p>
-</div><p>
-</p>
-<p>With regard to the famous cry of defiance associated with the defence of Orakau, it
-is difficult to reconcile some of the Maori versions with the popular story. From
-none of my Maori authorities, all of them men who fought at Orakau, have I been able
-to obtain exact confirmation of the reported ultimatum: “<span lang="mi">Ka whawhai tonu matou, ake, ake, ake!</span>” (“We will fight on for ever, and ever, and ever!”) The following is the statement
-of Major W.&nbsp;G. Mair, who, when ensign in the Colonial Defence Force Cavalry, acted
-as staff interpreter, and conveyed General Cameron’s demand for the surrender of the
-pa and his promise of safety for the garrison: “I could see the Maoris inclining their
-heads towards each other in consultation, and in a few minutes came the answer in
-a clear, firm tone: ‘<span lang="mi">E hoa, ka whawhai tonu ahau ki a koe, ake, ake!</span>’ (‘Friend, I shall fight against you for ever and ever!’<span class="corr" id="xd31e1043" title="Source: ”)">)”</span> Then Mair made request for the women and children to come out. “There was a short
-deliberation, and another voice made answer: ‘<span lang="mi">Ki te mate nga tane, me mate ano nga wahine me nga tamariki.</span>’ (‘If the men are to die, the women and children must die also.’)” The difference
-between the popular version and Mair’s narrative is obviously very slight.
-</p>
-<div class="figure p072-1width"><img src="images/p072-1.jpg" alt="MAJOR W. G. MAIR" width="407" height="584"><p class="figureHead">MAJOR W.&nbsp;G. MAIR</p>
-<p class="first">Major Mair, who served with great distinction in the Maori Campaigns, 1863–72, was
-General Cameron’s interpreter in the negotiations with the Maoris at Orakau, April
-2nd, 1864. For many years after the wars he was a judge of the Native Land Court.</p>
-</div><p>
-</p>
-<div class="figure p072-2width"><img src="images/p072-2.jpg" alt="AFTER FIFTY YEARS: OLD OPPONENTS MEET" width="420" height="584"><p class="figureHead">AFTER FIFTY YEARS: OLD OPPONENTS MEET</p>
-<p class="first">This photograph, typifying the peaceful union of the races, was taken at the monument
-on the Orakau battlefield, on the occasion of the jubilee gathering, April 1st, 1914.</p>
-</div><p>
-</p>
-<p>The Maori account, as given by Te Huia Raureti and Pou-Patate Huihi and the late Te
-Wairoa Piripi is to the effect that the answer of Rewi and his fellow-chiefs was that
-they would not make peace. Te Wairoa Piripi said: “The General’s messenger came to
-us and called out: ‘Do not fire at me. I have a message for you from the General to
-request that you make peace, so that your women and children may be saved.’ This message
-was made known by Raureti Paiaka to the whole pa, to Rewi, who was at the northern
-section of the pa when the pakeha was speaking to Raureti. The <span class="pageNum" id="pb73">[<a href="#pb73">73</a>]</span>people in the western part of the pa were listening. Rewi Manga made reply: ‘<span lang="mi">Kaore au e hohou te rongo</span>’ (‘I shall not make peace.’) Then all the people cried in chorus: ‘<span lang="mi">Kaore e mau te rongo, ake, ake, ake!</span>’ (‘Peace shall never be made—never, never, never!’) Then stood up Karamoa Tumanako,
-of Ngati-Apakura, and said: ‘I shall make peace.’ To this Rewi, Hone Teri, and Raureti
-replied: ‘We are not willing that the people should be made prisoners, but if we leave
-the pa you make your own peace.’ Some of the people having fired, the pakeha dropped
-down, and the fighting began again. It was now that the rakete (rockets, i.e., hand-grenades)
-were flung into our pa. They were not so bad at first, but when the fuses were shortened
-many were the deaths. The sap was now close up. The outer fence, or pekerangi, was
-thrown down on the top of the soldiers, and some of them were killed or injured there.
-Two shells from the big gun on Karaponia [the hill on which the blockhouse was afterwards
-built] burst in the Manga-o-Hoi swamp, and the tribes in that direction were scattered.
-The explosion of a third shell slightly damaged the end of the pa where Te Huia and
-certain others were. The sun was declining, and now the pa was broken at the south-east
-angle, and the people jumped out from all parts of the work. The line of soldiers
-below the pa in the south-eastern direction was broken through by Paiaka, Te Whakatapu,
-and Te Makaka te Taaepa, and the people fled to the swamp, thence to the Puniu, leaving
-a great many dead.”
-</p>
-<p>Te Huia Raureti said (1920): “When the interpreter spoke to us, saying, ‘Friends,
-come out to us so that your lives may be saved,’ Rewi Maniapoto made reply, through
-a messenger, my father Raureti Paiaka, ‘Peace shall never be made—never, never!’ Again
-spoke the pakeha, and said: ‘That is right for you men, but as for the women and children,
-send them out of the pa.’ This was declined, and all the people cried, repeating Rewi’s
-words, ‘Peace shall never be made—never, never, never!’ (‘<span lang="mi">Kaore e mau te rongo—ake, ake, ake!</span>’)”
-</p>
-<div class="figure p073-1width"><img src="images/p073-1.jpg" alt="THE BATTLEFIELD OF ORAKAU (PRESENT DAY)" width="418" height="591"><div class="figAnnotation p073-1width"><span class="figBottomLeft">From a photo by J. Cowan]</span><span class="figTop">&nbsp;</span></div>
-<p class="figureHead">THE BATTLEFIELD OF ORAKAU (PRESENT DAY)</p>
-</div><p>
-</p>
-<div class="figure p073-2width"><img src="images/p073-2.jpg" alt="THE CAPTURE OF THE ENTRENCHMENT" width="422" height="486"><div class="figAnnotation p073-2width"><span class="figBottomLeft">From a drawing by Major von Tempsky]</span><span class="figTop">&nbsp;</span></div>
-<p class="figureHead">THE CAPTURE OF THE ENTRENCHMENT</p>
-<p class="first">This picture is a drawing, untitled, among the numerous war sketches left by Major
-von Tempsky. Major Mair, to whom it was shown many years ago, said he believed it
-represented the final scene of Orakau, April 2nd, 1864, when the last few Maoris to
-abandon the pa encountered the bayonet.
-</p>
-</div><p>
-</p>
-<p>The Ngati-Tuwharetoa and Ngati-te-Kohera tribes declared that it was Hauraki Tonganui
-who replied to Mair on behalf of Rewi—he was simply a mouthpiece or messenger.
-</p>
-<p>It is clear from all the Maori statements, and also Major Mair’s account given me
-many years ago, that Rewi himself did not speak to the interpreter. (For full details
-of Orakau and the discussion <span class="pageNum" id="pb74">[<a href="#pb74">74</a>]</span>between the opposing parties see the Official History of the New Zealand Wars, written
-for the Government, and published 1922.)
-</p>
-<p>Orakau pa was surrounded by a square of post-and-rail fence, about a chain outside
-the earthworks. A veteran of the Forest Rangers says it was a cleverly-designed obstruction—the
-predecessor of our modern barbed-wire entanglements. It was partly masked with flax
-and fern, and it wrought the defeat of Captain Ring’s charge at the pa. The mounted
-men, too, were stopped by the post-and-rail fence, and there made a good target for
-the Maoris. The earthworks were not high, but the wide trench was a deadly affair
-and a complete obstruction to any charge.
-</p>
-<div class="figure p074-1width"><img src="images/p074-1.png" alt="CROSS-SECTION OF ORAKAU PA" width="432" height="93"><p class="figureHead">CROSS-SECTION OF ORAKAU PA</p>
-<p class="first">From a survey, 1864.</p>
-</div><p>
-</p>
-<div class="figure p074-2width"><img src="images/p074-2.png" alt="CROSS-SECTION OF ORAKAU PA" width="564" height="107"><p class="figureHead">CROSS-SECTION OF ORAKAU PA</p>
-</div><p>
-</p>
-<p>The British headquarters in the siege were fixed just under the fall of the ground
-on the south-west of the pa close to where the blockhouse was afterwards built. The
-slopes are covered to-day with a dense growth of prickly acacias. The blockhouse has
-disappeared; the site is traceable only by a hollow showing where the magazine was
-under the floor of the building. A short distance to the W.S.W. of this spot, on slightly
-higher ground, just on the edge of the Karaponia crest, with the acacia grove feathering
-the abrupt slope to the swamp a hundred feet below, is the place where two Armstrong
-guns were posted to shell the pa. A tall bluegum marks the exact spot; at its foot
-are the fern-grown remains of a short parapet, the gun emplacement.
-</p>
-<p>It was estimated that about 40,000 rounds of ammunition were fired by the troops during
-the three days’ fighting at Orakau.
-<span class="pageNum" id="pb75">[<a href="#pb75">75</a>]</span></p>
-<p>“Some of our men,” wrote an eye-witness, “lost their lives through foolishly and recklessly
-exposing themselves to the fire of the rebels. Tired of waiting in the sap, and in
-some instances excited by drink, they stood up and invited their fate: ‘Come on,’
-they would cry, ‘and we’ll cook your head for you!’—in jocular allusion to the preserved
-heads which once formed an important article of trade in this island.”
-</p>
-<p>The same narrator, an army chaplain, wrote: “Our men were short of caps; the reason
-for this was that they often used them for lighting their pipes. They placed a small
-piece of rag inside the caps, which they then caused to explode with the points of
-their bayonets.
-</p>
-<p>“The Royal Irish had to avenge the death of their gallant leader [Captain Ring]. More
-than one Maori was slain from the belief that he had fired the fatal shot. It is said
-that ten Maoris fell in this way; when a fugitive was overtaken the cry arose: ‘That
-is the man who killed the captain!’—then came a wild yell, a shot, a bayonet thrust,
-and all was over.
-</p>
-<p>“A Maori fugitive was taken prisoner and committed to the charge of two of the Royal
-Irish, who were thus prevented from joining in the pursuit. As they heard the shouts
-of the pursuers dying away in the distance they cursed their hard fate in being obliged
-to remain behind. An officer came up when their impatience had reached its crisis:
-‘Shall we kill him, Barney?’ Barney thought for a moment, then shook his head. ‘I
-couldn’t kill the craytur in cold blood, Shane, but I wish we were quit of him.’ ‘Kick
-him and let him go,’ was the ready response. They loosed their hold and applied their
-heavy boots with full force to the person of their prisoner, who turned round and
-looked as if he would have sprung at their throats. The love of liberty was stronger
-than the thirst for revenge; he disappeared in the bush, while Shane and Barney hurried
-after their comrades.
-</p>
-<p>“Most of the women who attempted to escape from the pa were taken; they were not able
-to run as fast as the men, and were soon exhausted. One woman was found dead clasping
-a Bible to her breast. The sacred volume was found on the persons of several of the
-dead and wounded, who had left everything else behind.
-</p>
-<p>“There was little left to reward those who first entered the pa; they found about
-three tons of raw potatoes and a little Maori bread, but not a drop of water, nor
-any vessel to hold water. *&nbsp;*&nbsp;* <span class="pageNum" id="pb76">[<a href="#pb76">76</a>]</span>They had no surgeons to attend to their wounds. One man had his left leg broken by
-a ball; he bound two pieces of wood round it with wild flax and fought on to the last.
-Another whose side was pierced plugged the wound with a cork and kept his place among
-the defenders of the pa. *&nbsp;*&nbsp;* We have officers here who fought through the Crimea
-and the Indian Mutiny; all unite in affirming that neither the Russians nor the Sepoys
-ever fought as the Maoris have done; all lament the necessity of having to fight against
-such a gallant race. On this point the whole army is unanimous; a different feeling
-may prevail among the colonists, who look forward to reaping a rich harvest from all
-this carnage and bloodshed.”
-</p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="div2 section"><span class="pageNum">[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]</span><div class="divHead">
-<h3 class="main">A MAORI SURVIVOR’S STORY.</h3>
-<h3 class="sub">THE RETREAT TO THE PUNIU.</h3>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="first">The following are extracts from the narrative given to the present writer in 1920
-by the veteran chief Te Huia Raureti, of Ngati-Maniapoto, who with his father fought
-at Orakau:
-</p>
-<p>“Orakau was not a strong fortification. There was no proper palisading around the
-earthworks—we had not sufficient time to complete the defences—but there was a post-and-rail
-fence, in the form of a square, a little distance outside the trenches and parapets.
-The principal parapets were about five feet high and four feet in thickness, composed
-of sods and loose earth, with layers of fern pulled up and laid with the roots outward.
-The fern helped to bind the earthworks. We were still working away at the ditches
-and parapets when the troops came upon us. We had a sentry on the look-out, on the
-west side of the earthworks, the Kihikihi side, from which the soldiers approached.
-His name was Aporo. Suddenly his voice was raised in these words of alarm:
-</p>
-<p>“ ‘<span lang="mi">He pukeko kei te Kawakawa! Kei Te Tumutumu te mea e tata ana!</span>’ (‘A swamp-hen has reached the Kawakawa! There are others nearer us at Te Tumutumu!’)
-</p>
-<p>“The ‘pukeko’ was the advance guard of the Imperial troops; the Kawakawa was the settlement
-near the large acacia grove [about a third of a mile north of the Orakau church and
-kainga.] The troops marched by the road which skirted the bush and up through the
-cultivations. Meanwhile some other soldiers (mounted men) had come a more direct way,
-a little to the north of the cart road, and we saw them at the peach and almond grove
-on the hill just west of the Tautoro swamp and creek about a quarter of a mile from
-<span class="pageNum" id="pb77">[<a href="#pb77">77</a>]</span>our earthworks. Some of the troopers rode at our pa, but had to retire before our
-volleys. The main body of the soldiers came marching on; and another force which had
-marched up along the Puniu River, crossing and recrossing, finally fording the river
-near where the Waikeria joins it and coming out on the Orakau-Maunga-tautari Road.”
-</p>
-<p>After describing the three days’ fighting, Raureti told the story of the retreat to
-the Puniu on the last day:
-</p>
-<p>“When the people had come to the decision to abandon the pa we all went out of it
-on the north-east side and retreated on the eastern side of the Karaponia ridge. My
-gun was loaded in both barrels, and I had some cartridges in my hamanu [ammunition-holder.]
-The soldiers were already in the outworks of the pa. Only one man wished to surrender,
-and this was Wi Karamoa, the minister. He remained in the pa, holding up a white handkerchief
-on a stick in token of surrender. We left many killed and wounded in the pa. Some
-of the dead we had buried; others were left lying where they fell. Among those whom
-we buried in the works were Matekau, Aporo (Waikato), Paehua (of Ngati-Parekawa),
-Ropata (the husband of Hine-i-turama), and Piripi te Heuheu (Urewera). There was bayonet
-work in the first rushing of the pa. On the first part of our retreat, across the
-slopes of the pa, we did not fire; we reserved our shots for emergency.
-</p>
-<p>“We had to break through the soldiers at the steep fall of the land east of Karaponia.
-Here, where the ridge dropped, there was a scarped bank and ditch, made to keep the
-pigs out of the Rangataua cultivations. Just below this, between us and the swamp,
-were the soldiers. A man rushed first to break through the soldiers; he was killed.
-Then the foremost man turned back towards the pa, but my father Raureti Paiaka and
-his comrade Te Makaka dashed at the line of soldiers and broke through, and all the
-rest of us followed and made for the swamp. Raureti shot two soldiers here. We now
-were broken up and separated from one another. We retreated through the swamp, and
-when we reached a place called Manga-Ngarara (Lizard Creek) we found some troops who
-arrived there to stop us. There again Raureti Paiaka broke through and we passed on.
-Ngata was nearly killed there by being cut at with a sword. Raureti raised his gun
-as if to fire at the swordsman, but he had no cartridge in his gun. The soldier, fearing
-to be shot, hastily turned back, and our friend was saved.
-<span class="pageNum" id="pb78">[<a href="#pb78">78</a>]</span></p>
-<p>“Our chief and relative Rewi was with us in the retreat through the swamp, and several
-of us formed a bodyguard to fight a way through for him. When we had crossed the swamp
-to the Ngamako side, where the hills go steeply up, we saw soldiers, mounted and foot,
-in front of us, and we fired at them, and one or two dropped. At last we reached the
-Puniu River; we crossed it and travelled through the Moerika swamp, and presently
-halted at Tokanui. Next morning we went across to Ohinekura (near Wharepapa). Some
-of those who escaped from Orakau retreated to Korakonui and Wharepapa; some crossed
-to Kauaeroa; and others went to Hanga­tiki. When we crossed the Puniu the old Urewera
-chief Paerau, who was following us, called out to us from the Orakau side of the river,
-‘Friends, Te Whenuanui is missing.’ However, Te Whenuanui (the chief of Ruatahuna)
-appeared safely, and we continued our retreat together.
-</p>
-<p>“Rewi Maniapoto had gone to the Urewera Country before Paterangi was built, in order
-to enlist assistance in the war. There were old ties of friendship with the Urewera
-dating back to the time of the battle of Orona, at Lake Taupo, in the ancient days.
-The Warahoe section of the Urewera had a pa there then, and there were Ngati-Maniapoto
-living with them. Some of Warahoe later came and lived in the Ngati-Maniapoto country.
-Two casks of gunpowder were given to Rewi for the war; one of these was paid for in
-this way: Takurua, elder brother of Harehare, of the Ngati-Manawa tribe, came back
-with Rewi, and Raureti gave him £30 to pay for the gunpowder.”
-<span class="pageNum" id="pb79">[<a href="#pb79">79</a>]</span></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div id="ch11" class="div1 chapter"><span class="pageNum">[<a href="#xd31e278">Contents</a>]</span><div class="divHead">
-<h2 class="label">CHAPTER XI.</h2>
-<h2 class="main">CAMP LIFE AT TE AWAMUTU.</h2>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="xd31e453"><span class="xd31e453init">T</span>he close of the Waikato War saw some four thousand Imperial and Colonial troops in
-quarters at Te Awamutu, which remained a large military cantonment for over a year.
-Surveyors were busy cutting up blocks of confiscated land in the Waikato-Waipa delta
-for the military settlers, three regiments of Waikato Militia—one regiment was allotted
-land at Tauranga—and the two companies of Forest Rangers.
-</p>
-<p>An excellent description of military life in Te Awamutu at this period is contained
-in a narrative written by an Army chaplain (name not given) which appeared in “Fraser’s
-Magazine,” London, in 1864. The writer narrates the trials and humours of the journey
-by river and road from Auckland to Te Awamutu in March, and gives an account of the
-soldiers’ town as he saw it.
-</p>
-<p>“During the hot months,” wrote the chaplain, “officers and men were under canvas.
-*&nbsp;*&nbsp;* Most of these [the tents] have now disappeared, and a small town of whares has
-sprung up in their place. These whares are extremely comfortable; the coldest wind
-or the heaviest rain is effectually excluded. The nearest approach we have ever seen
-to a whare at Home is a Highland bothy, built of turf and heather. One whare affords
-accommodation for twenty-four men, who have to act as their own architects, carpenters,
-and builders. A healthy spirit of rivalry is thus produced; each man vies with his
-neighbour, and surveys the work of his own hand with honest pride. Raupo, a strong,
-flexible reed, abounding in the neighbouring swamps, has to be cut down and carried
-into camp on the men’s shoulders. They have often to remain for hours up to the waist
-in water, and are thus liable to frequent attacks of dysentery and fever. *&nbsp;*&nbsp;* When
-the whare is finished the men are allowed to have a dance on the wooden floor. The
-solitary flute strikes up ‘Judy O’Callaghan,’ ‘Garryowen,’ or some equally lively
-air, and a light-footed Irishman dances a <span lang="fr">pas de seul</span> amid the vociferous applause of his comrades, who, inspired by his example, take
-the floor and batter the boards with hearty goodwill. A few of the huts are built
-of wood, which has been supplied by contract. Most of the primæval forests in the
-district have disappeared, but <span class="pageNum" id="pb80">[<a href="#pb80">80</a>]</span>clumps of red pine may still occasionally be seen. A party of some two hundred sawyers
-are employed about six miles from the camp [near Rangiaowhia]; strange, wild-looking
-men who have lived for years in the bush and hold little intercourse with their fellow-men.
-Some of the more skilful amongst them can make as much as £15 per week; the poorest
-workman can make the half of that amount. *&nbsp;*&nbsp;* The furnishings of our hut consist
-of a camp-bed, a table, two chairs, two wooden stools, two bridles, a riding-whip,
-a mirror six inches by four, a few paddles, a rifle, a sword, and a lump of bacon
-suspended from the roof. The mothers and sisters of officers out here are not to suppose
-that their sons and brothers are equally comfortable; our habits are deemed quite
-luxurious; our hut is the envy of the whole camp. The rumour has reached us that the
-Colonial Government, who claim it as their property [the hut was at the mission station],
-intend to turn us out, but they will find that rather difficult; possession at Te
-Awamutu is something more than nine points of law; we know our rights and mean to
-stand by them.”
-</p>
-<p>Describing some of the troops at Te Awamutu, the chaplain wrote: “&nbsp;*&nbsp;*&nbsp;* The soldiers
-of the 65th Regiment are most exemplary in this respect [attendance at religious services].
-The regiment has spent eighteen years in the colony; the men have been broken up into
-detachments and stationed in rural districts, far removed from the temptations of
-garrison towns. Their appearance is very different from that of the men belonging
-to other regiments recently arrived. They are grave, serious, thoughtful men, with
-bronzed faces and flowing beards—living proofs of the healthiness of the climate.
-They are all in good condition, and occupy one-fourth more space on the parade-ground
-than any other regiment here. From their long residence in the colony most of them
-have contrived to save a little money; some who have speculated in land are capitalists
-possessed of thousands. This wealth does not interfere in any way with the strictness
-of discipline or the respect due to their officers. On the contrary, they expose their
-lives as readily as those who have nothing to lose, and from long intercourse are
-devotedly attached to those under whom they serve. They have never left their officers
-wounded on the field of battle; it is always a point of honour with them to carry
-them off, whatever loss may be entailed. Their wealth also sometimes enables them
-to be generous. It was only recently that a subaltern of long standing was likely
-<span class="pageNum" id="pb81">[<a href="#pb81">81</a>]</span>to lose his company from not having money to purchase. Judge of his surprise when
-one of the sergeants waited on him and offered to advance the sum required. *&nbsp;*&nbsp;*
-The 65th is first on the roster for Home service, but few of the men will ever leave
-the island. In fact, it is not to be desired that they should, as a better class of
-colonist could not be found.
-</p>
-<p>“When the natives fled from this district a good many horses, cattle, and pigs were
-left wandering in the bush. Some months ago it was a frequent amusement among the
-officers to sally forth in small parties in search of loot. They revived the wild
-sports of Mexico by hunting down the horses and driving them into camp. We know of
-one case where an officer brought in twenty horses and sold them at £5 a head, thus
-netting £100 by the venture. *&nbsp;*&nbsp;* We have several lakes in the neighbourhood. [One
-of these was the Pekapeka-rau lagoon near Rangiaowhia.] The natives, on leaving, hid
-their canoes by dragging them into the bush or sinking them. A good many have been
-found, and some of our men have become skilful paddlers. They venture forth in these
-frail barques in search of sport. At first the wild fowl were so tame that they seemed
-to apprehend no danger; they have now become more suspicious. Pig-hunting also was
-a frequent amusement.”
-</p>
-<div class="div2 section"><span class="pageNum">[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]</span><div class="divHead">
-<h3 class="main">THE ROMANCE OF ARIANA.</h3>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="first">This Army chaplain narrated with dry humour the romantic little story of a wounded
-half-caste girl, one of the prisoners taken at Orakau on 2nd April, 1864; her name
-was Ariana Huffs, or Hough:
-</p>
-<p>“We have a few friendly natives in camp (at Te Awamutu) who receive rations; they
-have evidently much sympathy with their countrymen in bonds, and we respect them for
-it. There is one of them, a hunch-back postman, who plays a little on the Maori flute,
-which is much the same as our penny whistle. As soon as evening sets in he takes his
-stand at the door of his tent and begins playing a sort of dirge. His music is execrable,
-but we bear with it for the following reasons: One evening we requested him to cease
-his serenade or to remove elsewhere beyond our hearing. The deformed creature threw
-himself into an interesting attitude and said, ‘It is not for myself I am playing;
-it is for Ariana Huffs. Every evening she comes out to listen, and I can speak to
-her with my flute; she <span class="pageNum" id="pb82">[<a href="#pb82">82</a>]</span>knows all that it says.’ After this sentimental avowal we have learned to tolerate
-this black Blondel, this dusky Trovatore. Ariana is a remarkably pretty half-caste,
-the offspring of an Englishman and a Maori woman. Her mother died some years ago,
-and her father, one of those restless, unsettled beings so often to be met with in
-the colonies, left her to the care of her Maori relatives and started for Australia;
-nothing has been heard of him since. When the war broke out she was living with a
-settler near Awamutu; the family was obliged to leave, and she was carried off by
-the rebels. She says that this was done against her will, and that while the fighting
-was going on at the pa [Orakau] she was tied to another woman to prevent her from
-attempting to escape. We suspect, however, that she was tied only by the gentle cords
-of love, and that a Maori warrior had something to do with her presence there. When
-the pa was evacuated she was hit by a bullet which shattered her arm; it would have
-gone hard with her in the indiscriminate slaughter which ensued had not some brave
-fellow stood over her and defended her life.
-</p>
-<p>“Ten men came forward to claim the honour due to this gallant deed; but this was after
-the report of her beauty had spread over the camp, and each claimant doubtless imagined
-that he could establish a lien over her heart.
-</p>
-<p>“Nay; some weeks after the fight an enthusiastic militiaman travelled all the way
-from Raglan, a distance of thirty miles, and demanded an interview with the Brigadier;
-he stated that he was the preserver of Ariana’s life; he could neither eat nor drink
-nor sleep for thinking of her; so he had made up his mind to make her his wife. He
-had £50 in the Savings Bank, which sum he wished to devote to her education, so as
-to prepare her for the duties of the married state. All that he desired at present
-was an interview with the object of his affections; Ariana would at once recognise
-him and rush to his arms. There was only one slight difficulty: he spoke no Maori
-and she knew no English; but love has a language of its own; he had no doubt that
-they would understand one another.
-</p>
-<p>“The Brigadier [Carey], amused at the fellow’s earnestness, granted the desired interview,
-and allowed the interpreter to be present to assist if the silent language of love
-should prove insufficient. The lover entered the room with a bashful, sheepish air,
-and stared at Ariana, who stared at him in return; but there <span class="pageNum" id="pb83">[<a href="#pb83">83</a>]</span>was no recognition on her part, no outburst of gushing gratitude, no rushing to his
-arms. On the contrary, she turned to the interpreter and coolly asked what the man
-wanted; on learning which she laughed heartily and told him to go away, as she had
-never seen him before, and would have nothing to say to him. The poor fellow begged,
-beseeched, implored, and looked unutterable things; Ariana only tittered and turned
-away her head. Ever since that time the militiaman has continued to urge his suit
-in letters, written by a half-caste amanuensis, but the Maori maid is still obdurate.
-He is not the only man who has felt the power of a beauty or claimed to be her preserver;
-so importunate were some of her admirers that a guard had to be stationed at the hut
-for her protection. She has now almost recovered from her wound, and an asylum will
-be provided for her in an orphan institution. We have still some hopes of the militiaman:
-perseverance often leads to success in love as in everything else.”
-<span class="pageNum" id="pb84">[<a href="#pb84">84</a>]</span></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div id="ch12" class="div1 chapter"><span class="pageNum">[<a href="#xd31e288">Contents</a>]</span><div class="divHead">
-<h2 class="label">CHAPTER XII.</h2>
-<h2 class="main">PIONEER LIFE ON THE OLD FRONTIER.</h2>
-<div class="epigraph">
-<p class="first"><i>“There,” said Ninian, and pointed to the north, “is the start of what my father—peace
-be with him!—used to call the Wicked Bounds, where every man you’ll meet has got a
-history, and a dagger in below his coat—Camerons, Clan Ranald’s men, Clan Chattan,
-and the Frasers—it stretches to the Firth of Inverness for sixty miles, the way a
-kite would fly.”</i>
-</p>
-<p class="xd31e693">—<i>Neil Munro, in “The New Road.”</i> </p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="xd31e1197"><span class="xd31e1197init">L</span>ooking southward across the Puniu in the Seventies and early Eighties we who were
-bred up on the Frontier saw a mysterious-appearing land, fascinating to the imagination
-because unknown—a land, too, of dread in the years of unrest, for there in the hinterland
-only a few miles from the border river lived Te Kooti and his band and the hundreds
-of Waikato dispossessed of their good lands on which we pakeha families now dwelt.
-As far as the eye could range it was a land altogether given up to the Kingites and
-the Hauhaus—an untamed country painted in the dark purple of broken mountain ranges,
-merging into the vague, misty blues of great distance, the sombre green of ferny hills
-and plains, and the yellow and white of deep flax and raupo swamps. Clear, dashing
-hill-streams and lazy, swamp-born watercourses, alive with eels and wild duck, all
-carrying down their quota to feed the silently-gliding Waipa. And over all, from Maunga-tautari’s
-shapelessly rugged mass along the curving sector to Pirongia’s fairy-haunted peaks,
-an aspect and air of solitude; a suggestion of mystery and waiting for the touch of
-man which was to transform that far-stretching waste.
-</p>
-<p>The contrast! On our side the green farms of the pioneer settlers, roads, villages—each
-with its redoubt as a rallying-place in alarm—churches, schools—primitive schools,
-maybe, in the early stages—the flag of British authority flying.
-</p>
-<p>So the border remained, the line of demarcation sharply defined by the confiscation
-boundary, the southern side inimical, sullen, waiting, for well-nigh twenty years
-after the final shots of the Waikato War.
-</p>
-<p>Life on the old frontier, on one of the farthest-out farms, seems a kind of dream,
-a fabric of remembrance tinged with a faerie <span class="pageNum" id="pb85">[<a href="#pb85">85</a>]</span>haze, viewed through the vista of years from these times of new interests, new manners,
-changed modes of thought. Memories! One strives to marshal them into some order, but
-the most that can be done is to recall the things that chiefly fixed themselves on
-the youthful mind. There was the home on the hill, on the famous battlefield, the
-garden with its sweet old flowers, the cherry orchard, the huge almond trees (with
-flat stones at their feet upon which Maori children long before us cracked those almonds)—trees
-grown in the old days from the Rev. John Morgan’s orchard—the wild mint that grew
-in the tiny creek that went rippling down a swampy gully near the big acacia grove;
-the dam and the lake-like pond in the Tautoro swamp; and, above all, the peaches.
-The peaches of those happy dream-days on the old Orakau farm!—peaches vanished, a
-kind never to be tasted by the present generation. Orakau, Kihikihi, Te Awamutu, and
-Rangiaowhia were then the favoured land of the most delicious fruit that ever this
-countryside has known. Peach-groves everywhere, the good Maori groves, trees laden
-with the big honey peaches that the natives called korako because of their whiteness.
-Tons of peaches grew in those groves, and those wanted were gathered by the simple
-process of driving a cart underneath and sending one of us youngsters up to shake
-the branches until the cart was filled with fruit. Some of the best peaches were preserved
-by the housewives of the frontier in a way never seen now; they were sliced and sun-dried
-on corrugated iron, in the strong heat of the long days, and then strung in lines
-and hung in the high-ceilinged kitchen, criss-crossed in fragrant festoons, until
-required for pies.
-</p>
-<p>As for the surplus fruit the pigs got it; many a cart-load of peaches from the groves
-was given to them, or they were turned out to feed on the heaps of fruit lying under
-the trees. Porkers fattened on peaches!
-</p>
-<p>And it was curious, too, to explore some of those old groves of trees, on the crown
-of the farm near the road, for there the lead flew most thickly in the three days’
-siege of Orakau, and nearly every tree bore the curious weals and knotty growths that
-indicated a bullet-wound, and a search with a knife sometimes revealed a half-flattened
-ball or fragment of one.
-</p>
-<p>There was the bush on the north, covering the greater part of the swamp between the
-farm slopes and the high country of Rangiaowhia; even there, in little islanded oases
-in the woods and the <span class="pageNum" id="pb86">[<a href="#pb86">86</a>]</span>raupo marsh, were Maori peach-groves. On the south, a few hundred yards from the homestead,
-was the Blockhouse, with its little garrison of smart, blue-uniformed Constabulary—a
-tiny fort, but one that came large and grim enough on the eye of childhood.
-</p>
-<p>The nearest farmer neighbour was the farthest-out settler of all—Mr Andrew Kay—and
-very far out and lonely his home seemed, on the verge of the confiscation boundary.
-Maoris were more numerous than pakehas; many a savage-looking and tattooed warrior,
-wearing a waist-shawl—for the Maori had not then taken kindly to trousers—called in
-at the home from one or other of the large villages just over the border; and native
-labour was employed at times on the farms.
-</p>
-<p>That was long before the day of the dairy factory and the refrigerator, and while
-living was cheap there was little ready money in the country. No monthly cheques for
-butter-fat then; no competing buyers coming round for crops or stock. When a mob of
-cattle was ready for the market it had to be driven all the way to Auckland; and often
-there was mighty little profit for all the long hard work. Wheat was one of the staple
-crops, and in the early years it was threshed by hand with the old-fashioned flail
-and the grain carted to the nearest flour-mill. There was a water-mill on the Manga-o-Hoi,
-on the old swamp road between Kihikihi and Te Awamutu, and further south in the Waipa-Waikato
-country there were several wind-mills. I think I recollect two wind-mills of that
-old type on the road from Te Awamutu to Hamilton; one stood at or near Ohaupo.
-</p>
-<p>For many a year after the War periodical scares of a Maori invasion were raised in
-the border settlements, from Alexandra and Te Awamutu around the confiscation line
-to Cambridge. The shooting of the surveyor Todd on Pirongia Mountain in 1870, the
-tomahawking of the farm-hand Lyon on the Orakau side of the Puniu in the same year,
-and the murder and decapitation of Timothy Sullivan near Roto-o-Rangi, on the Maunga-tautari
-side, all set alarms going. Every settler was armed, and the old Militia organisation
-presently was supplemented and made mobile by the formation of a fine body of frontier
-horse, the Te Awamutu and Cambridge troops of Waikato Cavalry. Well mounted, armed
-with sword, carbine, and revolver, able to shoot accurately and ride well, and thoroughly
-acquainted with the tracks, roads, and river fords, these settler-cavalrymen could
-not have been surpassed for the purposes <span class="pageNum" id="pb87">[<a href="#pb87">87</a>]</span>of border defence. Formed in 1871, the troops remained in existence until the introduction
-of the mounted rifles system in the beginning of the Nineties, and many hundreds of
-young fellows passed through the ranks during that time. In the early years, when
-the two troops were a real bulwark for the frontier, Major William Jackson, the veteran
-of the Forest Rangers, commanded the Te Awamutu troop; his lieutenants were Andrew
-Kay and William A. Cowan (the writer’s father), the two furthest-out settlers of Orakau.
-Captain Runciman commanded the Cambridge corps. Te Awamutu was the usual drill-ground
-of Jackson’s troop, and the shooting-butts were on the Puniu side of the settlement.
-</p>
-<p>Some of the isolated settlers supplied themselves with small armouries of weapons
-for defence in case their homes were attacked. In our Orakau homestead there were,
-beside the cavalryman’s regulation arms, a double-barrel gun and a Spencer repeating
-carbine, a novel weapon in those days, American make; it was the U.S.A. cavalry arm.
-It held eight cartridges, fed in a peculiar way, by spring action through the heel
-of the butt.
-</p>
-<p>Towards the Puniu, on a lonely hill where a few bluegums mark the site of a long-razed
-dwelling, there lived an old soldier who had been a gold-digger, and he devised a
-method of winning safety, in case of an attack, which would naturally suggest itself
-to an ex-miner. He dug a tunnel from the interior of his little house to a point on
-the hill-side, concealed with a growth of fern and shrubs; there he considered he
-could make his escape into the scrub if his assailants burned his house over his head.
-</p>
-<p>There was another pioneer, a veteran of Jackson’s Forest Rangers, now living in Auckland.
-He told me of his preparations for defence on his section, which was partly surrounded
-by bush, at Te Rahu, a short distance from Te Awamutu. There was an old Maori potato-pit,
-one of the funnel-shaped ruas, not far from the house, and this he determined in one
-period of alarm to convert into a little garrison-hold. He made it a comfortable sleeping-place
-with layers of fern and blankets, and after dark at night he cautiously retired there
-with his carbine and two or three other shooting-irons and plenty of ammunition, and
-spent the night with an easy mind. His companion was his little daughter—his wife
-had died—and there the pair rested till morning. To make his retreat doubly secure
-the ex-Ranger had dug a short tunnel from his rifle-pit, emerging in the fern, so
-as to have a way of retreat in case his stronghold <span class="pageNum" id="pb88">[<a href="#pb88">88</a>]</span>was forced. The place was quite an ingenious little castle; and, as he said, would
-probably have been secure even had his home been attacked, for fern grew all about
-it, and was not likely to have been discovered except by a dog—and the Maoris did
-not take dogs with them on a raid.
-</p>
-<div class="figure p088-1width"><img src="images/p088-1.jpg" alt="ARMED CONSTABULARY DETACHMENT AT ORAKAU BLOCKHOUSE" width="589" height="402"><div class="figAnnotation p088-1width"><span class="figBottomLeft">From a photo in 1870.</span><span class="figTop">&nbsp;</span></div>
-<p class="figureHead">ARMED CONSTABULARY DETACHMENT AT ORAKAU BLOCKHOUSE</p>
-</div><p>
-</p>
-<div class="figure p088-2width"><img src="images/p088-2.jpg" alt="THE TE AWAMUTU CAVALRY BAND" width="592" height="399"><div class="figAnnotation p088-2width"><span class="figBottomLeft">From a photo about 1885.]</span><span class="figTop">&nbsp;</span></div>
-<p class="figureHead">THE TE AWAMUTU CAVALRY BAND</p>
-<p class="first">Back Row: Bandmaster-Sergeant H.&nbsp;T. Sibley, J. Holden, T. Weal
-</p>
-<p>Front Row: Corporal A.&nbsp;H. North, E. North, R. Cunningham, Corporal J.&nbsp;Q. Tristram
-</p>
-</div><p>
-</p>
-<p>The most anxious time on the frontier in the Seventies was the crisis caused by the
-murder of Timothy Sullivan by a party of Maoris between Roto-o-Rangi and Maunga-tautari,
-on 25th April, 1873. This was an agrarian murder, caused through rather careless dealings
-with native land; Purukutu, the principal in the crime, had not been paid for land
-in which he had an interest and which Mr E.&nbsp;B. Walker had acquired on lease, outside
-the aukati line. Sullivan was regarded by the Maoris as a tutua, a nobody; they were
-really after his employer, Mr Walker, and others, including Mr Buckland, of Cambridge.
-It was a savage piece of work, for Purukutu and Hori te Tumu, after shooting Sullivan—who
-had been at work with two companions fascining a swamp—decapitated him and cut out
-his heart. This was the last deed of the kind committed in New Zealand. The following
-account was given me by the old man Tu Tamua Takerei, who died recently at Parawera:
-</p>
-<p>“Timoti [Timothy] was killed on the open plain at the foot of the hill. The Hauhaus
-cut off his head with a tomahawk and also cut open his body and took his heart away
-as a trophy of war. The head was carried to Wharepapa, where it was left. The heart
-was carried up country at the end of a korari stick (a flax-stalk), and was taken
-to a place near Te Kuiti. The slayers of Timoti intended to lay the heart before Te
-Paea, or Tiaho, the Maori Queen, but she disapproved their action, so the trophy was
-not presented to her. The taking of a human heart was an ancient custom of the Maori;
-it was the practice to offer it to Tu and Uenuku, the gods of war.”
-</p>
-<p>This desperate deed was regarded by very many, Maoris as well as pakehas, as a prelude
-to war, and intense excitement prevailed on both sides of the border. The cavalry
-troops at Te Awamutu and Cambridge were called out for patrol duty, and the Armed
-Constabulary posts were strengthened. Additional blockhouses were built, one at Roto-o-Rangi
-and one at Paekuku, to watch the Maunga-tautari side, and a redoubt was built at the
-Puniu. The Waikato and Auckland newspapers were full of war rumours; public meetings
-were called at Te Awamutu to discuss defence measures; and <span class="pageNum" id="pb89">[<a href="#pb89">89</a>]</span>all along the frontier the determined settlers were on the alert. It was many months
-before the alarm subsided. The fanatical-minded factions among the King Country Maoris
-might have succeeded in raiding some of the border farms, but no native captain was
-bold enough to try the experiment in the face of the vigilant watch of the well-armed,
-well-drilled troops of frontier horse and the numerous garrisons of Armed Constabulary.
-</p>
-<div class="figure p089-1width"><img src="images/p089-1.jpg" alt="Mr. C. W. HURSTHOUSE" width="406" height="580"><div class="figAnnotation p089-1width"><span class="figBottomLeft">From a photo in 1883.]</span><span class="figTop">&nbsp;</span></div>
-<p class="figureHead">Mr. C.&nbsp;W. HURSTHOUSE</p>
-<p class="first">Mr. Hursthouse served in the wars in Taranaki, 1860–9, and had a very adventurous
-career as a Government surveyor. He was the earliest official pioneer of the King
-Country. See Appendices for narrative of his capture by<span class="corr" id="xd31e1246" title="Not in source"> a band of King Country fanatics.</span>
-</p>
-</div><p>
-</p>
-<div class="figure p089-2width"><img src="images/p089-2.jpg" alt="TAONUI HIKAKA" width="420" height="577"><p class="figureHead">TAONUI HIKAKA</p>
-<p class="first">Taonui was a high chief of Ngati-Maniapoto and took a leading part in Kingite politics.</p>
-</div><p>
-</p>
-<p>Formidable on the youthful eye in those lively years of the Seventies loomed the Blockhouse.
-This was the picturesque little garrison-house which crowned the Karaponia hill at
-Orakau, as if guarding our homestead that stood a few hundred yards away among its
-groves. It was very close to the spot where the British headquarters camp had been
-pitched in 1864 at the attack on Orakau Pa. The Blockhouse was a type of the border
-outposts built on many parts of the frontier, as far away as the Hawke’s Bay-Taupo
-Road, in the Hauhau wars. The building was of two storeys, and its curious tall shape
-and its lonely stand on the hill-crest commanding a look-out over the wild Maori country
-southward made it the most prominent object in the landscape. On the ground floor
-the building, constructed mostly of kahikatea, was about 16 feet by 20 feet, with
-a height of 9 feet. The upper storey overlapped the lower one by about 3 feet all
-round, and was 12 feet high. The walls were lined, and the space between the outer
-wall and the lining was filled with sand to make the place bullet-proof. The palisade
-which surrounded the Blockhouse was 10 or 12 feet high; there was a space of 6 feet
-or 7 feet between it and the building. In the walls of the top storey there were loop-holes
-all round, breast high, three at the ends and about six at the sides; and there was
-also provision for firing through the projecting part of the floor. There were no
-rifle-slits in the lower storey, but the palisading was loopholed; these firing-apertures
-were about 5 feet apart and breast high. The loopholes were 6 inches high and 2 inches
-wide, just large enough to put a rifle barrel through. In the front the palisading
-was double, with a curtain of timber covering the entrance. The front fence was nearly
-all tall manuka stakes, but the main palisading consisted of posts 10 or 12 inches
-in thickness; manuka timber was used to fill the interstices. On the edge of the gully
-at the rear of the Blockhouse the bank was scarped perpendicularly about 7 feet as
-an additional protection. To heighten the warlike face which this little fort presented
-to the world, above the narrow gateway there was <span class="pageNum" id="pb90">[<a href="#pb90">90</a>]</span>set a wooden effigy of a sentry. The figure had been carved by some Maori artist;
-it represented a soldier, with wooden rifle and fixed bayonet, in the correct attitude
-of “port arms.” It gave a kind of artistic finish to the “<span lang="mi">pa o te hoia</span>,” as the Maoris called the Blockhouse, and it loomed very grim and soldier-like in
-the eyes of us small youngsters from the Orakau farm. A tall flagstaff stood in front,
-and there were a potato patch and a garden plot, with all the old-fashioned flowers—sweet
-william, verbena, sunflower, Indian-shot, pansies, and their like. The married men
-of the Armed Constabulary lived outside the Blockhouse, in raupo whares, and very
-cleverly the pakeha learned to thatch his house. I remember the home of an Irish sergeant
-who lived near the Blockhouse, beside the main road; it was a snug, thatched dwelling,
-very neat and pretty; there was a potato patch, and there was a sweet little flower
-garden, and honeysuckle twined about the whare and hung over the door.
-</p>
-<p>The Blockhouse stood no sieges; its loop-holes never flashed the fire of Enfield or
-Snider on a yelling horde of Hauhaus. But it is certain that the existence of this
-chain of posts along the frontier, with the vigilant patrol of the settlers’ cavalry
-corps, prevented the hostiles from raiding across the border and descending on the
-out-settlements.
-</p>
-<p>There were many scares, and more than once the wives and children on the scattered
-farmsteads were taken in to the redoubts and blockhouses for the night, while the
-men of the farms, with carbine and revolver, watched their homesteads and rode patrol
-along the tracks leading to the Maori country and the fords of the Puniu.
-</p>
-<hr class="tb"><p>
-</p>
-<p>They are all gone now, those romance-teeming old blockhouses of our pioneer days.
-Like many other deserted posts, the Orakau building stood there on the sentry hill-top
-for many a year, rocking in the gales now that the protecting palisade had gone, until
-a Crown Lands Commissioner with no interest in historic matters sold it as mere old
-timber. Few people in those years possessed sufficient prescience and sentiment to
-help preserve for the new generation of colonists those relics of the adventurous
-days.
-</p>
-<p>Of the redoubts, less easily demolished, a few crumbling earthworks remain here and
-there. One, I am glad to say, that is very well preserved is the Armed Constabulary
-redoubt at Alexandra—<span class="pageNum" id="pb91">[<a href="#pb91">91</a>]</span>now Pirongia—garrisoned up to 1883. The village English Church stands in the centre
-of the work to-day. I give a sketch-plan of this last surviving example of the old
-frontier forts.
-</p>
-<p class="tb">*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*</p><p>
-</p>
-<div class="figure p091width"><img src="images/p091.png" alt="Pirongia Redoubt." width="560" height="198"><p class="figureHead">Pirongia Redoubt.</p>
-</div><p>
-</p>
-<p>The year 1881 saw the first definite decision for permanent peace on the part of the
-Maoris; it marked the nearing end of the necessity for frontier redoubts and blockhouses,
-and it relieved the border of the Kingite menace which had been an ever-present source
-of disquiet since white farmers first set the plough to the confiscated lands. Tawhiao
-laid down his guns at Major Mair’s feet at the border township of Alexandra, and then
-came a peaceful though martial-appearing march of the Kingite men through the European
-settlements and much firing of salutes to the dead—the “powder-burning of sorrow”—over
-the battlefields of the Sixties. Six hundred armed Kingites escorted the tattooed
-king and his chiefs, the lordly Wahanui and his shawl-kilted cabinet of rangatiras,
-on the pilgrimage to the scenes of the last despairing fights, and there were amazingly
-animated scenes in the outermost villages of Waikato when Tawhiao came to town, riding
-grimly in his buggy, and guarded front and rear by his fierce-faced riflemen. The
-march was by way of Te Awamutu, and the Cavalry band rode out from the township along
-the Alexandra Road to meet the Kingites and play them through the village. A right
-rousing march it was, too, for the tune the bandsmen played as they came riding in
-at the head of the procession was “The King of the Cannibal Islands.” It was Sergeant
-Thomas Gresham—then a lawyer in Te Awamutu, and afterwards coroner in Auckland—who
-suggested the air to <span class="pageNum" id="pb92">[<a href="#pb92">92</a>]</span>Bandmaster Harry Sibley, and that grizzled veteran of the wars seized on the bright
-idea with joy, and chuckled into his clarionet at the left-handed compliment he was
-paying his olden adversary. Tawhiao himself was pleased with the liveliness of the
-music, and later, through an interpreter, inquired the name of the tune; and an angry
-man was he when he was informed that it was “Te Kingi o Nga Moutere Kai-tangata.”
-For that same “kai-tangata” was a tender subject; and dour old Tawhiao had no glimmering
-of a sense of humour.
-</p>
-<p>Kihikihi settlement was given up that week to a Kingite carnival of feasting and war-dancing
-and speech-making, and the Maori camp at Rewi’s house and in the neighbouring field
-rang night and morning with the musical sound of the Hauhau hymns, the service of
-the Tariao, the “Morning Star,” chanted by hundreds of voices. Some unconventional
-scenes there were, characteristic of the frontier life. For instance, there was the
-pakeha-Maori dance on the main road in Kihikihi that symbolised the final unifying
-of the two races. The dashing Hote Thompson, the King-maker’s son, a fighting man
-of renown, paraded in all the glory of Hauhau war-paint in front of his savage-looking
-soldiery, and called for a pakeha lady partner to dance “te lancer” with him, and
-then out stepped a settler’s handsome wife, and the accomplished Hote led her through
-the mazes of the lancers in the middle of the crowd on the dusty road with as much
-grace as if he had been young Lochinvar himself. True, Hote wore only a shawl in place
-of trousers, and his face was blackened with charcoal dabbed on for a haka, but none
-the less he was a pretty gallant. Had that pakeha dancer been a reader of Bret Harte
-she might have recalled the historic dance on “Poverty Flat”:
-</p>
-<p class="tb">*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*</p><p>
-</p>
-<div class="lgouter xd31e333">
-<p class="line">“The dress of my queer vis-a-vis,
-</p>
-<p class="line">And how I once went down the middle
-</p>
-<p class="line">With the man that shot Sandy McGee.”</p>
-</div>
-<p class="first">There was no law but the Maori chieftains’ law south of the Puniu River until after
-1883, when Te Kooti was pardoned and a general amnesty to Maori rebels was proclaimed.
-For policy reasons the Kingites were left pretty much to themselves for some time
-after Tawhiao laid down his guns at Major Mair’s feet at Alexandra in 1881, and when
-John Rochfort and Charles Wilson Hursthouse, setting out from Kihikihi, carried flying
-surveys through the Rohepotae, <span class="pageNum" id="pb93">[<a href="#pb93">93</a>]</span>the state of the country from the Puniu for a hundred miles southward was not very
-different in essentials from that of the Scottish Highlands in the period described
-by Mr Neil Munro in his adventure romances that carry a tang of Stevenson’s “Catriona.”
-</p>
-<p>The only occasion on which an offender south of the Puniu was brought to justice before
-the chiefs of Ngati-Maniapoto voluntarily opened the country to Government authority
-was in 1882, when a long-wanted man was brought into Te Awamutu under circumstances
-unorthodox and dramatic. The Maori was Winiata, who in 1876 killed a man named Packer,
-at Epsom, near Auckland. Packer and Winiata had been fellow-servants in the employ
-of a Mr Cleghorn, and had quarrelled. Winiata, after tomahawking Packer, fled to the
-King Country, and for six years was safe. At last the Government reward of £500 tempted
-a big half-caste named Robert Barlow to make an effort to bring in Winiata. The arrest
-was accomplished as the result of a scheme devised by the Te Awamutu policeman, Constable
-R.&nbsp;J. Gillies—a very smart and capable man, afterwards Inspector of Police—and Sergeant
-McGovern, of Hamilton. At Otorohanga Barlow met Winiata, whose home was at Te Kuiti,
-and, pretending to be a pig-buyer, set about bargaining with the wanted man. In the
-night he succeeded in making Winiata and two companions drunk, and about midnight
-lashed him to a spare horse, after taking a revolver from him, and made off for the
-Puniu. It was an exceedingly risky undertaking, for Barlow would have been shot had
-any of the Maoris been at all suspicious. He took the prisoner to Kihikihi, and with
-the assistance of the Constabulary handed him over to Constable Gillies at Te Awamutu.
-He received the reward of £500, with which he bought a farm at Mangere. Winiata was
-tried and convicted, and was hanged at Auckland on 4th August, 1882. As for Barlow,
-he did not live long himself; he died in a very few years after his King Country feat,
-and the natives declared that he had been fatally bewitched (<span lang="mi">kua makuturia</span>) by a tohunga in revenge for his capture of Winiata.
-</p>
-<p>Another incident that greatly excited the frontier was the capture and imprisonment
-of Mr Hursthouse and a fellow-surveyor by the fanatic Te Mahuki, or Manukura, of Te
-Kumi, near Te Kuiti. This was in 1883. The surveyors were released by Te Kooti and
-friendly-disposed King natives. Soon thereafter Mahuki and a band of his “Angels”
-rode into Alexandra, which they had threatened to loot and burn; but they were smartly
-arrested by Major Gascoyne <span class="pageNum" id="pb94">[<a href="#pb94">94</a>]</span>and a force of Armed Constabulary and Te Awamutu Cavalry, and were haled off to Auckland
-prison.<a class="noteRef" id="xd31e1303src" href="#xd31e1303">1</a>
-</p>
-<p class="tb">*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*</p><p>
-</p>
-<p>A wilderness that vast country of the Rohepotae lay for many a year. The cultivations
-of the Maoris, even the fields of wheat and oats around such settlements as Araikotore—the
-patriarchal Hauauru’s village—or the large patches of potatoes and maize at Tokanui
-and Tokangamutu—it is Te Kuiti to-day—gave but scanty relief from the general impression
-of an unused virgin expanse of fern prairie and woody mountain land. At Otewa, on
-the Upper Waipa, lived the notorious and dreaded Te Kooti, in outlawed isolation far
-from his East Coast birthland, ever since his final skirmish with Captain Preece’s
-Arawa force in the Urewera Country in the beginning of 1872. Not until after John
-Bryce’s peace-making with him at Manga-o-rongo in 1883 did the white-haired old cateran
-venture out into the pakeha settlements.
-</p>
-<p>Then miles away to the west, on the beautiful slopes of Hikurangi, giving on to the
-fertile basin of the Waipa and overlorded by the Pirongia Range, there was the great
-camp of King Tawhiao and his exiled Waikato, several hundreds of them, looking down
-with many mournings on the good lost lands and the lost battlefields of the Sixties.
-Later, they moved down to Te Kopua, yonder by Kakepuku’s fern-shod heel, and then
-to Whatiwhati-hoe, the Place of the Broken Paddles, on the level banks of the Waipa.
-In the mid-Eighties they migrated in their canoes, a picturesque tribe-flitting, past
-Pirongia, down the Waipa and down the Waikato, back to their old ancestral homes,
-or what was left of those homes, on the west side of the Lower Waikato. But they never
-had a more lovely or more inspiring home in all their wanderings than those sun-bathed
-slopes of rich volcanic land on the high shoulder of Hikurangi, where the road to-day
-goes over the range to Kawhia.
-</p>
-<p>Now the once wild country across the border has become the highway of the motor-car,
-has become dotted with scores of lively European settlements, with large towns with
-electric light and asphalted footpaths, churches and police stations, tennis lawns
-and bowling greens, stock sale-yards and all the other varied furnishings of an advanced
-day. Hauhauism is a far-off tale of the past; descendants of old king-like Wahanui
-and the one-time followers of <span class="pageNum" id="pb95">[<a href="#pb95">95</a>]</span>the Pai-marire and Tariao fanatic faiths have fought beside Waikato and King Country
-white soldiers on the fields of Gallipoli and France. Yet the names of the old trail-breakers,
-the stories of the heroic missionaries, soldiers, surveyors, road-builders, should
-not be forgotten by those who look out from their carriage windows or their cars or
-from their comfortable farmhouses on this well-favoured land of the Waipa slopes and
-the old Aukati frontier.
-<span class="pageNum" id="pb96">[<a href="#pb96">96</a>]</span></p>
-</div>
-<div class="footnotes">
-<hr class="fnsep">
-<div class="footnote-body">
-<div class="fndiv" id="xd31e1303">
-<p class="footnote"><span class="fnlabel"><a class="noteRef" href="#xd31e1303src">1</a></span> For further details of these episodes see Appendices.&nbsp;<a class="fnarrow" href="#xd31e1303src" title="Return to note 1 in text.">↑</a></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div id="ch13" class="div1 chapter"><span class="pageNum">[<a href="#xd31e298">Contents</a>]</span><div class="divHead">
-<h2 class="label">CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
-<h2 class="main">KIHAROA THE GIANT.</h2>
-<h2 class="sub">A FOLK-TALE OF THE TOKANUI HILLS.</h2>
-<div class="argument">
-<p class="first"><i>This curious tradition, gathered from the last of the old learned men of the Ngati-Maniapoto
-tribe, is given as a typical example of the Maori folk-lore with which the King Country
-abounds.</i></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="xd31e815"><span class="xd31e815init">O</span>n the crown of the land at Whenuahou, immediately north of the Tokanui hills known
-to the European settlers of the old frontier as “The Three Sisters,” is an historic
-spot called Kiharoa, in memory of a giant warrior of long ago. It was proposed by
-some of the Kingite chiefs in 1864, after the British occupation of the Waipa basin,
-that a fort should be built here for a final stand against the Queen’s soldiers. The
-position commanded a wide view over the valley of the Puniu and the conquered lands
-north of the river, but it would have been useless without a sufficient garrison to
-hold also the hill-forts in rear of and above it, ancient terraced pas of the Maori.
-The suggestion was not favoured by Rewi and the other leaders, and the warriors re-crossed
-the Puniu to the north side and built the pa at Orakau. Long ago, riding along the
-old horse track from Kihikihi to Otorohanga past Hopa te Rangianini’s little village
-at Whenuahou, we used to see the Giant’s Grave, as it was called. This locally-famous
-landmark was a shallow excavation on a ferny mound; it was twelve or fourteen feet
-in length and about four feet in width, and vague traditions had grown up around it,
-but none of the European settlers of the frontier knew anything definite of its history.
-A few years ago, however, I gathered the story of this semi-mythic giant from two
-venerable warriors of the Ngati-Maniapoto, on the south bank of the Puniu River. There
-certainly seems to have been a veritable giant, a man of enormous stature and length
-of reach with the hand-weapons of those days, six generations ago. This Kiharoa, or
-“The Long Gasping Breath,” was a chief of the Ngati-Raukawa and Ngati-Whakatere tribes,
-who in those times owned the Tokanui hills and the surrounding fruitful slopes.
-</p>
-<div class="figure p096-1width"><img src="images/p096-1.jpg" alt="OFFICERS OF THE 40th REGIMENT (1863–4)" width="587" height="351"><p class="figureHead">OFFICERS OF THE 40th REGIMENT (1863–4)</p>
-<p class="first">With the regimental mess-house in the background<span class="corr" id="xd31e1330" title="Not in source">.</span></p>
-</div><p>
-</p>
-<div class="figure p096-2width"><img src="images/p096-2.jpg" alt="NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICERS OF THE 40th REGIMENT" width="586" height="341"><p class="figureHead">NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICERS OF THE 40th REGIMENT</p>
-<p class="first">[From photos lent by Colonel Ryder.]</p>
-</div><p>
-</p>
-<p>The strong terraced and trenched pa on Tokanui, the middle conical hill of the row
-of three, was built by the two tribes named, <span class="pageNum" id="pb97">[<a href="#pb97">97</a>]</span>under Kiharoa, about a hundred and fifty years ago. The same people fortified and
-occupied the other two hills; the eastern one is Puke-rimu (“Red-Pine hill”) and the
-western Whiti-te-marama (“The Shining of the Moon”). There were many good fighting
-men among the people of these hill forts, but their tower of strength was Kiharoa,
-who stood hugely over his fellows; he was twice the height of an ordinary man, and
-he wielded a taiaha of unusual length and weight, a hardwood weapon called by the
-name of “Rangihaeata” (“The First Rays of Morning Light”). Many a battle he had fought
-successfully with this great blade-and-tongue broadsword, sweeping every opponent
-out of his path. Kiharoa was tattooed on body as well as face, and when he leaped
-into battle, whirling “Rangihaeata” from side to side in guard and feint and cut,
-his blue-carved skin glistening with oil and red ochre, his great glaring eyes darting
-flame, his moko-scrolled features distorted with fury, few there were brave enough
-to face him. But there came a day when Kiharoa met his better on the battlefield of
-Whenuahou.
-</p>
-<p>The Ngati-Maniapoto tribe, whose great fortress was Totorewa, an impregnable cliff-walled
-pa on the Waipa River, raised a feud against the Ngati-Raukawa and Ngati-Whakatere,
-and a large war-party set out under the chief Wahanui, who himself was a man of great
-frame, though no giant like Kiharoa. The “taua” took a circuitous route, coming upon
-the Tokanui hills from the south via Manga-o-Rongo, and then making a detour to the
-east to avoid the deep morass which defended the southern side of “The Three Sisters”—the
-present main road from Kihikihi to Otorohanga traverses this now partly-drained swamp.
-</p>
-<p>Meanwhile the garrisons in the hill forts had prepared for war, and their sentinels
-stood on the alert on the tihi or citadel of the terraced strongholds, keeping keen
-watch for the expected enemy. Harua, one of the chiefs of the forts, had descended
-to the plain with a small party before the approach of the foe was detected, and although
-the people on the hill forts called repeatedly to him warning him to return, no heed
-was given to the long-drawn shouts. At length a keen-eyed sentry saw the glisten of
-a weapon—perhaps a whalebone mere—in the westering sun; the direction was well to
-the east of the pa, and by that token it was plain that the enemy army was lying in
-ambush waiting to advance silently in the night. It was imperative that Harua and
-his men outside the pa should be <span class="pageNum" id="pb98">[<a href="#pb98">98</a>]</span>warned, and so in the still watches of the night a strong-lunged warrior on the battlements
-of Tokanui lifted up his voice in this whakaaraara-pa, or sentinel-chant:
-</p>
-<div lang="mi" class="lgouter xd31e333">
-<p class="line">E tenei pa, e tera pa!
-</p>
-<p class="line">Titiro ki nga tahanga roa
-</p>
-<p class="line">I Tunaroa!
-</p>
-<p class="line">Pewhea tena te titiaho
-</p>
-<p class="line">Kia haere ake ki te pa.
-</p>
-<p class="line">Hoi tonu, hoi tonu!</p>
-</div>
-<p class="first">In this chant the garrisons of the pas on each hand, Puke-rimu and Whiti-te-marama,
-were called upon to be on the alert, and to scan the long slopes towards the place
-called Tunaroa where the enemy lay concealed. Yonder perhaps was the place whence
-the foe would advance in the morning sunshine against the pas. “Ye heeded me not—heeded
-me not,” the chant ended. Had any lurking enemy scout been near enough to hear the
-words he would take them as being addressed only to the garrisons of the hill-top
-fortresses, and would not suspect that it was really a warning for the ears of Harua
-and his small force of scouts who were liable to be cut off from the pa as soon as
-daylight came.
-</p>
-<p>The cry of warning was heard and understood by Harua, and he and his scouts swiftly
-rejoined their friends on the hill-tops.
-</p>
-<p>When day came and the war-party of Ngati-Maniapoto appeared, working round to the
-north-east side of the Tokanui chain of forts, Kiharoa the giant, stripped for battle,
-took up his taiaha, “The First Rays of Morning Light,” and led his warriors down to
-the open slopes of Whenuahou to give battle to the invaders. As he dashed down the
-hill he ran through a grove of karaka trees. Here there was a pool where the kernels
-of the karaka berries were prepared for food by being steeped in water after having
-been cooked; this food was termed “kopiri.” There were some dead leaves of the karaka
-lying on the track, and Kiharoa slipped on these leaves as he ran, and fell, and narrowly
-escaped breaking his taiaha in his fall. The spot is at the foot of Tokanui hill,
-just outside the thickets of prickly acacia which now clothe the silent old fortress
-with a mat of softest green. This accident was in the belief of the Maori <span lang="mi">a tohu aitua</span> or evil omen for Kiharoa. The knowledge of this fact may have unnerved the giant,
-or “Rangihaeata’s” mana may have suffered by the mishap. He rushed to meet his foes,
-but he was outfought for all his phenomenal reach of <span class="pageNum" id="pb99">[<a href="#pb99">99</a>]</span>arm. He fell pierced with spear thrusts and battered with blows of stone clubs, and
-he lay dead on the battlefield of Whenuahou.
-</p>
-<p>The Tokanui people were defeated; they fled in panic when their gigantic chieftain
-fell, and many were killed on the field. The survivors, however, held their forts
-successfully. Ngati-Maniapoto contented themselves with the dead, which would provide
-many ovens of man-meat, and most of all they rejoiced to find that they had vanquished
-the dreaded Kiharoa. They gathered round in amazement to measure his height and his
-giant limbs; and on the spot where he lay marks were cut at head and feet to indicate
-his length. His enormous tattooed head was cut off and preserved by being smoke-dried,
-and presently was carried home to Totorewa to decorate the palisade at the gateway
-of the fort. His body was cut up and cooked and eaten where he fell, and there the
-excavation remained to mark his great stature. He was two fathoms long! So says the
-native account. My Maori friends will not abate a single inch. This is the length
-of the place we used to call the “Giant’s Grave,” on the crown of the land below Puke-rimu,
-the eastern hill of the “Sisters.” And the battlefield was divided among the victors,
-and later became the home of a section of the Ngati-Matakore tribe, of whom my old
-warrior acquaintances Hauauru and Hopa te Rangianini were the chiefs in the days of
-my boyhood within sight of the terrace-carved “Three Sisters.”
-</p>
-<p>Such is in brief the story of the giant’s grave—a misnomer assuredly, seeing that
-Kiharoa’s tomb was the stomachs of his slayers. The Tokanui village hall stands within
-revolver shot of the place where Kiharoa came to his end, and the community creamery
-at the cross-roads stands where once Wahanui’s cannibal army plied spear and stone
-club and taiaha on the defenders of the three hill forts. Some distance to the east
-is the Waikeria prison farm. It was in that direction, at Tunaroa, that Wahanui and
-his Totorewa army lay in the fern the night before the battle.
-</p>
-<p>There was another giant of those parts in the days before the white man came with
-his guns. This was Matau; he was, like Kiharoa, a man of the Ngati-Raukawa tribe.
-He was nearly as tall as Kiharoa, says an old word-of-mouth historian. He was a dreaded
-warrior, and, like Kiharoa again, his favourite weapon was the taiaha. His home was
-in a palisaded hole in a cliff above the cave called Te Ana Kai-tangata (“The Cannibal’s
-Cave”), which you may see in the rocky face in the gorge towards the head of the <span class="pageNum" id="pb100">[<a href="#pb100">100</a>]</span>Wairaka Stream, a tributary of the Puniu River. The entrance to this cave is still
-marked with the paint kokowai or red ochre; that is how you will know it. It was an
-excellent place in which to lie in wait for incautious travellers in the days of old.
-<span class="pageNum" id="pb101">[<a href="#pb101">101</a>]</span></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="back">
-<div id="app" class="div1 appendix"><span class="pageNum">[<a href="#xd31e307">Contents</a>]</span><div class="divHead">
-<h2 class="main">APPENDICES</h2>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<div class="div2 section"><span class="pageNum">[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]</span><div class="divHead">
-<h3 class="main">SOME MAORI PLACE NAMES.</h3>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="first">The following are the meanings of a number of native place-names in the Te Awamutu
-district; some of these names are now for the first time placed on record:—
-</p>
-<ul>
-<li>Te Awamutu: The end of the river; i.e., the head of canoe navigation.
-</li>
-<li>Rangiaowhia: Beclouded sky.
-</li>
-<li>Kihikihi: Cicada, tree-locust.
-</li>
-<li>Orakau: The place of trees.
-</li>
-<li>Paterangi: Fort of heaven; i.e., the pa on the high part of the ridge, the skyline.
-</li>
-<li>Waiari: Clear water.
-</li>
-<li>Mangapiko: Crooked creek.
-</li>
-<li>Te Rore: The snare.
-</li>
-<li>Mangatea (on the Manga-o-Hoi, where the mill stood): White stream.
-</li>
-<li>Matariki (a short distance above the bridge at Te Awamutu, right bank of river<span class="corr" id="xd31e1388" title="Not in source">)</span>: The Pleiades constellation; also reeds used for lining the interior of a house.
-</li>
-<li>Te Reinga (old village site behind R.C. Church, Rangiaowhia): Leaping, rushing; thus
-the place of leaping, the final departing place of spirits of the dead.
-</li>
-<li>Hikurangi (the Rangiaowhia heights above the Manga-o-Hoi; Gifford’s Hill; also place
-on Pirongia-Kawhia Road): Skyline; horizon.
-</li>
-<li>Pekapeka-rau (swamp between Hairini and Rangiaowhia): Place where the native bat was
-numerous.
-</li>
-<li>Tioriori (native village, near where the Hairini cheese factory now stands): A kind
-of kite, made of raupo.
-</li>
-<li>Tau-ki-tua (the site of the English Church at Rangiaowhia): The farther ridge.
-</li>
-<li>Te Rahu: Basket made of undressed flax.
-</li>
-<li>Te Rua-Kotare (Taylor’s Hill, or Green Hill, north of Te Awamutu): The kingfisher’s
-nest (in hollow tree).
-</li>
-<li>Tauwhare (ancient pa on cliffy right bank of Mangapiko River, above Waiari): Overhanging.
-</li>
-<li>Tokanui: Great Rock.
-</li>
-<li>Waikeria: Dug-out waterway, or watercourse gouged out.
-</li>
-<li>Otorohanga: O, food carried for a journey; torohanga, stretched out. According to
-a Ngati-Maniapoto tradition, a certain warrior chief who set out from this spot for
-Taupo with only a very small quantity of food caused it by supernatural means to “stretch
-out” and to last until he had reached his destination. Hence the name.</li>
-</ul><p>
-</p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="div2 section"><span class="pageNum">[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]</span><div class="divHead">
-<h3 class="main">THE CAPTURE OF WINIATA.</h3>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="first">The Maori murderer Winiata, captured at Otorohanga by Robert Barlow, was brought into
-Kihikihi early on the morning of Tuesday, 27th June, 1882. At about three o’clock
-that morning Constable Finnerty, of the Armed Constabulary, found Barlow and Winiata
-struggling violently outside the Alpha Hotel. Winiata, who was in a naked condition,
-had recovered from the effects of the grog, and was making a desperate effort to escape.
-He was overpowered and taken to the Constabulary barracks in the redoubt, and chained
-to a bedstead. Major Minnett, who was in command of the Armed Constabulary Force at
-Kihikihi, sent him to Te Awamutu with Barlow in the Government waggon under an armed
-guard, and Constable Gillies then took the prisoner in charge and delivered him to
-Sergeant McGovern at Hamilton the same day.
-</p>
-<p>There were two other Maoris in the whare at Otorohanga, and both of these were made
-helplessly drunk or drugged by Barlow.
-<span class="pageNum" id="pb102">[<a href="#pb102">102</a>]</span></p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="div2 section"><span class="pageNum">[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]</span><div class="divHead">
-<h3 class="main">MR HURSTHOUSE’S ADVENTURE IN THE KING COUNTRY.</h3>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="first">The capture of Mr Charles Wilson Hursthouse and Mr William Newsham, Government surveyors,
-by a band of King Country fanatics under the prophet Te Mahuki occurred at Te Uira,
-near Te Kuiti, on 20th March, 1883. Mr Hursthouse was on his way from Alexandra to
-explore the country from the Waikato frontier to the Mokau, and he and his assistant
-surveyor were accompanied by the Mokau friendly chiefs Te Rangituataka and Hone Wetere
-te Rerenga and twenty-five other Mokau men. At Te Uira, sixteen miles beyond Otorohanga,
-on the afternoon of the 20th, as they rode up they saw a large body of Maoris mustering
-excitedly. These were natives under the leadership of the fanatic Te Mahuki, or Manukura,
-a Ngati-Maniapoto man who had been a follower of Te Whiti at Parihaka, and who had
-returned to the Rohepotae to found a sect of his own. He called his followers the
-“Tekau-ma-rua,” or “The Twelve”—although they numbered many more—after the Twelve
-Apostles. This was a revival of a term of the Hauhau war days. The selected war-parties
-of the Taranaki fighting chief Titokowaru were called the “Tekau-ma-rua.” These men
-attacked Hursthouse’s party, and a lively fight followed, although no deadly weapons
-were used. The Tekau-ma-rua pulled the surveyors and the Mokau men off their horses,
-Rangituataka’s followers fighting desperately with stirrup-irons and leathers. The
-prisoners were marched to the village at Te Uira, in the midst of the terribly-excited
-Tekau-ma-rua, who were dancing and yelling and chanting ngeri or war-songs. Te Rangituataka
-and Wetere and their men were not ill-used—there were too many of them; moreover the
-leaders were high chiefs of the tribe—but the surveyors and a native named Te Haere
-were thrust into a cookhouse and imprisoned there. Hursthouse and Newsham had been
-stripped of their coats, waistcoats, and boots. Their hands were tied behind their
-backs and their feet were fastened together with bullock-chains. In this condition,
-suffering great pain from the tightness of their bonds, tortured by mosquitoes which
-they could only brush off by rubbing their faces on the ground, and without drink
-or food except dirty water and some pig’s potatoes thrown in on the floor, they remained
-there two nights and a day, listening to the yells and threats of the natives outside,
-and expecting to be killed. Early on the morning of 22nd March there was a new commotion
-outside, and Hursthouse heard Te Kooti’s voice. In a few moments the door of the cookhouse
-was burst open and the prisoners were released by Te Kooti—who had just been promised
-an amnesty by Mr Bryce, Native Minister—and a large party of natives, including Wahanui’s
-people; Wahanui himself arrived a little later. Hursthouse and Newsham had already
-worked their hands free, and the former had picked up a piece of iron chain as a weapon
-in case he was attacked. The extreme tension and anxiety of the thirty-six hours’
-painful confinement and the want of food had affected even the indomitable Hursthouse,
-old campaigner though he was, and, as he related afterwards, when he was released
-he fairly broke down and wept. The surveyors were escorted to Alexandra by a large
-body of Wahanui’s people, and presently resumed their exploring expedition, after
-their late captor in his turn had been locked up.
-</p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="div2 section"><span class="pageNum">[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]</span><div class="divHead">
-<h3 class="main">MAHUKI’S RAID ON ALEXANDRA, AND HIS CAPTURE.</h3>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="first">On Sunday, 25th March, 1883, three days after the release of Hursthouse and Newsham,
-Mahuki and twenty-six followers invaded the township of Alexandra (now Pirongia),
-in pursuance of the leader’s announced intention to loot the place. Mahuki had prophesied
-many extraordinary things, and his followers had implicit belief in his supernatural
-powers. He had even sent word of his intended visit, so Alexandra was prepared. A
-force of Armed Constabulary under Captain (afterwards Major) Gascoyne, who was in
-command of the Alexandra Redoubt, and the Te Awamutu Cavalry troop were on hand, and
-so disposed in detachments out of sight as to surprise and surround the invaders.
-Mahuki’s men, fortunately for themselves, were not armed. Two Europeans who had ridden
-out to reconnoitre the road to the Waipa bridge had to make a speedy retreat when
-the Tekau-ma-rua came in sight. One of them—Mr Alfred H. Benge, the schoolmaster at
-Te Awamutu<span class="pageNum" id="pb103">[<a href="#pb103">103</a>]</span>—returned safely with the loss of only his hat; the other, a well-known Alexandra
-resident, parted company with his horse in the race, and was caught, tied up, and
-deposited by the roadside to reflect on the position at leisure, while the Hauhau
-troop galloped on into Alexandra. Their surprise was complete. Armed Constabulary
-and Cavalry troopers rushed out and surrounded them, pulled them off their horses,
-and tied them up. Twenty-three were captured in this way, including the much-astonished
-prophet himself, and four more were arrested at the bridge. Only one man got clear
-away to carry the news of the prophet’s capture to the kainga at Te Kumi. Four of
-the twenty-seven, being young boys, were released; the rest were marched, handcuffed
-in couples, to Te Awamutu, where they were entrained for Auckland. Mahuki and his
-principal followers were tried at the Supreme Court for the assault on Hursthouse
-and Newsham, and received terms of imprisonment.
-</p>
-<p>Some years later Mahuki ran amok again, this time at Te Kuiti, and was once more imprisoned,
-and he died while serving his sentence. He was the last of the troublesome religious
-fanatics of the Rohepotae.
-</p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="div2 section"><span class="pageNum">[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]</span><div class="divHead">
-<h3 class="main">THE NAME RANGIAOWHIA.</h3>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="first">Rangiaowhia has been spelled in a variety of ways, ranging from the curious “Rangahaphia”
-in one of the Auckland papers of 1851 to “Rangiaohia” and “Rangiawhia.” The old men
-of Ngati-Maniapoto pronounce and write the name as spelled in this book.
-</p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="div2 section"><span class="pageNum">[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]</span><div class="divHead">
-<h3 class="main">THE FIRST WAIPA MISSIONARY.</h3>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="first">The Rev. Benjamin Yates Ashwell, although the first to establish a mission settlement
-at Te Awamutu, did not live there. He made several visits, travelling through the
-Waikato and Waipa, and left native teachers in charge at each village where he was
-early favourably received. In the Forties he established his headquarters at Kaitotehe,
-near Te Wherowhero’s pa, on the opposite side of the Waikato River to Taupiri. This
-spot, on the most beautiful bend of the Waikato, became a favourite halting place
-for canoe crews passing up and down the river, and pioneer travellers have described
-to the writer the pleasure of landing at Kaitotehe on a hot midsummer day, after a
-long, cramping voyage in a Maori canoe, and feasting in the cherry groves at the mission
-station. Mrs B.&nbsp;A. Chrispe, of Mauku, describing Mr Ashwell’s station, says that the
-church was a large and lofty thatched building, with the walls beautifully lined in
-the artistic Maori fashion with arapaki lattice work of coloured lathes and reeds
-arranged in many patterns. The site of the long-deserted mission station, which is
-seen from the railway train as it passes along the Taupiri bend, is covered with a
-growth of acacia. The Maoris pronounced the missionary’s name “Ahiwera.”
-</p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="div2 section"><span class="pageNum">[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]</span><div class="divHead">
-<h3 class="main">THE KING COUNTRY RAILWAY.</h3>
-</div>
-<div class="divBody">
-<p class="first">A highly-important event in the story of this district, and, indeed, of the Dominion,
-was the turning of the first sods of the Te Awamutu-Marton railway, the King Country
-section of the Main Trunk line, in 1885. The sods were turned on the south side of
-the Puniu bridge by the high chiefs Wahanui, Taonui, and Rewi. The Premier of New
-Zealand, Sir Robert Stout (then Mr Stout), was present, but he contented himself with
-second place in diplomatic compliment to the lords of the soil. There is a curious
-inner history to the ceremony on the banks of the Puniu; it was related to the present
-writer some years ago by Sir Robert Stout. “The sod was nearly not turned that day,”
-said Sir Robert; and he told the story of the dispute between the Waikato and Ngati-Maniapoto
-tribes. Early that morning there was a conference at Te Awamutu between the Premier
-and his colleague, Mr John Ballance, and the Maori chiefs. Mr G.&nbsp;T. Wilkinson was
-the interpreter. Wahanui, Taonui, and Rewi were there, and all three had agreed that
-the sod should be turned and the railway should go on through the Rohepotae. But Waikato
-sent two chiefs to protest against the work in the name of the Maori King, whose headquarters
-were then at Whatiwhatihoe, on the Waipa. <span class="pageNum" id="pb104">[<a href="#pb104">104</a>]</span>There were long speeches; the only one who was silent was the huge-framed Wahanui;
-but he was fuming with indignation; his chest was heaving in his efforts to suppress
-his anger. At last one of the Waikato chiefs, regardless of the fact that his tribespeople
-were only in the Rohepotae by sufferance of Ngati-Maniapoto, had the hardihood to
-declare that the sod would not be turned because it was Waikato’s land. “Oh, well,”
-said the Premier, quietly regarding the deeply-incensed Wahanui, “if it is Waikato’s
-land we have come to the wrong place.” Then the tall, dignified rangatira Taonui,
-almost as big a man as Wahanui, arose and said, with angry determination: “It is our
-land; the sod shall be turned, and turned to-day!<span class="corr" id="xd31e1431" title="Source: ’">”</span> And it was done. Waikato were ousted; literally they had no <span lang="la">locus standi</span>; and, baffled and disgruntled, they saw the big work begun and the first step taken
-in the civilisation of the great Rohepotae.
-</p>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div class="transcriberNote">
-<h2 class="main">Colophon</h2>
-<h3 class="main">Availability</h3>
-<p class="first">This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project
-Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at <a class="seclink xd31e41" title="External link" href="https://www.gutenberg.org/">www.gutenberg.org</a>.
-</p>
-<p>This eBook is produced by the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at <a class="seclink xd31e41" title="External link" href="https://www.pgdp.net/">www.pgdp.net</a>.
-</p>
-<p>Scans of this book are available from the Internet Archive (copy <a class="seclink xd31e41" title="External link" href="https://archive.org/details/oldfrontierteawa00cowaiala">1</a>).
-</p>
-<h3 class="main">Metadata</h3>
-<table class="colophonMetadata" summary="Metadata">
-<tr>
-<td><b>Title:</b></td>
-<td>The old frontier: Te Awamutu, the story of the Waipa Valley</td>
-<td></td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td><b>Author:</b></td>
-<td>James Cowan (1870–1943)</td>
-<td><a href="https://viaf.org/viaf/#####/" class="seclink">Info</a></td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td><b>Language:</b></td>
-<td>English</td>
-<td></td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td><b>Original publication date:</b></td>
-<td>1922</td>
-<td></td>
-</tr>
-</table>
-<h3 class="main">Revision History</h3>
-<ul>
-<li>2022-02-19 Started.
-</li>
-</ul>
-<h3 class="main">External References</h3>
-<p>This Project Gutenberg eBook contains external references. These links may not work
-for you.</p>
-<h3 class="main">Corrections</h3>
-<p>The following corrections have been applied to the text:</p>
-<table class="correctionTable" summary="Overview of corrections applied to the text.">
-<tr>
-<th>Page</th>
-<th>Source</th>
-<th>Correction</th>
-<th>Edit distance</th>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd31e505">25</a>, <a class="pageref" href="#xd31e1168">81</a>, <a class="pageref" href="#xd31e1330">96</a></td>
-<td class="width40 bottom">
-[<i>Not in source</i>]
-</td>
-<td class="width40 bottom">.</td>
-<td class="bottom">1</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd31e536">27</a></td>
-<td class="width40 bottom">Governmen</td>
-<td class="width40 bottom">Government</td>
-<td class="bottom">1</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd31e750">41</a></td>
-<td class="width40 bottom">
-[<i>Not in source</i>]
-</td>
-<td class="width40 bottom">.)</td>
-<td class="bottom">2</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd31e1017">70</a></td>
-<td class="width40 bottom">despached</td>
-<td class="width40 bottom">despatched</td>
-<td class="bottom">1</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd31e1043">72</a></td>
-<td class="width40 bottom">”)</td>
-<td class="width40 bottom">)”</td>
-<td class="bottom">2</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd31e1246">89</a></td>
-<td class="width40 bottom">
-[<i>Not in source</i>]
-</td>
-<td class="width40 bottom"> a band of King Country fanatics.</td>
-<td class="bottom">33</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd31e1388">101</a></td>
-<td class="width40 bottom">
-[<i>Not in source</i>]
-</td>
-<td class="width40 bottom">)</td>
-<td class="bottom">1</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-<td class="width20"><a class="pageref" href="#xd31e1431">104</a></td>
-<td class="width40 bottom">’</td>
-<td class="width40 bottom">”</td>
-<td class="bottom">1</td>
-</tr>
-</table>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLD FRONTIER: TE AWAMUTU, THE STORY OF THE WAIPA VALLEY ***</div>
-<div style='text-align:left'>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-Updated editions will replace the previous one&#8212;the old editions will
-be renamed.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
-law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
-so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United
-States without permission and without paying copyright
-royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
-of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
-Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG&#8482;
-concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
-and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following
-the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use
-of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for
-copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very
-easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation
-of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project
-Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away&#8212;you may
-do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected
-by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark
-license, especially commercial redistribution.
-</div>
-
-<div style='margin:0.83em 0; font-size:1.1em; text-align:center'>START: FULL LICENSE<br>
-<span style='font-size:smaller'>THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE<br>
-PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK</span>
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-To protect the Project Gutenberg&#8482; mission of promoting the free
-distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
-(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase &#8220;Project
-Gutenberg&#8221;), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
-Project Gutenberg&#8482; License available with this file or online at
-www.gutenberg.org/license.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'>
-Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg&#8482;
-electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
-and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
-(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
-the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
-destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works in your
-possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
-Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
-by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person
-or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-1.B. &#8220;Project Gutenberg&#8221; is a registered trademark. It may only be
-used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
-agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
-things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works
-even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
-paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
-Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works if you follow the terms of this
-agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg&#8482;
-electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (&#8220;the
-Foundation&#8221; or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
-of Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works. Nearly all the individual
-works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
-States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
-United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
-claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
-displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
-all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
-that you will support the Project Gutenberg&#8482; mission of promoting
-free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg&#8482;
-works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
-Project Gutenberg&#8482; name associated with the work. You can easily
-comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
-same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg&#8482; License when
-you share it without charge with others.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
-what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
-in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
-check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
-agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
-distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
-other Project Gutenberg&#8482; work. The Foundation makes no
-representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
-country other than the United States.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
-immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg&#8482; License must appear
-prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg&#8482; work (any work
-on which the phrase &#8220;Project Gutenberg&#8221; appears, or with which the
-phrase &#8220;Project Gutenberg&#8221; is associated) is accessed, displayed,
-performed, viewed, copied or distributed:
-</div>
-
-<blockquote>
- <div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
- This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
- other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
- whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
- of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
- at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you
- are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws
- of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
- </div>
-</blockquote>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic work is
-derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
-contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
-copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
-the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
-redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase &#8220;Project
-Gutenberg&#8221; associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
-either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
-obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg&#8482;
-trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic work is posted
-with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
-must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
-additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
-will be linked to the Project Gutenberg&#8482; License for all works
-posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
-beginning of this work.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg&#8482;
-License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
-work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg&#8482;.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
-electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
-prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
-active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
-Gutenberg&#8482; License.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
-compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
-any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
-to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg&#8482; work in a format
-other than &#8220;Plain Vanilla ASCII&#8221; or other format used in the official
-version posted on the official Project Gutenberg&#8482; website
-(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
-to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
-of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original &#8220;Plain
-Vanilla ASCII&#8221; or other form. Any alternate format must include the
-full Project Gutenberg&#8482; License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
-performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg&#8482; works
-unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
-access to or distributing Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works
-provided that:
-</div>
-
-<div style='margin-left:0.7em;'>
- <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'>
- &#8226; You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
- the use of Project Gutenberg&#8482; works calculated using the method
- you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
- to the owner of the Project Gutenberg&#8482; trademark, but he has
- agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
- Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
- within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
- legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
- payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
- Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
- Section 4, &#8220;Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
- Literary Archive Foundation.&#8221;
- </div>
-
- <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'>
- &#8226; You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
- you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
- does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg&#8482;
- License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
- copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
- all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg&#8482;
- works.
- </div>
-
- <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'>
- &#8226; You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
- any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
- electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
- receipt of the work.
- </div>
-
- <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'>
- &#8226; You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
- distribution of Project Gutenberg&#8482; works.
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
-Gutenberg&#8482; electronic work or group of works on different terms than
-are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
-from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of
-the Project Gutenberg&#8482; trademark. Contact the Foundation as set
-forth in Section 3 below.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-1.F.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
-effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
-works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
-Gutenberg&#8482; collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg&#8482;
-electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
-contain &#8220;Defects,&#8221; such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
-or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
-intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
-other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
-cannot be read by your equipment.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the &#8220;Right
-of Replacement or Refund&#8221; described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
-Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
-Gutenberg&#8482; trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
-Gutenberg&#8482; electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
-liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
-fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
-LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
-PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
-TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
-LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
-INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
-DAMAGE.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
-defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
-receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
-written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
-received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
-with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
-with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
-lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
-or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
-opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
-the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
-without further opportunities to fix the problem.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
-in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you &#8216;AS-IS&#8217;, WITH NO
-OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
-LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
-warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
-damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
-violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
-agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
-limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
-unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
-remaining provisions.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
-trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
-providing copies of Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works in
-accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
-production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg&#8482;
-electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
-including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
-the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
-or any Project Gutenberg&#8482; work, (b) alteration, modification, or
-additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg&#8482; work, and (c) any
-Defect you cause.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'>
-Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg&#8482;
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-Project Gutenberg&#8482; is synonymous with the free distribution of
-electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
-computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
-exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
-from people in all walks of life.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
-assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg&#8482;&#8217;s
-goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg&#8482; collection will
-remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
-Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
-and permanent future for Project Gutenberg&#8482; and future
-generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
-Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
-Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'>
-Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit
-501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
-state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
-Revenue Service. The Foundation&#8217;s EIN or federal tax identification
-number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
-Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
-U.S. federal laws and your state&#8217;s laws.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-The Foundation&#8217;s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,
-Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up
-to date contact information can be found at the Foundation&#8217;s website
-and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'>
-Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-Project Gutenberg&#8482; depends upon and cannot survive without widespread
-public support and donations to carry out its mission of
-increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
-freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest
-array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
-($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
-status with the IRS.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
-charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
-States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
-considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
-with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
-where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
-DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state
-visit <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/donate/">www.gutenberg.org/donate</a>.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
-have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
-against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
-approach us with offers to donate.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
-any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
-outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation
-methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
-ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
-donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'>
-Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg&#8482; electronic works
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
-Gutenberg&#8482; concept of a library of electronic works that could be
-freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
-distributed Project Gutenberg&#8482; eBooks with only a loose network of
-volunteer support.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-Project Gutenberg&#8482; eBooks are often created from several printed
-editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
-the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
-necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
-edition.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
-facility: <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>.
-</div>
-
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-This website includes information about Project Gutenberg&#8482;,
-including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
-Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
-subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
-</div>
-
-</div>
-</body>
-</html>
diff --git a/old/67490-h/images/front.jpg b/old/67490-h/images/front.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 98b570b..0000000
--- a/old/67490-h/images/front.jpg
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ
diff --git a/old/67490-h/images/frontispiece.jpg b/old/67490-h/images/frontispiece.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index c7de3fa..0000000
--- a/old/67490-h/images/frontispiece.jpg
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ
diff --git a/old/67490-h/images/initial-a.png b/old/67490-h/images/initial-a.png
deleted file mode 100644
index 14d80a4..0000000
--- a/old/67490-h/images/initial-a.png
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ
diff --git a/old/67490-h/images/initial-f.png b/old/67490-h/images/initial-f.png
deleted file mode 100644
index 92d9d63..0000000
--- a/old/67490-h/images/initial-f.png
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ
diff --git a/old/67490-h/images/initial-i.png b/old/67490-h/images/initial-i.png
deleted file mode 100644
index e08b90e..0000000
--- a/old/67490-h/images/initial-i.png
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ
diff --git a/old/67490-h/images/initial-l.png b/old/67490-h/images/initial-l.png
deleted file mode 100644
index 9cde285..0000000
--- a/old/67490-h/images/initial-l.png
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ
diff --git a/old/67490-h/images/initial-o.png b/old/67490-h/images/initial-o.png
deleted file mode 100644
index 60f2db4..0000000
--- a/old/67490-h/images/initial-o.png
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ
diff --git a/old/67490-h/images/initial-r.png b/old/67490-h/images/initial-r.png
deleted file mode 100644
index cc1257f..0000000
--- a/old/67490-h/images/initial-r.png
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ
diff --git a/old/67490-h/images/initial-t.png b/old/67490-h/images/initial-t.png
deleted file mode 100644
index 12401c4..0000000
--- a/old/67490-h/images/initial-t.png
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ
diff --git a/old/67490-h/images/p016-1.jpg b/old/67490-h/images/p016-1.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 2cf13a9..0000000
--- a/old/67490-h/images/p016-1.jpg
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ
diff --git a/old/67490-h/images/p016-2.jpg b/old/67490-h/images/p016-2.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index c23a32f..0000000
--- a/old/67490-h/images/p016-2.jpg
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ
diff --git a/old/67490-h/images/p024-2.png b/old/67490-h/images/p024-2.png
deleted file mode 100644
index 2eba7a4..0000000
--- a/old/67490-h/images/p024-2.png
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ
diff --git a/old/67490-h/images/p024.jpg b/old/67490-h/images/p024.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index d374f83..0000000
--- a/old/67490-h/images/p024.jpg
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ
diff --git a/old/67490-h/images/p025-1.jpg b/old/67490-h/images/p025-1.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index f7d5f6d..0000000
--- a/old/67490-h/images/p025-1.jpg
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ
diff --git a/old/67490-h/images/p025-2.jpg b/old/67490-h/images/p025-2.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 534d458..0000000
--- a/old/67490-h/images/p025-2.jpg
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ
diff --git a/old/67490-h/images/p033-1.jpg b/old/67490-h/images/p033-1.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index c70360c..0000000
--- a/old/67490-h/images/p033-1.jpg
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ
diff --git a/old/67490-h/images/p033-2.jpg b/old/67490-h/images/p033-2.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index a21311a..0000000
--- a/old/67490-h/images/p033-2.jpg
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ
diff --git a/old/67490-h/images/p033-3.jpg b/old/67490-h/images/p033-3.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 294465e..0000000
--- a/old/67490-h/images/p033-3.jpg
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ
diff --git a/old/67490-h/images/p033-4.jpg b/old/67490-h/images/p033-4.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 143d2c5..0000000
--- a/old/67490-h/images/p033-4.jpg
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ
diff --git a/old/67490-h/images/p040.jpg b/old/67490-h/images/p040.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 9320004..0000000
--- a/old/67490-h/images/p040.jpg
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ
diff --git a/old/67490-h/images/p041.jpg b/old/67490-h/images/p041.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 104eaf3..0000000
--- a/old/67490-h/images/p041.jpg
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ
diff --git a/old/67490-h/images/p048.jpg b/old/67490-h/images/p048.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index fa0d9db..0000000
--- a/old/67490-h/images/p048.jpg
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ
diff --git a/old/67490-h/images/p054.png b/old/67490-h/images/p054.png
deleted file mode 100644
index c97ef3a..0000000
--- a/old/67490-h/images/p054.png
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ
diff --git a/old/67490-h/images/p056-1.jpg b/old/67490-h/images/p056-1.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 8f42f88..0000000
--- a/old/67490-h/images/p056-1.jpg
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ
diff --git a/old/67490-h/images/p056-2.jpg b/old/67490-h/images/p056-2.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index ec65662..0000000
--- a/old/67490-h/images/p056-2.jpg
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ
diff --git a/old/67490-h/images/p057-1.jpg b/old/67490-h/images/p057-1.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index a744c4f..0000000
--- a/old/67490-h/images/p057-1.jpg
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ
diff --git a/old/67490-h/images/p057-2.jpg b/old/67490-h/images/p057-2.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index f121b4d..0000000
--- a/old/67490-h/images/p057-2.jpg
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ
diff --git a/old/67490-h/images/p060.png b/old/67490-h/images/p060.png
deleted file mode 100644
index 31307dd..0000000
--- a/old/67490-h/images/p060.png
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ
diff --git a/old/67490-h/images/p071.png b/old/67490-h/images/p071.png
deleted file mode 100644
index d3c196b..0000000
--- a/old/67490-h/images/p071.png
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ
diff --git a/old/67490-h/images/p072-1.jpg b/old/67490-h/images/p072-1.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 6e2674f..0000000
--- a/old/67490-h/images/p072-1.jpg
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ
diff --git a/old/67490-h/images/p072-2.jpg b/old/67490-h/images/p072-2.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 94253cc..0000000
--- a/old/67490-h/images/p072-2.jpg
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ
diff --git a/old/67490-h/images/p073-1.jpg b/old/67490-h/images/p073-1.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 13f3c71..0000000
--- a/old/67490-h/images/p073-1.jpg
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ
diff --git a/old/67490-h/images/p073-2.jpg b/old/67490-h/images/p073-2.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 5249750..0000000
--- a/old/67490-h/images/p073-2.jpg
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ
diff --git a/old/67490-h/images/p074-1.png b/old/67490-h/images/p074-1.png
deleted file mode 100644
index c8c7ad8..0000000
--- a/old/67490-h/images/p074-1.png
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ
diff --git a/old/67490-h/images/p074-2.png b/old/67490-h/images/p074-2.png
deleted file mode 100644
index 84a0819..0000000
--- a/old/67490-h/images/p074-2.png
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ
diff --git a/old/67490-h/images/p081-1.jpg b/old/67490-h/images/p081-1.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 0aafe58..0000000
--- a/old/67490-h/images/p081-1.jpg
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ
diff --git a/old/67490-h/images/p081-2.jpg b/old/67490-h/images/p081-2.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index cec90fc..0000000
--- a/old/67490-h/images/p081-2.jpg
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ
diff --git a/old/67490-h/images/p088-1.jpg b/old/67490-h/images/p088-1.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 362ab8e..0000000
--- a/old/67490-h/images/p088-1.jpg
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ
diff --git a/old/67490-h/images/p088-2.jpg b/old/67490-h/images/p088-2.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 4da3360..0000000
--- a/old/67490-h/images/p088-2.jpg
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ
diff --git a/old/67490-h/images/p089-1.jpg b/old/67490-h/images/p089-1.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 1af0e51..0000000
--- a/old/67490-h/images/p089-1.jpg
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ
diff --git a/old/67490-h/images/p089-2.jpg b/old/67490-h/images/p089-2.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 33460ab..0000000
--- a/old/67490-h/images/p089-2.jpg
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ
diff --git a/old/67490-h/images/p091.png b/old/67490-h/images/p091.png
deleted file mode 100644
index 6c52291..0000000
--- a/old/67490-h/images/p091.png
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ
diff --git a/old/67490-h/images/p096-1.jpg b/old/67490-h/images/p096-1.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index c69c469..0000000
--- a/old/67490-h/images/p096-1.jpg
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ
diff --git a/old/67490-h/images/p096-2.jpg b/old/67490-h/images/p096-2.jpg
deleted file mode 100644
index 4eccada..0000000
--- a/old/67490-h/images/p096-2.jpg
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ
diff --git a/old/67490-h/images/titlepage.png b/old/67490-h/images/titlepage.png
deleted file mode 100644
index a65eeb6..0000000
--- a/old/67490-h/images/titlepage.png
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ