CHAPTER III.
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CHAPTER III.
HERE we are at the native capital of New Zealand, Ngaruawahia. It is not much of a capital, as you may imagine; it is only composed of a number of reed-huts. The king's is a larger hut; but rather more neatly made, and more laced together than the rest. It has an ugly wooden image inside it, with a pole on his head supporting the roof. The natives have lately put up a large flag-staff here. When the troops marched to Ngaruawahia, they found it deserted by the natives; but they had taken everything with them, including their late king Potatau I's bones, which were interred in a mound, with a wooden house over them. The soldiers are going after the natives inland to Rangiawhia, but we cannot go so far, as it is some miles from the river.
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My gun-boat, the Midge, has been blockading the river Waipa; but I have now been transferred from the Pioneer to the Avon, which is a small paddle-steamer of forty tons burthen, and fourteen horse-power, and is about sixty feet long; she can turn in her own length. The General has moved on to a place called Te Rore, two miles from the enemy's positions. It is forty miles by the river from Ngaruawahia, and about twenty-six or twenty-seven by land. The Waipa is narrow, not being more than fifty yards wide at its junction with the Waikato; it is sluggish till you get some way up it, but very deep; the shallowest place up to Whata Whata being sixteen or eighteen feet deep,, at present (the spring) and in the sharp turns as much as thirty and even thirty-six feet. Above this it averages from fifteen down to eight, so we have no difficulty in that way, as in the Waikato. But our hidden enemies are the stumps of old trees, which have slid in with land-slips; however we know nearly all their whereabouts now. The Avon is commanded by sub-lieutenant Easther, from the Harrier, and she has a crew of fifteen men. He and I take it in turns to be on deck. We leave Ngaruawahia at 10 P. M., with about
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twenty-five tons of provisions and stores (our greatest load), which the Pioneer brings up from Rangariri; one of us takes the Avon as far as Whata Whata, where we arrive about 2 A. M., or sometimes not till 3. We there take in more stores, and perhaps discharge some, and at about 3. 30 A. M. proceed, when the other takes her to Te Rore, where we generally arrive about 8 o'clock. But the General has established a redoubt at Ngahinapouri, five miles below Te Rore, so we often stop there, and do not get to Te Rore till 9 A. M. We start again as soon as we have discharged our cargo, about 11.30 or 12, and get to Whata Whata about 4 P. M., arriving at Ngaruawahia about 7 or 8 P. M., when we load again, so that we hardly have time to sleep or wash.
The native redoubts seem very strong. There are two roads from the river to Rangiawhia, one from Mangoatama, and the other from Te Rore; on one you pass Piko Piko, and on the other Paterangi, both of which I have seen. There are four or five square redoubts, with flanking angles, on a fern hill, with tremendous high parapets and deep ditches; and, about six yards before you get to the ditch, is a wooden palisade, placed there to bring us
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to a check, and for which, I suppose, they will reserve their fire.
I do not suppose I shall go to the attack, as the steamer will have to take the wounded down to Ngaruawahia. Where the roads meet, there is a redoubt called Te Puna: two miles on is Te Ngako; two miles further, Rangiotea, and further still Rangiawhia, the strongest of all; and by its side is Te Awamutu. Our new craft, the Avon, sunk the other day on the Waipa. We were steaming up the river, when an unseen snag struck her bottom, or rather she struck it, and sank almost immediately after I had run her bows into the bank. Luckily, the waterproof iron compartment kept her stern afloat, or else it would have gone down in twenty feet of water. None of our things got even wet, being aft, but the men were not so lucky; however, being hot weather, their clothes soon dried after being brought up by the divers, who were luckily on board the Pioneer. We then cut down some large trees, to use as shears, but have not yet got the steamer up with them. The Avon was loaded with biscuit and oats, coffee, tea, &c, for the army; of course all the biscuit was spoiled. Soon after this, I was sent in the new
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steamer, the Koheroa, as pilot for the river; but, as I had been too long in the water, diving for things where the Avon was sunk, the consequence was I got the rheumatism in my legs, my ankles swelled so that I could not walk, and I was sent back to the Curacoa at Auckland, to get all right again.
On February 13th there was a skirmish near the lower redoubt at Waiare; the soldiers who were building it went down to the Mangapiko to bathe, and some 200 Maories came in their rear, and began firing on them from the bush. But they were caught in their own trap, for a covering party attacked them in the rear, and then the colonial cavalry arrived, and they were fearfully cut up, losing forty-six men, whereas the loss on our side was only six killed and seven wounded, of whom one died the next day. This has given them a lesson not to lay any more ambushes. We took two of their wounded prisoners; one, who had his leg broken, died soon after it was amputated; the other was a boy of about fifteen-- the stock of a carbine was broken over his head, but he recovered, and was sent home to the niggers, who sent back to say 'that they were very grateful for the way we had treated the prisoners, and they
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would do the same by ours, they would cut off all their right legs' as they thought we had tortured and killed the man who died.
Captain Heaphy, the surveyor to the Government here, was out on duty and so got into the skirmish. He had the narrowest escape possible, for six bullets passed through his clothes. One hit his left arm, and rolled down his sleeve, catching in the lining. The next went straight for his heart, but was turned by his watch-chain, which it twisted, and grazed his ribs; and this is the only scratch he got. Another bullet went through his pocket-handkerchief, and out behind; another through the right leg of his trousers, and one through the top of his cap, while the sixth cut the revolver-strap in two on his right shoulder.
On board the Avon, a few weeks ago, we had another narrow escape. Easther, myself, and Lieut. Mitchell of the Esk, were standing on the bridge, when the natives fired a volley of six shots, and one struck Mitchell on the left breast, and as he was farthest from them, and they were abreast of the ship, the bullet must have passed within an inch of our breasts. He immediately jumped down on deck, a height of
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eight feet, Easther got into the steering house, and I got behind it. The Maories fired another volley at me, but luckily missed, though they hit the funnel, which was only a yard from me. Luckily we were taking a doctor up to the front, and he extracted the ball, but the next morning Mr. Mitchell died, the ball having passed through his body. No one could see the Maories, as they always hide so well in the high bracken which grows everywhere here. It was just by the Mangaotama Creek. We had seen a man there only the day before with his gun, but we were then all under cover of the iron plates, which are half an inch thick, and musket-proof.
On the 21st the General marched from Te Rore at 2 A. M. straight to Rangiawhia, about ten miles. He found very few natives there; they were all at Piko Piko and Paterangi. They made but a short resistance. The General then marched back to Awamutu and encamped. In the night the natives evacuated Piko Piko and Paterangi, and the other redoubts, and established themselves between Rangiawhia and Awamutu. The General attacked them, and took the place easily. Those who were not killed or taken, fled in the direction of Mangatautari, which is a
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mountain fifteen or twenty miles from Rangiawhia, in the same direction from Te Rore. There are no animals indigenous to the country, but there are plenty of pigs, and we have caught a good many of the Maori goats, and a cow or two, and a good many horses.
The only song-bird I know about here by name is the Tue, very much like the English blackbird in size and shape, but he is not quite black--there is some white about him. His note, also, is something like our blackbirds. There are a great many sorts of ducks. There is one of them like our common female wild duck, and another sort like the female of the tufted duck in colour, and about the same size, with blue on their wing-feathers. There are several other kinds, but I have never been lucky enough to shoot them. I have shot what the natives call a Pekeko; it answers in this country to a water-hen. It has much longer legs, but is of the same colour, and has the same red beak, but it is a larger bird altogether. On the rivers and in the swamps there is a bird they call the Shag; but I am inclined to think it is a diver, for a shag is a sea-bird. These live on fish, and I have shot two kinds. One is all black, and the other has a white breast. There are plenty of bit-
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terns in the swamps, and one can hear them 'booming' of an evening. There are large marsh-hawks, but I have never had a shot at one. All these swamps are filled with flax, called New Zealand flax,
with tall spikes of flower. The different trees here are innumerable, but a great many of them will not float, which is a very curious fact; while in the Waikato River there is an immense amount of pumice-stone (which of course floats) from a volcano in the centre of the island (Tongirero). The Waikato comes from a lake called Taupo (the Maories pronounce it Toupo), in which there are boiling springs, and it is close to Tongirero. There is also an immense variety of ferns here, and some very rare ones.
