CHAPTER II.
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THE WAIKATO WAR.
CHAPTER II.
THE out-districts of Auckland towards Waikato at the commencement of the war extended but little further south than Drury, and the country beyond was almost a terra incognita. From Drury to the Waikato, some sixteen miles, there existed but a short time before only a rough bridle track over the densely-wooded Pokeno Ranges with here and there a few settlers' homesteads cleared out of the primeval forest, but in view of eventualities, the time had come when the solitude of the woods was dispelled, for several detachments of troops had just completed a cart road over the ranges and on towards the Waikato River, which ran gleaming like a silver thread through the king country.
Dr. Hochstetter in his work on New Zealand, speaking of this Prince of New Zealand rivers, says:-- "The impression made by the sight of the majestic stream is truly grand. It is only with the Danube or Rhine that I can compare the mighty river which we have just entered. The Waikato is the principal river in the North Island. Both as to the length of its course and quantity of water, it surpasses all the others. The pieces of pumice stone which its waters are continually carrying along, piling them up on its banks and at its confluence with the sea, point to its origin in the vicinity of the extensive volcanic hearth in the centre of the island. Its sources spring from the very core of the land. Its waters roll through the most fertile and most beautiful fields, populated by numerous and most powerful tribes of the natives, who have taken their name from it. No second river of New Zealand has such an importance as the grand thoroughfare for the interior of the country. The Waikato is in truth the main artery of the North Island, and this grand stream wants but one thing, i.e., an open unobstructed entrance from the sea.
"While a great many other rivers of New Zealand, as for example the nearest neighbours of the Waikato, the Piako and Waihou, or the Wairoa in the North are emptying into protected bays of the sea, widening near their mouths into broad estuaries by which the sea penetrates far into the interior of the land, and where the regular change of ebb and flow enables larger and smaller vessels to pass from the river into the sea, there are huge sandbanks piled in front of the mouth of the Waikato upon which the sea breaks in foaming surges. This is a matter of great importance, for those sandbanks which prevent the passing in and out of larger vessels are a natural bulwark for the natives. They look upon the Waikato more than upon any other river of New Zealand as being the river exclusively their own. Never up to the time of my journey (1859) had a boat of European construction been known to float upon the proud native stream, the Mississippi of the Maoris.
"Two mission stations, the one at its mouth (Kohanga), the other at Taupiri, were at that time the only European settlements on the banks of the river where the Maori king had taken up his abode. From his residence at Ngaruawahia, where the Waipa mingles its waters with those of the Waikato, the national flag of Nuitireni was floating proudly in the breeze, and from among the bushes of the flax plant, the toetoe-grass, and the titrees, the Maori huts were everywhere peeping forth, now single, now in clusters of miniature villages, and surrounded by thriving plantations. Flats are alternate along the course of the river, with fern hills, or with dusky wood-clad mountain ridges, and the picturesque landscape sceneries are developing themselves there, where the river in a narrow gorge of rocks is breaking through the mountain chains. The Waikato, at the junction of the Mangatawhiri, has a breadth of about half-a-mile. It encompasses several wood-clad islands, and after having passed in an almost precise south then north direction through extensive low lands, the lower Waikato basin, it makes here a sudden bend to the west. It breaks through a low coast range, and empties twenty miles further below on the West Coast into the sea."
"Never," says Dr. Hochstetter, "never up to the time of my journey had a boat of European construction been known to float upon the proud native stream--the Mississippi of the Maoris," and if the natives had retained possession of the river, no boat of European construction would have floated on it to the present
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day, for the canoe is far better adapted to make headway against the rapid river than a boat, be it ever so well manned. Again, running into the main stream, there are numerous small creeks obstructed with logs and snags, which, though retarding the passage of a boat, the canoe, on account of its light draught, floats over easily.
The quantities of maize, potatoes, flax, and pigs, that the Waikato natives used to ship away, and pour annually into the Auckland market would scarcely be credited. For transit to Auckland the route was down the Waikato River, then up the Awaroa tidal creek not far from the Waikato Heads to Pura Pura, the landing place close to Waiuku. The freight was then carted across the portage some two miles, and shipped in cutters or small schooners to Onehunga. At Pura Pura there was a bacon-curing establishment, that was able to forward bacon to Auckland by the ton, equal in quality to the best Canterbury bacon of the present day.
Sometimes cargoes of maize, wheat, potatoes, and flax were shipped direct from the Waikato to Sydney or other ports in schooners that used to cross the bar for that purpose. Those were halcyon days for the Waikatos. Money they were never short of. The Waikato Heads provided them with an abundance of fish, from the schnapper to the dainty "guard," whilst in the fresh water, higher up the river, shoals of whitebait and the esculent eel were to be had for the trouble of getting. Their plantations were luxuriant with maize, wheat, potatoes, pumpkins, and kumeras; and their gullies swarmed with the wild pig and not a few cattle. For clothing, if they did not care to purchase that of European make, the flax plant rustled in the swamps and on the side of every river bank.
Perhaps no savage tribes that ever existed in any part of the globe had such an abundance of the good things of this world. But a few years had passed since they were cannibals. Many of them still in the prime of life could remember and had partaken of a cannibal feast.
The Rev. B. Y. Ashwell, who is still amongst us, and to whom and his brother missionaries the Waikatos are said to owe so much, mentions in his interesting brochure, entitled "Recollections of a Waikato Missionary," a cannibal feast at which he was a spectator. He says, "On my arrival at Otawhao, I found the Ngatiruru, with their chiefs Puata and Mokoro, had just returned from Rotorua. They had been victorious, and were carrying baskets of human flesh to cook. Not less than sixty backloads were brought into the pah at Otawhao. The next day, July 30th, 1839, was a great feast of human flesh. I quitted the pah in disgust, and I said to the Whare Kura, i. e., those natives disposed to Christianity, 'Come, let us leave this pah, and build a pah for Christ.' This they assented to readily, and more than two hundred left. A site was chosen on the Awamutu (where the barrack and large bridge now stand), and a pah was built; and, at the request of the Whare Kura, I drew up laws and regulations for them."
With the commencement of hostilities, the prosperity of the Waikatos was destroyed, and has not since been restored. They are like a changed people.
What the political cause of the war was it is not my province to enter into here. Some say one thing, some say another. For my own part I do not know, but I do know that apart from all politics the settlers as a body did not want war. To them it meant in many cases ruin and a cruel wasting of the best and strongest years of their lives. I also do know that the Waikatos, some time before hostilities commenced, openly despised the Queen's authority, and assumed such a front and bearing towards their European neighbours that if the Governor had not taken upon himself to have declared war, the settlers would have been compelled to have done so whatever might have been the consequences, their very existence as a body being menaced.
The Waikatos hated the settlers with an exceeding great hate, and how a native can hate the reader will be able to judge from the fact of its having been known that whilst vehemently declaiming against the pakeha at a meeting the declaimer has worked himself up into such a frightful state of excitement as to fall down dead. Pride and jealousy perhaps, more than anything else, more, perhaps, than land, were the root of the evil, especially as for as the Waikatos were concerned. The wise Wiremu Thompson, son of the great Te Wharoa, knew of the pride and jealousy
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that raged in his people's hearts. He cautioned them against it and foretold their doom. They heeded him not. They cared more for the crafty and ferocious Ngatimaniapoto chief, Rewi. The doom that he prophesied was the doom of the pakeha. When he wrote to the Taranakis urging them to attack the soldiers, he said, "Red Plumes! Plumes of the Kaka! The doom has been fixed at Kawhia! Once the fighting! twice! three! four times! Seize your weapons! Twist the fastenings tightly! Bind them fast! Now unbind! Strike! Fell! Let it fall!!"
Shortly after the completion of the military road, Colonel Leslie, with a detachment of the 40th Regiment, took up a position at Pokeno, on the Waikato side of the ranges, and commenced throwing up a large redoubt, which was called the "Queen's." This post commanded the approach to Auckland by an enemy from the Waikato river, and afforded a base from which operations could be directed against the Kingites.
Numbers of natives from the neighbouring settlements came each day, watching the soldiers at work, and holding great arguments amongst themselves concerning it as they squatted on the ground. At times they would mingle with the soldiers, and beg tobacco, matches, &c At last the day arrived when the redoubt was finished, and over which, from the top of a flagstaff, the British ensign flipped and flapped in the breeze, at which the natives stared, and pointed up to it with their dirty pipes, and traced on the ground with a stick a rough outline of the redoubt--flagstaff, flag, and all.
The frontier townships consisted of the Wairoa, Drury, the Mauku, and Waiuku, and at each of these settlements meetings were held by the settlers to discuss the advisability of taking immediate steps to defend themselves against any sudden attack from the natives, who, on the other hand, were afraid that the settlers would suddenly rise and shoot them down. The following incident will illustrate the state of the out-districts at the time, and the mutual distrust that existed between the natives and the settlers.
A few miles from the Maukau, towards the Waikato River a hill called "The Bald Hill" rises up to a great height, and can be seen a long way off. To celebrate a marriage that took place a bonfire was foolishly lighted on the top of the hill by some of the settlers. When night set in the illumination was mistaken as a signal for the natives to rise and attack the settlers, and the natives firmly believed on the other hand that it signified a general rising of the settlers against them. The terrified settlers congregated for mutual protection, and the men stood under arms, some with fowling pieces, old muskets, axes, or any weapon they could lay their hands on, the whole night long, and how long such nights are can, only be known to those who have undergone similar heavy hours of suspense. The sigh of the night wind in the woods, the falling crash of a tree's decayed limb or the distant bark of a watch-dog, denoted the approach of the enemy, and excitement was wrought up to the highest pitch. The natives, alarmed, deserted their whares, and with gun in one hand and tomahawk in the other, hid themselves in the forest. The next morning the affair was explained, and the settlers, re-assured, returned to their usual avocations, but some of the natives did not return to their settlements for two or three days.
And so the early part of the year had slowly passed away, and June dawned on the Auckland district with its cold winds, its rain, and long dark nights. "See the stars," said the natives, "how red they are. It is a sign of war."
