There has j ist pa-ssed from om. 
 niiclst :in oW ni;u:, tor many yeaW 
 resident iii \[aiU)oiOi'.gh (thougli of 
 laU- bill iitl.l«» Iviiown outside his own 
 imir.ediale cirole), the' stra.iigp 
 ronienco and ndveiituros of whose life 
 ins been equtlled oniy by its tragic 
 sadness. Wo veier to the late Mr 
 Kiuille Bent., who v.-us admitted to 
 ttie Waiiau Hospiial on 22nd M;<-y, 
 and dio<' (he .saii.e evening. Tht- 
 j>toi-y of his ht"o, ^vi)tt'n by Mr James 
 Covan Fron« ft-nt's, own manuscript 
 records and {'^''"'•onal reminiscenxies, ' 
 afford a. striiiir.;? illustration of the 
 old adage t'-u*-. • 'truth is stra-nger 
 ilian fiction." Hoin at liii^itport jn 
 rthe State of Maine, l.S.A., in 1837, 
 witli a strain ,>f N'>rth A.iiericau 
 Indian Ulood i.;i his veins from his. 
 another's wde, he ^servetl as a youth 
 ;f(.r three yea.-,-; in trie American navy, 
 .and, sidjsiexju^v-'.tly nnaiiig his wa-y Ut 
 '.'England, erh.ied in ilie 57th He^g^- 
 rient of Foe'. Toward.s the clcse. of 
 • the great mutiny his regi nent was 
 -Ordered to Irrdia, wliere it remained 
 for two yenvh. Then ou the out- 
 ■fcreak ■f>l' the rii;Hn-i War it wis tTan.s- 
 ferred to lS(y.v- /.eiah-md. The voyag*^ 
 ^to Aiickliird tn(»k nearly ;thre«v 
 rxiunths, and o. ^irrival there the rt>gi- 
 'inent was i.mi'Kfdiat^-'ly despatched to 
 IN '^ w 1' 1 y m 1 1 ! h . and e n ea m ped for , la 
 .sliort time ou iVi^rshmd Hill. Of the 
 lte.;t few ye:*.r;>' active .service it is 
 needies-s tc> speak, except to say that 
 the severe ■ii<unit.'imcnts which Bent, 
 Kiiffercd, and ivhich sliaped the whole 
 of his after ciner, w(M-e foi- act.s of 
 insubordination, for the mo.st paj't of 
 a urivial nature, and doubtless aiU 
 o'ltcome of ti:e mea-vuj-e of Indian 
 blood ho had inheri(ed. Under cir- 
 ©ximstances which he always stoutly 
 iRaintaiiifM.i jur.tifvxl Ins. .action, ho 
 ■ desert<Hl froi;; his regiment, and wa.s 
 imirierliately (-:!p''>""e<l by (he Maoris, 
 .among whom iie lived, pru-lically as 
 SL slave, unl.i.! ^.fter the close <n the 
 wai. Jlegnrdvxl a.s a <langorous rebel, 
 mi'.ny crime:, wci-e hiic' at nis <loor, 
 . and he wa;; .-«um otitlawed with a 
 heavy ptMially oti Ids head. To .shoot 
 liiin iind win therewaifl wa.s the. eager 
 .cle'-emilnatio'; oi .nany. an<l on ono 
 oce,;;- ion ail iruKteent man, :-iipiws<Hl 
 tc be I'.ent, v/ \s niifevi unaLeiy killed 
 Ijy mistake. .\li efforts to capture 
 liim were futile. He was as Kucces»- 
 fnl ".1 dodging the Pakeha ludlet as 
 the Maori tonvUiawk. Some time 
 afier the aiinesty wa>- proclaimed he 
 •©n;i. get! fu>r,i the bush and a. rela- 
 
 on^hvivored to pvrsiuuie hir. to leave 
 New Zealand a-t once, and since then 
 rcu-.:ive« in Maine have ,v;iinly 
 rei'fi'ted their efforts to induco bin 
 turn to -bi ; native land. M> 
 
 to ^ 
 alw.- 
 
 ;-S pOMt 
 
 refused to leave lh' 
 
 mi • 
 do- 
 inc 
 
 tirV. 
 
 lau 
 
 bc' ■ 
 
 Ne. 
 
 Mv- 
 fo.. . 
 kr^ -, 
 
 ho-ff-'i 
 
 oo:;'try uutil Ids name and cli.iractei 
 "had been elenrefl of the charges for j 
 w^'irh he ha.d been outlawed. The.^^M 
 he :i^ways vk«»"»!mced a.s a ti.ssue oi 
 nx.^.lidoa.'^ ai**! coAvardly faJselioods. 
 fo'- which there was not only no 
 ve-jti;'e of p<it«i)f, but which !»<> could 
 ah.so'V.telT disprore, if given the I 
 opportunity. Even- ehorc tnade b\ 
 ^yaio^thiseV"* on his lehilf in thi> 
 rW--vt failed, Vind he has died wi( li- 
 on. j.ettiiUg the chance to rel)iit th.' 
 j;e''>ii-, ciiarges once made again.-^L 
 hi-v. ISlorc sinned aga.mst than sin- 
 whatovor laray lave been his 
 i!-e« or wivjog-doings, he has paid 
 '- for tlw^ni. Soon after jeturn- 
 civdiscnl 'life, he found occupa- 
 -.t "WanraH on the farm of the 
 "^Ir Slaffard, with whom he had 
 actiuaijited thnnigh .sonu^ 
 Ishind n.itivcs. It; Mr and 
 •tKifford a4!d tlK>ir family he 
 the kindest Triends he had ever 
 . in Xc'v Zeeland. and in their 
 ble home he lr«.'« spent the 
 .p_TCii»»£ ■oi" i^'^ d-'*^, liviTcJ u V'--ry 
 quiet and retired life, but always' 
 willing to talk over with anyone who 
 <le«ired it, some of the thrilling 
 ailventnres of his <;arlier years. Of 
 Tito-Kowarn, ihe great rebel chief 
 vvh.o owned him a.^ a slave ior scvtM-al 
 Vfiar>, he always spoke in kindl\ 
 Urms. The story of his care>er, a.s ' 
 toild bv Mr Cov.aii, ,\ill ever be le- 
 giuded as a cla.s,si<' of Maori life, as 
 ifc was iift.v years ago, when th.e 
 Maori wa.s at war witii the European, 
 ani we slioiild strongly rtK'ommend 
 anvone who has not yet done .so to 
 tWid "The .Vdvcntures of .Kiiid>lo 
 tient." The late Mr Bent wa.s 79 
 Vijars old at the lime of hi.i dea.th.
 
 A REBEL OP;^ THE 
 SIXTIES. 
 
 KIMBLE BENT AND THE PATEA. 
 
 'liie recent adveuturous trip ol' 1(J0 
 milos down t]ie I'atea river in a flat- 
 bottomed boat bv Jfour Eitliam young 
 moti, brings to mind the .story of that 
 rebel and Pakeha-Maori Kimble Bent, 
 Avho for years had his home up the 
 Pa tea river, where amongst the wild 
 and rugged hills he thought himself 
 safe from capture (writes "NV.K.H. in the 
 Aucftand "Star"). Bent died at the 
 Wuiroa Hospital about seven years ago 
 fit a great age. His story is soon told. 
 Ho belonged to the old 67th Regiment, 
 joining it as long ago as 18o9. He came 
 to New Zealand in 1863, and was in 
 Taranaki the following year. At a small 
 place between Patea and Hawera, BenC 
 was sentenced to receive 25 strokes of 
 the la&h for disobeying orders, showing 
 how the severity of the Home rules had 
 at that time been allowed to enter this 
 young free country. From the moment 
 Kimble Bent bared his hafk he was a 
 rebel and an outcast, and tlie very first 
 chance he got he deserted to the Maoris 
 and lived with them for many decades, 
 adopting their rough mode of living and 
 becoming one of their number. He 
 ronld never be captured, and his chief 
 liiding-place was up the Patea river, 
 wli'ch we now know to he one of the 
 most inaccessible spots that anyone 
 could imagine, being full of natural hid- 
 ing-places that onTv the most skilled 
 could find out. AMien public feeling 
 against him died down a good deal, for 
 be greatly aided the Maori in his war- 
 fare against the pakeha, he came out of 
 his hiding-place and made it luiowu 
 that he wished to visit ciyilisati^i 
 again, and no serious objection was 
 made by the authoritios to his doing so. 
 Sviiile in hiding he fashioned a canoe oF 
 vpry fine design with the old-fashioned 
 Maori stone axes of a bygone ago of a 
 century before, and in this canoe he 
 paddled down the rivor to tbc Patea 
 wharf, a picturesque if a somewhat 
 pathetic figure, chanting as he sailed a 
 Slaori dirge which was now more fafnili- 
 ar to him than tjie words of his own 
 
 forgotten. Arrived ot tlie Patea 
 wharf he seemed to be engaged a good 
 deal with his own thoughts, and sat in 
 his boat for a long jpexnod, as was the 
 custom of tlie old-time Maoris, whose 
 ways ho had thoroughly imbibed. He 
 was viewed Avith a good deal of sus- 
 picion by his white brethren, and the 
 feeling must have been mutual, for he 
 could not be induced to say much about 
 himself. One of the first things that he 
 asked for was Abernctliy biscuits, and 
 when he had eaten one he^said it was 
 the sweetest morsel he had tasted for 
 years. He looked a wild man, and 
 there was a wild look in his eyes when 
 he remembered that for some years a 
 price had been put on his head as a 
 deserter and a rebel, and ho was not 
 happy when he came back to civilisji- 
 tion, for he felt completely out of his 
 element. He had lived too long amongst 
 savage people, and had acted such a 
 strange part, that he could not in a day 
 reconcile himself to a civilised way of 
 doing things. He soon paddled back, 
 taking advantage of the incoming tide ' 
 to h^p him, to his usual haunts up) 
 the river, where it was said ho dis- i 
 carded for ever his old blanket and flax 
 loin cloth for a suit which had been i 
 given to him by one -of the sailors from \ 
 one of the steamers at the Patea wharf. 
 He was not a lovable character, and 
 had witnessed and taken part in many 
 cannilialistic feasts, and this was an 
 example of how easy it is for a x>^rson 
 to slip away from a civilised to an un-., 
 civili^ life. The old Taranaki set- ^ 
 tiers hated Bent, among other reasons 
 being the fact that he was a gi'eat 
 friend and adviser of that old rebel 
 and uiifair fighter Titokowaru, whoso 
 dark deeds and treachery stain the 
 blackest page in Taranaki's history. 
 Probably the youths who recently sailed 
 down the Patea River and weJe hardly 
 able to find a flat piece of ground 
 whereon to pitch their tents for the 
 night knew little of Kimble Bent's his- 
 tory, but from those picturesque heights 
 the oW rebel must have basked in the 
 sunlight to hide his own dark thoughts 
 and to feel that, arch rebel though he 
 was. he was still a human being who 
 could enjoy the best of God's good gifts.
 
 /■^Z- 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 THE ADVENTURES OF 
 KIMBLE BENT
 
 MAi- OF TAKANAKl, NEW ZEALAND. 
 {allowing engagements in the Maori War)
 
 THE ADVENTURES 
 OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 A STORT OF IVILD LIFE IN THE 
 NEW ZEALAND BUSH 
 
 JAMES COWAN 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 WHITCOMBE AND TOMBS, LIMITED 
 
 LONDON MELBOURNE 
 CHRISTCHURCH, WELLINGTON AND DUNEDIN, N.Z. 
 
 191 I
 
 PRINTED AND BOUND BY 
 
 HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD., 
 
 LONDON AND AYLESBURY.
 
 DLL 
 6^22 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 This book is not a work of fiction. It is a plain 
 narrative of real life in the New Zealand bush, a 
 true story of adventure in a day not yet remote, 
 when adventure in abundance was still to be had 
 in the land of the Maori. Every name used is a 
 real one, every character who appears in these 
 pages had existence in those war days of forty 
 years ago. Every incident described here is a 
 faithful record of actual happenings ; some of 
 them may convince the reader that truth can be 
 stranger than fiction. 
 
 Numerous instances are recorded of white de- 
 serters from civilisation who have allied themselves 
 with savages, adopting barbarous practices, and 
 forgetting even their mother-tongue. In the old 
 convict days of 'New South Wales escapees from the 
 fetters of a more than rigorous " system " now and 
 again cast in their lot with the blacks. Renegades 
 of every European nationality have been found 
 living with and fighting for native tribes in Africa 
 
 2072 ? 70
 
 viii PREFACE 
 
 and America and the Islands of Polynesia. But 
 none of them had a wilder story to tell than has 
 the man Avhose narrative is here presented — Kimble 
 Bent, the pakeha-Mnori. Ever since 1865 — when 
 he first " took to the blanket " — he has lived with 
 the New Zealand Maoris. For thirteen years he 
 was completely estranged from his fellow-whites ; 
 he had deserted from a British regiment and a price 
 was on his head. British troops and Colonial 
 irregulars alike hunted him and his fanatical 
 Hauhau companions. His hairbreadth escapes were 
 many ; he had to risk death not only from British 
 bullet and bayonet, but from the savage brown 
 men of the forest with whom he lived. When 
 at last he came out of hiding, and dared once more 
 to face those of his own colour, he had almost 
 forgotten the English language, and could speak 
 it but with difficulty and hesitation. He has been 
 out of his bush exile many years, but is still living 
 with his Maori friends, and is still known by the 
 Maori name, " Tu-nui-a-moa," which his chief 
 Titokowaru gave him in 1868. When he writes to 
 me, he usually writes in Maori, and he is practically 
 a Maori himself, for he has lived the greater part 
 of his life as a Maori, and he has assimilated the 
 peculiar modes of thought and some of the ancient 
 beliefs of the natives, as well as their tongue and 
 customs.
 
 PREFACE ix 
 
 One of the most remarkable portions of Bent's 
 narrative is his account of the revival of cannibalism 
 by the Hauhaus in 1868. Vague stories have been 
 heard concerning the eating of soldiers' bodies by 
 the bushmen of Ngati-Ruanui and Nga-Rauru 
 and of rites of human sacrifices performed in the 
 woods of Taranaki, but this account of Bent's is 
 the first detailed description from an eye-witness 
 of the man-eating practices in Titokowaru's camps. 
 Many of Tito's Hauhaus are still alive ; but they 
 are very reticent on the subject of "long-pig." 
 
 I first met Kimble Bent in 1903. In that year 
 Mr. T. E. Donne, now the New Zealand Govern- 
 ment Trade Commissioner in London, had induced 
 the old man to come to Wellington for the purpose 
 of being interviewed and photographed ; and it is 
 these interviews, very considerably expanded during 
 a seven years' acquaintance with Bent, and carefully 
 checked by independent Maori testimony, that 
 are now embodied in this book. 
 
 In confirmation and extension of Bent's story, I 
 have gathered data at first-hand both from Tara- 
 naki Maoris who fought under Titokowaru, and 
 from soldiers and settlers who fought against him, 
 and these particulars are incorporated with the 
 old pakeha-Maori's narrative. 
 
 The 1868-9 portion of the book is, therefore, 
 practically a history of the Titokowaru war in
 
 X PREFACE 
 
 Taranaki ; and it embraces a great deal of matter 
 not hitherto recorded. 
 
 Many of the settler-soldiers who survive from 
 those wild forest days now farm their peaceful 
 lands within sight of the battle-fields of Te Ngutu- 
 o-te-Manu, and Pungarehu, and Moturoa, and 
 Otapawa. With them the recollections of bush- 
 marches and ambuscades and storming of Hauhau 
 stockades are still fresh and vivid. But the younger 
 generation know little of the dangers and troubles 
 through which the pioneers passed. The available 
 histories deal very meagrelj^ and often very in- 
 accurately with the story of the Ten- Years' Maori 
 War, even from the white side, while the Maori 
 view-point is absolutely unknown to all but a few 
 colonists. Therefore it is fortunate, perhaps, that 
 one has been enabled to gather before it is too late 
 from the old Hauhau warriors themselves the tale 
 of their ferociously patriotic past, and to place on 
 record this true story of wild forest life from the 
 lips of one of the last of that nearly extinct type 
 of decivilised outlander, the 7)aA:e^a-Maori. 
 
 For information and assistance in regard to 
 various engagements in Titokowaru's war I am 
 indebted to Colonel W. E. Gudgeon, C.M.G., Colonel 
 T. Porter, C.B., and other old Colonial soldiers. 
 Tutange Waionui, of Patea, who was one of Titoko- 
 waru's most active scouts and warriors, has given
 
 PREFACE xi 
 
 me many details concerning the campaign from 
 the Maori side ; and the Rev. T, G. Hammond, 
 Wesleyan Missionary to the Taranaki Maoris, has 
 also furnished assistance on the same subject. To 
 Mrs. Kettle, of Napier, daughter of Major von 
 Tempsky, I owe my thanks for permission to 
 reproduce three of the illustrations in this book, 
 copies of water-colour sketches by her celebrated 
 father, representing scenes in the Taranaki campaign 
 of 1865-6. The picture of the fight at Moturoa 
 in 1868 is from a black-and-white sketch by a 
 soldier-artist who took part in the engagement ; 
 the original was in the possession of the late Dr. 
 T. M. Hocken, of Dunedin, who allowed me to 
 have it photographed for this book, 
 
 J. C. 
 
 \\' ELLINGTON, N.Z., 
 
 Feb. 1, 1911.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE DESERTER 
 
 On the banks of tlie Tangahoe — Tlie runaway soldier — -A 
 Maori scout — Off to the rebel camp . . . pp. 1-6 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 KIMBLE BENT, SAILOR AND SOLDIER 
 
 Kimble Bent's early life — An Indian mother — Service in the 
 American Navy — Departiu'e for England — " Taking the Shil- 
 ling " — British Army life — The flight to America — A sinking 
 ship — Rescue, and landing in Glasgow— Back to the Army again 
 — Soldiering in India — The 57th ordered to New Zealand — The 
 Taranaki Campaign — A court-martial — At the triangles 
 
 pp. 7-21 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE CAMP OF THE HAUHAUS 
 
 In the Maori country — Arrival at a Hauhau pa — Maori 
 village scenes — The ceremonies round the sacred flagstaff — 
 " Rire, rire, hau ! " — The man with the tomahawk — A white 
 slave — The painted warriors of Keteonetea — The blazing 
 oven pp. 22-33
 
 xiv CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 IN THE OTAPAWA STOCKADE 
 
 The return from Keteonetea — The hill-fort at Otapawa — 
 A korero with the Hauhaus — Bent's one-eyed wife — " The 
 wooing o' 't " — Bent is christened " Ringiringi " . pp. 34-42 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 TE UA, PRIEST AND PROPHET 
 
 Te Ua and his gods — The Pai marire faith — " Charming " 
 the British bullets — Bent's interview with the prophet — His 
 life tapu'd — Preparing for battle — Life in the forest pa 
 
 pp. 43-54 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE STORMING OF OTAPAWA 
 
 British forces attack the stockade — The bayonet charge — 
 Flight of the Hauhaus — Through the forest by torchlight — 
 Doctoring the wounded — The tangi by the I'iver . pp 55-65 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 BUSH LIFE WITH THE HAUHAUS 
 
 Wild days in the forest — 'J'hc Hauliau hunters — Maori wood- 
 craft — Bird-snaring and birtl-spoaring — The fowlers at Te 
 Ngaere — The slayer of Broughton — Another runaway soldier, 
 and his fate — The tomahawking of Humphrey Murphy 
 
 pp. OG-77
 
 CONTENTS XV 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE HAUHAU COUNCIL-TOWN 
 
 I,it'e in Taiporohcnui — A great praying-house — -The ritual 
 of tho Niu — Singular Hauhau chants — " Matua Pai marire''^ — 
 Bent's new owner, and his now wife — The tattooers — Another 
 white renegade .... . pp. 78-91 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 A FOREST ADVENTURE 
 
 The two eel-fishers — Bivouac in tho bush — A murderous 
 attack — The Waikato's tomahawk — " Ringiringi's " escape 
 
 pp. 92-101 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE WAR-CHIEF AND HIS GODS 
 
 The war-chief Titokowaru — Ancient ceremonies and religion 
 revived — Uenuku, the god of battle — Titokowaru's mana-tapu 
 — Bent makes cartridges for the Hauhaus — A novel weapon 
 
 pp. 102-107 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 " THE BEAK-OF-THE-BIRD " 
 
 The stockade at Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu — In the Wharekurn 
 • — Singular Hauhau war-rites — The " Twelve Apostles " — The 
 enchanted taiuha — The heart of the pakeha : a human bur it- 
 ofTering — An ambuscade and a cannibal feast . pp. 108-1 18 
 
 h
 
 xvi CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE ATTACK ON TURUTURU-MOKAI REDOUBT 
 
 Haiuvhenua's war-party — A night marcli — Attack on Tin-u- 
 turu-Mokai Redoubt — A heroic defence — The heart of the 
 captain — Touch-and-go — Relief at last . . pp. 119-133 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE KILLING OF KANE 
 
 Bent and Kane brought before Titokowaru — Kane's flight- 
 Captured by the Hauhaus — A traitor's end . pp. 134-138 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 ADVENTURES AT TE NGUTU-0-TE-MANU 
 
 In the midst of dangers — Bent stalked by Hauhaus — Old 
 Jacob to the rescue — " Come on if you dare ! " — The wliite 
 man's new Maori name — Government forces attack and burn 
 Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu — A new use for hand-grenades pp. 139-144 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 A BATTLE IN THE FOREST ; AND THE DEATH OF 
 VON TEMPSKY 
 
 The second fight at Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu — Titokowaru's 
 projDliecy — Tutang6 and his sacred war-mat — Bent's narrow 
 escape — Government forces defeated— How von Tempsky fell 
 — A terrible retreat — Colonial soldiers' gallant rearguard figlit 
 
 pp. 145-179
 
 CONTENTS xvii 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE CANNIBALS OF THE BUSH 
 
 After the battle — Tlie slain heroes of Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu — 
 A terrible scene on the marae — What Bent saw from his prison- 
 hut — The sword of '' Manu-rau " — A funeral pyre — Priestly 
 incantations — A soldier's body eaten — Why the Hauhaus 
 became cannibals ...... pp. 180-194 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 SKIRMISHING AND FORT-BUILDING 
 
 Te Ngutu-o-te-!Manii abandoned — On the march again — 
 Skirmishing on the Patea — Pakeha in pickle — A new stockade 
 — Bent the pa-builder ..... pp. 195-200 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE FIGHT AT MOTUROA STOCKADE 
 
 Katene's vigil — Attack on the stockade — Major Hunter's 
 death — A Hauhau warrior's desperate feat — Over the palisades 
 — Government forces repulsed — A rear-guard fight — An un- 
 answered prayer — Scenes of terror — Tihirua's burnt-offering — A 
 soldier's body eaten ...... pp. 201-225 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE TAURANGA-IKA STOCKADE 
 
 Another fighting-pa built — Scouting and skirmishing — The 
 watcher on the tower — McDonnell and Titokowaru — How 
 Trooper Lingard won the New Zealand Cross — Hairbreadth 
 escapes — Pairama and the white man's leg , pp. 226-2.39
 
 xviii CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 A SCOUTING ADVENTURE 
 
 The passage of the Okehu — A night's vigil — Mackenzie the 
 scout — " Maoris in the bush ! " — Tlie watchers in the fern — A 
 race for hfo ....... pp. 240-254 
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 THE FALL OF TAURANGA-IKA 
 
 Shot and shell — The fort abandoned — Flight of the Hanhaus 
 — The chase — The fight at Karaka Flat — Mutilation of the dead 
 — The ambuscade at the peach-grove — The sergeant's leg — 
 Rewards for Hauhau heads. .... pp. 255-261 
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 THE FOREST-FORAGERS 
 
 Fugitive Hauhavis — Hard times in the bush — The eaters 
 of mamaku — Bent's adventiu'c — Lost in the woods — Rupo to 
 the rescue — The tapu'd eels .... pp. 2G2-269 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 A BATTLE IN THE FOG 
 
 The surprise of Otautu — An early morning attack — Kimble 
 Bent's dream — " Kia tu])ato !" — A gallant defence — Bravo old 
 JIakopa— Flight of the Hauhaus . . . pp. 270-270
 
 CONTENTS xix 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 THE HEAD-HUNTERS 
 
 The skiriiiisli at ^^ haUainara — Hauliaus on the run — Govern- 
 ment head-hunters — IMajor Kemp's white scout — Sharp work 
 in the bush — Barbarism of the Wlianganui — Kupapas — Smoke- 
 drying the heads — A present for Whitmore — The heads on 
 the tent floor — End of the war .... pp. 277-292 
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 THE LAND OF REFUGE 
 
 Tlie flight from Rukumoana — Retreat to the Waitara — The 
 Kawau pa — Life in the Ngatimaru country — Rupe and his 
 white man — A Maori Donnybrook fair — A tale of a taniwha 
 
 pp. 293-305 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 BUSH LIFE ON THE PATEA 
 
 The return to Rukumoana — The forest-village — Bird-snaring 
 and bird-spearing — Bent the canoe-builder — His third wife 
 
 pp. 3U6-310 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 HIROKI : THE STORY OF A FUGITIVE 
 
 Hiroki, the slayer of McLean — Strange faces at Rukumoana 
 — A foi'ost chase — A meeting and a warning — Hiroki's wild 
 bush life and his end . . , . . pp. 311-320
 
 XX CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 OUT OF EXILE 
 
 Canoeing on the Patea — The voyage to Hukatere — The 
 white man's world again — Bent the medicine-man — Makutu, 
 or the Black Art — Bent's later days — The end . pp. 321-332 
 
 Appendix pp. 333-336
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Sketch Map of Taranaki .... Frontispiece 
 
 PAGK 
 
 Mount Eomont, Taranaki . . . . . .15 
 
 A Taranaki Frontier Fort . . . . .17 
 
 Patara, a Hauhau Prophet ..... 47 
 
 A British Column on the March . . . . G9 
 
 The Scout 85 
 
 The Ambuscade . . . . . . .113 
 
 TuTANGE Waionui, A Hauhau Warrior . . .151 
 
 Major von Tempsky . . . . . . .159 
 
 Major von Tempsky . . . . . . .173 
 
 Major Kemp (Kepa te Rangihiwinui) . . .211 
 
 The Fight at Moturoa ..... 218, 219 
 
 A Hauhau Scout ....... 235 
 
 A Constabulary Officer in Bush-fighting Costume . 279 
 Kimble Bent, the Pakeha-Maori .... 32»
 
 THE ADVENTURES OF 
 KIMBLE BENT 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE DESERTER 
 
 On the banks of tlie Taiigalioe — The runaway soldier — A 
 Maori scout — Off to the rebel camp. 
 
 On the banks of one of the many swift rivers that 
 roll down to the Tasman Sea through the Taranaki 
 Plains a young man in the blue undress uniform of 
 a private soldier sat smoking his pipe. He was 
 dripping with water, and a little pool had collected 
 where he crouched in the fern, a few feet from the 
 bank of the stream. He had plainly just emerged 
 from the river. His clothes were torn, and he was 
 capless. He was a man of about the middle size, 
 spare of build, with sharp dark eyes and a bronzed 
 complexion that told of past life under a tropic sun. 
 Less than an hour previously he had left his com- 
 rades' camp, the tented lines of Her Majesty's 57th 
 Regiment, on the ferny flats of Manawapou. Left 
 unofficially, and without his arms, strolling down 
 1
 
 2 THE ADVENTURES OP KIMBLE BENT 
 
 towards the Taiigalioe River as if for a bathe. A 
 " shut-eye " sentry was on duty that morning ; and 
 the deserter's tent-mates, too, were sympathetically 
 blind to his departure. The Tangahoe was the 
 border-line between the country covered by the 
 British rifles and the unconquerable bush of the Maori 
 rebels. Towards this rubicon he made his way 
 through the thick, high fern, which soon concealed 
 him from view. He attempted to ford the rapid, 
 muddy river, but it was up to his waist, and almost 
 swept him off his feet. Struggling ashore again, he 
 took to the fern and travelled slo^^'ly and with great 
 toil through it, keeping parallel with the course of 
 the Tangahoe, and heading down stream. He 
 forced his way through the thick fern " like a wild 
 pig," to use his own simile. In this way he travelled 
 something over a mile down the river, and then 
 once more attempted to ford across, but it was 
 too deep and swift. He crawled back up the bank 
 again, and quite exhausted, with scratched hands 
 and face and gaping half-buttonless clothes, he 
 sat down to recover his breath and strength. His 
 heart Mas thumping fearfully with his frantic ex- 
 ertions in the closely matted, entanghng fern, and 
 it was some minutes before he could command his 
 trembling fingers to till and light his pipe. 
 
 After the soldier had sat and smoked a while he 
 rose, and making his way to a slight elevation on 
 the banks where he could see over the top of the
 
 THE DESERTER 3 
 
 coarse rarauhe fern, in some places ten feet high, 
 he looked around him. Directly across the river 
 the bush began, the seemingly impenetrable forest 
 solemn and dark, pregnant with danger and mystery 
 Turning in the other direction, and facing the north- 
 west, he could just discern in the distance the 
 tops of a number of bell-tents — the camp he had 
 left behind him. And as he looked his last on the 
 tents of his comrades and his tyrants, he heard the 
 sweet notes of a bugle sounding a call. The mid- 
 winter air was very clear and still. It was the 
 midday mess call — " Come-to-the-cookhouse-door," 
 
 " No more cookhouse-door now, that's a moral," 
 said the soldier aloud. " Pork and potatoes for 
 you, me boy — or else a crack on the head with a 
 tomahawk." 
 
 Beyond the tents, another tent-shaped object 
 took the soldier's eye. It was a lofty snowy moun- 
 tain, ghttering in the midday sun. It was far 
 away in the nor'-west, so far that its base was 
 hidden by the intervening bush, and only the 
 white symmetrical upper part of the vast cone, 
 a wedge of white culminating in as perfect an 
 apex as any beU-tent, was visible to the eye from 
 this part of the great plains. It was the peak of 
 Taranaki mountain, wliich the white man calls 
 Mount Egmont. 
 
 Satisfying himself that there was no one in 
 sight and that he was not followed, the soldier
 
 4 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 squatted down again and smoked his pipe medi- 
 tatively. 
 
 Suddenly he started up and listened intently. 
 He heard something, and any noise meant danger. 
 The sound was the trotting of a horse. 
 
 Scrambling through the fern a little space back 
 from the bank, he found that a narrow track wound 
 through the tangle of tall brown bracken. Peering 
 out from his shelter place he saw — first, the glitter 
 of the muzzle of a long rifle above the fern ; then, 
 next moment round a turn in the path came a 
 mounted man, a Maori. He was a tall, black- 
 bearded fellow, wearing a European shirt and 
 trousers, but bare as to feet. Each stirrup-iron 
 was thrust between the big toe and the next one, 
 as was the universal Maori mode when riding 
 bare-footed. In his right hand he held an Enfield 
 rifle, of the pattern used by the white troops in 
 those days ; the butt rested on liis thigh, cavalry- 
 man fashion. Round his shoulders hung a leather 
 cartouche-box ; there was another buckled round 
 his waist, from which there hung also a revolver 
 in its case. A Hauliau scout, evidently, venturing 
 rather daringly close to the British camp. 
 
 The white man hesitated only a moment. Then 
 he boldly stepped out on to the track, directly in 
 front of the startled Maori, who pulled his shaggy 
 pony up sharp, and instantly presented his gun at 
 the white man.
 
 THE DESERTER 5 
 
 Seeing the next moment, however, that the 
 white man was unarmed and alone, the Maori 
 brought his rifle-butt down on his leg again, and 
 stared with wonder at the forlorn -looking white 
 soldier before him. 
 
 " Here, you pakeha ! " he cried, in mixed English 
 and Maori ; " go back, quick ! Haere atu, haere 
 atu ! Go 'way back to t'e soldiers. I shoot you 
 suppose you no go ! Hoki atu ! " 
 
 " Shoot away ! " returned the white man. " I 
 won't go back. I'm running away from the soldiers. 
 I want to go to the Maoris. Take me with you ! " 
 
 " You tangata kuware ! " the Maori said. " You 
 pakeha fool, go back ! T'e Maori kill you, my 
 word ! You look out." 
 
 " I don't care if they do," replied the soldier. 
 " I tell you, I want to live with the Hauhaus." 
 
 '' E pai ana'"/ ("It is well"), said the scout. 
 " All right, you come along. But you look out 
 for my tribe — they kill you." 
 
 " I'm not frightened of your tribe," said the 
 soldier. 
 
 " What your name, pakeha ? " was the next 
 question. 
 
 " Kimble Bent," answered the pakeha. 
 
 The Maori attempted the pronunciation of the 
 name, but the nearest he could get to it was " Ki- 
 rn ara Peneti." 
 
 "Too hard a name for t'e Maori," he said.
 
 6 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 " Taihoa ; we give you more better name — good 
 Maori name. If " — he qualified it — " my tribe 
 don't kill you." 
 
 Then the swarthy warrior dismounted and ordered 
 the pakeha to get into the saddle ; he saw that his 
 prisoner was dead-tired. He turned the horse's 
 head back towards the Maori country, and the 
 strangely-met pair struck down along the banks 
 of the Tangahoe, the Maori striding in front. 
 
 For about three miles the track wound down 
 through the fern and flax, parallel with the course 
 of the river. Then the travellers came to a ford. 
 They crossed safely, and clambering up the steep 
 muddy bank on the other side, they marched on 
 towards the blue hills of the rebel country.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 KIMBLE BENT, SAILOR AND SOLDIER 
 
 Kimble Bent's early life — An Jndian mother — Service in the 
 American Navy — Departiu'e for England — " Taking the Shil- 
 ling " — British Army life — The flight to America — A sinking 
 ship — Rescue, and landing in Glasgow — Back to the Army again 
 -^Soldiering in India — The 57th ordered to New Zealand — The 
 Taranaki Campaign^A court-martial — At the triangles. 
 
 While the runaway soldier is riding on to the 
 camp of the brown warriors of the bush — a journey 
 which is to be the beginning of a wild and savage 
 life leading him for many a day, like Thoreau's 
 Indian fighter, on dim forest trails " with an uneasy 
 scalp " — there is time to learn something of liis 
 previous history and adventures. 
 
 Perhaps the impulse that led to his passionate 
 revolt against civilisation and rigid army discipline 
 came from his American Indian blood. 
 
 ICimble Bent's mother was a half-caste Red 
 Indian girl, of the Musqua tribe, whose villages 
 stood on the banks of the St. Croix River, State of 
 Maine, U.S.A. Her English name before marriage 
 was Eliza Senter. She became the wife of a ship- 
 builder in the town of Eastport, Maine ; his name 
 
 7
 
 8 THE ADVENTUREJS OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 was Waterman Bent ; he worked at first for Caleb 
 Houston, shipbuilder, but afterwards had a yard 
 of his own. This couple had seven children, two 
 sons and five daughters ; one of these sons was 
 Kimble Bent. He was born in Eastport on 
 August 24, 1837. 
 
 The roving wayward element in young Kimble 
 Bent's blood soon made itself manifest. When he 
 was about seventeen, he ran away from home and 
 went to sea. He shipped on a United States 
 man-of-war, the training frigate Martin, and spent 
 three years aboard her, cruising along the Atlantic 
 Coast. He quickly became a smart young sailor 
 and gunner, and from the rank of seaman he 
 graduated to deckman, a sort of quartermaster. 
 It was part of his duty during the last year of his 
 service to instruct the boys who came aboard as 
 recruits in the working of the muzzle-loading 
 6-pounder and 8-pounder guns. 
 
 Paid off from his frigate at the end of his three 
 years, Bent returned to his people as unexpectedly 
 as he had left them. But he didn't stay in Eastport 
 long. The prosaic life of the old town was no more 
 to his liking than when first he had run away to 
 follow a sailor's life ; so he soon took to the seas 
 again. He gathered together what money he 
 could — a considerable sum, he says, for his father 
 was indulgent — and took ship across the Atlantic, 
 in his head some such unexpressed sentiment as
 
 SAILOR AND SOLDIER 9 
 
 Robert Louis Stevenson long afterwards put into 
 verse in his " Songs of Travel " : 
 
 " TIic uiitcntcd Kosinos my abode 
 I go, a wilful stranger, 
 My mistress still the open road 
 And the bright eyes of Danger." 
 
 But no man-of-war life for him. He booked his 
 passage in a barque sailing for Liverpool, resolved 
 to see something of life in the Old World. 
 
 When he landed in the big city he " made himself 
 flash," to use his own expression, and went the 
 pace with a few like-minded young fellows, and one 
 way and another his stock of cash soon vanished, 
 and he found himself stranded, friendless, and 
 alone — his companions of the " flush " times had 
 no more use for him. One day, as he wandered 
 disconsolate along the streets, his eye was taken by 
 the scarlet tunic and lively bearing of a smart 
 recruiting-sergeant, and on the impulse of the 
 moment he took the Queen's shilling and was en- 
 listed in Her Majesty's 57th Regiment of Foot. 
 This was in the year 1859. 
 
 The young Eastport sailor soon bitterly regretted 
 the day that his eye was dazzled by the Queen's 
 scarlet. The British Army was less to his taste 
 than life in Uncle Sam's Navy. He was sent to 
 Cork with a draft of two hundred other recruits, 
 and the interminable drill soon gave him an intense 
 disgust for the routine of barrack-yard instruction.
 
 10 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 Four months of recruit-drill — then one day Private 
 Bent took a stroll down the Cork wharves and cast 
 his eyes round for a likely craft in which to give 
 the army, drill-sergeants, and all the slip. 
 
 A Boston barque, the Maria, happened to be 
 lying at one of the tees, and her skipper, one Captain 
 Cann, Bent, to his joy, found to be an old acquaint- 
 ance. He unfolded his dejected tale, and the sailor 
 at once offered his assistance in rescuing a fellow- 
 countryman from John Bull's grip. That evening 
 Bent stole away quietly from the barracks, boarded 
 the barque, and was stowed away safely below in 
 the dunnage-hole. He did not show his nose above 
 hatches for two days ; the barque by that time 
 had left the harbour on her return voyage to Boston, 
 and the deserter was able to appear on deck, a free 
 man. 
 
 But not for long. J^ent's misfortunes were only 
 beginning. When about three hundred miles off 
 the land a furious easterly gale began to blow, and 
 the old barkey sprang a leak. Hove-to in the 
 storm, all the crew could do was to stand to the 
 pumps. The huge Atlantic seas came thundering 
 on deck, and more than once washed the men away 
 from the pumps. For six days and six nights they 
 wallowed in the deep, all hands, sailors and pas- 
 sengers, taking turns at the pumps, working for 
 their lives. 
 
 All those terrible days of storm and fear the
 
 SAILOR AND SOLDIER 11 
 
 Maria's hands had nothing to eat but hard biscuits 
 soaked with salt water. There was no place to 
 cook and no means of cooking, for the galley with 
 all its contents had been washed overboard. While 
 the crew laboured at the pumps, the captain tried 
 to cheer them up and put a little life into their 
 weary bodies and despairing hearts by playing 
 lively airs on his concertina and singing sailors' 
 chanteys. 
 
 " One day," says Bent, " a German brig hove in 
 sight and spoke us. Seeing our signal of distress 
 she asked the name of our barque and the number 
 of the crew. We signalled our reply, and she 
 answered that she could not help us, there was too 
 much sea. Then she squared away and left us. 
 All this time we were labouring at the pumps to 
 keep the old barque afloat. Next day another brig, 
 a Boston vessel deep-loaded, from the West Indies, 
 hailed us and stood by, signalling to us to launch 
 our boats. This we did, after hard and dangerous 
 work, and managed to reach the brig's side, where 
 all the sixteen of us were hauled on board safely. 
 About two hours after we left our ship we saw her 
 go down." 
 
 To Bent's intense disappointment he found that 
 the brig that had rescued him was bound for the 
 wrong side of the Atlantic. She landed the ship- 
 wrecked mariners at Glasgow. Bent was walking 
 about the streets one day, wondering however he
 
 12 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 was going to get a passage home, for he had no 
 money, when he was arrested as a deserter — recog- 
 nised by the description which had been posted in 
 every barrack-room and every poHce-station. He 
 was taken to the mihtary barracks, and then sent 
 under guard to Ireland and down to Cork, where 
 he was tried by court-martial, and sentenced to 
 eighty -four days in prison. When he had served 
 his term he was shipped off to India with his regi- 
 ment, landing at Bombay, and for some time did 
 garrison duty at Poona. 
 
 The 57th spent two years in India, only just 
 recovering from the terrible throes of the Mutiny. 
 Then news came of a serious war with a wild native 
 race in a distant country called New Zealand, far 
 away down in the Southern Ocean, and the regiment 
 was ordered to hold itself in readiness to go route- 
 marching to Bombay, thence to sea. Marching 
 orders soon followed, and the headquarters of the 
 regiment sailed for Auckland ; the company in 
 which Bent was a private (No. 8 Company) was 
 one of those left behind to look after the women and 
 children of the regiment. Orders for them also 
 quickly came, and they took the road for Bombay. 
 
 The journey from Poona to Bombay took four 
 days, or rather nights, for all the marching was 
 done by night. Part of the way was through a 
 dense jungle in which man-eating tigers swarmed. 
 The troops marched through this jungle by torch-
 
 SAILOR AND 80LDIER 13 
 
 light, winding along a narrow track through the 
 densely -matted vegetation. The growling of the 
 tigers was heard all round at night, but the blazing 
 torches kept them away. 
 
 Embarked in a troopship at Bombay, Bent and 
 his fellow-soldiers sailed not unwillingly for a land 
 spoken of by report as a country which, though 
 wild and new, was a pleasanter place to live in 
 than scorching sun-baked India. 
 
 After a voyage of eighty-nine days, the troopship 
 anchored in Auckland Harbour, and her soldiers 
 spent their first week on New Zealand soil in the 
 old Albert Barracks, where the bright flower- 
 gardens and tree-groves of a beautiful park now 
 crown the hill that in those troubled days was 
 girt with a massive crenellated wall, and was alive 
 with all the martial turmoil of campaigning-time. 
 Then the new arrivals were sent down to Taranaki 
 by sea to join the headquarters of the 57th, and 
 went into new barrack life on Marsland Hill, New 
 Plymouth. 
 
 Kimble Bent's longing for a free independent 
 life became stronger than ever in this new country. 
 He would gladly have exchanged camp-life for even 
 the perilous occupation of a frontier settler, so 
 that he were free. The parade ground was a 
 purgatory, and the restraint of discipline and the 
 ramrod-and-pipeclay system of soldiering were 
 irksome beyond words. He was sick to death of
 
 14 THE ADVENTURES OP KIMBLE BENT 
 
 being ordered about by sergeants and corporals. 
 Eigliting would have been a relief, but there was 
 none yet. He endeavoured to get his discharge 
 from the regiment, but without success ; and his 
 impatience of discipline led him into various more 
 or less serious conflicts with the regimental au- 
 thorities. 
 
 So opened Kimble Bent's life in the new land, 
 the land in which he was to roam the forests an 
 outlaw for more than a decade. 
 
 In those war-days of 1860-70 dense forests covered 
 the wide plains of this Taranaki province, where 
 now most of the dark old woods have been hewn 
 away, and have given place to the pastures and 
 homesteads of dairy farmers. It was a wild but 
 beautiful land. The coast curved out and round 
 in a great sweeping semicircle from Waitara in 
 the north to Wanganui in the south ; the inter- 
 vening region of forest, liiU, and plain was the 
 theatre of war. High and central, Taranaki's 
 great mountain-cone, which the pakeha calls Eg- 
 mont, swelled to a height of over 8,000 feet, its 
 base hidden in the forests, its snowy peak ghttering 
 far above the broad soft swathes of clouds, the 
 sailor's landmark a hunch'ed miles out at sea. 
 Remote from all other higii mountains it soared 
 aloft — " lonely as (Jod and uliite as a winter morn," 
 as Joaquin Miller wrote of his beloved Mount Shasta.
 
 SAILOR AND SOLDIER 15 
 
 On all sides Taraiuiki — the holy mountain of the 
 Maoris — sloped evenly and gently to the plains, 
 and from its recesses sprang the head waters of 
 many a beautiful river. The mountain, huge yet 
 exquisitely symmetrical, was revered by the old- 
 school Taranaki Maori as the mighty symbol of 
 his nationality, and regarded as being in some 
 mystic fashion the source of his tribal mana. 
 
 MOUNT EGMONT, TARANAKI. 
 
 Under the shadow of Taranaki began the Ten Years' 
 War ; here the Hauhau fanaticism took its mad 
 rise in 1864. From Taranaki's foot set out the 
 Hauhau apostles, preaching a strange jumble of 
 Scriptural expressions and pagan Maori concepts, 
 promising their converts that no pakeha bullet 
 should harm them if they but repeated their magic 
 incantations ; and brandishing before the ranks 
 of their devotees the dried and smoked heads of
 
 16 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 slain wliite soldiers. The relapse into bai-barism 
 was more marked in Taranaki than anywhere else, 
 and even to this day the hatred of the white man 
 lingers there, amongst the remnants of the old 
 Hauhau stock. Te Whiti, the Prophet of Parihaka, 
 until his death in 1907, held his court under the 
 shadow of lofty Taranaki, and preached his old 
 mysticism fortified by the towering presence of 
 his mountain-god, cold and immutable, and all 
 unmindful of the pakeha\s nuirch through the 
 plains below. 
 
 In March, 1804, the 57th were ordered from New 
 Plymouth to Mana\\apou (not far from the present 
 town of Hawera), near the Tangahoe River. The 
 fanatic Hauhau faith had just been born amongst 
 the Maoris, whose palisaded pas dotted the out- 
 skirts of the great forests on the farther side of 
 the Tangahoe, and whose war-songs could some- 
 times be heard from the white soldiers' camp. At 
 Manawapou the regiment went under canvas, and 
 now began the regular round of sentry-go and 
 outpost duty, and all the preparations for an 
 advance on the rebel positions. 
 
 Meantime there was fighting in tlie northern and 
 western parts of the Taranaki province, between 
 the 57th camp and New Plymouth. There was 
 the disastrous affair at Te Ahuahu, where Captain 
 Lloyd and several soldiers were killed ; their heads
 
 SAILOR AND SOLDIER 
 
 17 
 
 Mere cut otf and smoke-dried by the Hauhau 
 savages, and were carried away to distant tribes 
 by Kereopa, Patara, and other rebel emissaries, the 
 Hauhau recruiting officers. Another momentous 
 affair which happened soon after the 57th took post 
 at Manawapou was the desperate assault on the 
 British redoubt at Sentry Hill (Te Morere). A large 
 
 A TARANAKI FRONTIER FORT. 
 
 Sli-i'/ch III/ Mr. .S'. Pirri/ .Sinilli, 1865.) 
 
 force of Hauhau warriors, deluded by their prophet 
 Hepanaia into believing that his incantations 
 rendered them invulnerable to the white man's 
 bullets, rushed against the redoubt in open day- 
 light one morning, but were beaten off, leaving 
 some fifty of their number lying dead in front of 
 the fort. It was in this engagement that Tito- 
 kowaru — who was afterwards Kimble Bent's chief 
 9
 
 18 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 and master — ^lost one of his eyes through a bidlel 
 wound. 
 
 Kimble Bent's final revolt against constituted 
 authority came one wet, cold day in the Manawapou 
 camp in April 1804, It was pouring with rain, 
 but a corporal, one who took a vindictive sort of 
 pleasure in asserting his authority over those 
 privates whom he happened to dishke, ordered 
 Bent to go out and cut some fu-ew ood in the bush. 
 Irritated by the manner in which the order was 
 given, the young " Down-Easter " was foolish 
 enough to argue with his enemy the corporal. 
 
 " Look here," he said, '' this is no day to 
 send a man out cutting wood. The officers can 
 stay in their tents laughing at us fellows out 
 in the rain. We're treated like a set of blessed 
 dogs." 
 
 " Oh, you won't go, won't you ? " sneered the 
 corporal, rejoicing at having irritated the soldier 
 into insubordination. 
 
 "No, I won't go," said Bent defiantly; "so 
 you can do what you Jike about it." 
 
 The corporal reported Bent to his immediate 
 superiors, and the soldier was arrested and lodged 
 in the guard-tent. Next morning he was brought 
 before a court-martial and tried for disobedience 
 of orders. Major Haszard was the president of the 
 court. VV'ith him sat Captain Clark, Lieutenant
 
 SAILOR AND SOLDIER 19 
 
 Brown, and Ensign Parker. Bent knew it was 
 useless to attempt a defence, for his offence was 
 an inexcusable breach of disciphne. He was found 
 guilty, and the sentence of the court was that he 
 should receive fifty lashes, and serve two years in 
 gaol. 
 
 The triangles were then a familiar institution 
 in every military camp in the Waikato and in 
 Taranaki ; for those were flogging days, when even 
 slight breaches of military rules brought down the 
 lash upon the soldier's back. 
 
 One of the regimental surgeons, D;-. Andrews, 
 examined Bent, as was the practice before flogging 
 was inflicted, and he reported that in his opinion 
 the young soldier was not constitutionally fit to 
 endure the fifty lashes ordered. 
 
 Soon after Bent had been taken to his tent under 
 guard, one of the officers of the court-martial came 
 in to see him. Ihis was Captain Clark, a fine 
 jovial young Canadian-born soldier, who had 
 rather a liking for the unfortunate man from his 
 end of the world. 
 
 " Cheer up. Bent," he said ; '' you'll only get 
 twenty-five — the sentence is reduced. And put 
 that in your mouth when you go to the triangles," 
 and he threw down a sixpence. Then, when the 
 guard-tent corporal was not looking, the kindly officer 
 took a flask of rum from liis breast-pocket, laid it on 
 the tent floor, and walked away to liis quarters.
 
 20 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 W'lien Bent was called out for punislimeiit, he 
 quickly drank off the rum, and put the sixpence 
 in liis mouth. He knew the old soldier's recipe 
 for a " stiff upper hp " in the agony of Hogging — 
 " bite on the bullet." The sixpence would serve 
 him as well. It would keep his teeth from biting 
 through his tongue in the throes of that horrible 
 punishment. 
 
 A bugle sounded the " Fall in." No. 8 Company 
 was paraded in review order on the drill ground to 
 " witness punishment." Bent was marched down 
 to the square ; he was stripped to the waist and 
 tied to the triangles. The big drummer of the 
 Company stepped to the front ; he was the flagel- 
 lant. Bent bit on his substitute for a bullet as 
 the cat swished through the air and fell like a red- 
 hot knife on his quivering back. Again and again 
 came the frightful cuts, criss-cross upon liis back 
 and shoulders, till the tale of twenty-five was 
 complete. Then the prisoner was cast loose, 
 swearing in his pain and passion to have the drum- 
 mer's hfe. A blanket was thrown across his raw 
 and bleeding shoulders, and he was marched 
 back to the guard-tent, where the surgeon pre- 
 scribed for him in rough-and-ready fashion ; 
 then to prison — he refused to go into the camp 
 hospital. 
 
 Bent served some months in Wellington Prison, 
 doing cook-house work, in expiation of liis offence
 
 SAILOR AND 80LDIER 21 
 
 against military discipline. Then he was sent 
 back to his hated regiment. The shame of that 
 morning at the triangles, with his comrades paraded 
 to witness his disgrace and agony, was burned into 
 him for ever. He grew morose and desperate. At 
 last he resolved to desert to the enemy. He con- 
 fided his resolve to his tent-mates, and they, know- 
 ing that other soldiers had deserted to the Maoris 
 and had not l)een killed, did not attempt to dis- 
 suade him. " I can't be worse off with the Maoris 
 than I am here," he told them ; " if they do toma- 
 hawk me, it will end all my troubles. I don't very 
 much care." 
 
 So he bided his time for a favourable oppor- 
 tunity to steal from the camp ; and soon his chance 
 came. It was on June 12, 1865, that he broke 
 camp and fell in with the Hauhau scout on the 
 banks of the Tangahoe.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE CAMP OF THE HAUHAUS 
 
 In the Maori country — Arrival at a Hauhau Pa — Maori 
 village scenes — The ceremonies round the sacred flagstaff — 
 " Rire, rire, hau ! " — The man with the tomahawk — A white 
 slave — The painted warriors of Keteonetea — The blazing 
 oven. 
 
 The saturnine Hauhau spoke little to the white 
 man during that journey to the rebel camp. He 
 stalked silently on in front, his rifle over his 
 shoulder, turning quickly now and again to assure 
 himself that the soldier was still following him. 
 Presently they forded another stream, which Bent 
 afterwards came to know as the Ingahape, and 
 passed through a deserted settlement, with its 
 tumble-down dwellings of raupo reeds, and its old 
 potato-gardens. A few minutes later tliey came 
 in sight of their destination, the Ohangai j)a. A 
 high stockade of tree-trunks sunk in the ground, 
 some of the up])er ends licwn into sharj) points, 
 others with round knobby tops that suggested 
 impaled human heads, surrounded a populous 
 village of thatched huts. Just beyond it was the 
 bush, stretching away as far as the eye could carry. 
 
 22
 
 THE CAMP OF THE HAUHAUS 23 
 
 It was a secluded, pretty scene, that village with 
 its neat enclosure, its rows of snug tvhares which 
 could be seen through the gateway and the openings 
 in the palisade, and its squares of maize and potato 
 cultivations, sheltered by the friendly belt of dark 
 green forest. 
 
 Some little, nearly naked children were playing 
 about on the open space in front of the palisades. 
 When they suddenly beheld a white man riding 
 along towards them, with a Maori walking by his 
 stirrup, they stared wide-eyed and open-mouthed, 
 and then rushed helter-skelter into the pa, calling 
 out at the top of their voices, " He pakeha, he 
 pakeha ! " 
 
 What a commotion that cry of " Pakeha " 
 aroused in the slumbering pa ! Men leaped from 
 the flax ivhariki (mats), where they had been drows- 
 ing away the afternoon awaiting the opening of the 
 steam ovens, and poured out of the narrow gateway 
 armed with their guns and tomahawks. When 
 they saw that the European was a harmless, un- 
 armed individual, and that he was apparently the 
 prisoner of one of their own people, the clamour 
 died away, and they escorted the soldier and his 
 captor into the pa. Bent quickly perceived that 
 his companion was a man of some importance, 
 from the peremptory orders he issued and the 
 alacrity with which they were obeyed. The scout 
 was, in fact, the chief Tito te Hanataua, a rangatira
 
 24 THE ADVENTUHES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 of high standing in the Ngati-Ruanvii tribe, and one 
 of the Hauhaus' best fighting-leaders. 
 
 It was a wild scene that met the young soldier's 
 gaze when he entered the stockade, and his heart 
 sank before the savagely hostile gaze of a crowd 
 of armed, half-stripped warriors, the black-bearded 
 and shaggy-headed men of the bush, and their 
 scarcely less savage-looking women. 
 
 A strange ceremony began. 
 
 In the centre of the village square or tndrat stood 
 a rough-hewn pole or flagstaff, about fifteen feet 
 high, on which flew one or two coloured flags. 
 This was the Niu, the sacred staff which the Hauliau 
 prophet Te Ua had commanded his followers to 
 erect as a pole of worship in each of their villages. 
 [The Niu was in more ancient times the name of a 
 peculiar ceremony of divination often resorted to 
 by the tohungas or priests ; it is perhaps worth 
 noting, too, that in the Islands of Polynesia, the 
 traditional Maori Hawaiki, it is the general name 
 for the coco-nut-tree.] All the inhabitants of the 
 village — men, women, and chi'dren — formed up, 
 and began to march round and round the Niu, 
 with a priest in their midst, rushing frantically to 
 and fro, and brandishing a Maori weapon as he 
 yelled a ferocious-sounding chant. The people, 
 too, lifted up their voices as they marched, and, 
 after listening a while, Bent found to his astonish- 
 ment that part of what they were chanting in a,
 
 THE CAMP OF THE HAUHAUS 25 
 
 singular wild cadence were these words in " pidgin " 
 English : " Big river, long river, big mountain, 
 long mountain, bush, big bush, long bush," and 
 so on, ending with a loudly chanted cry, " Eire, 
 rire, hau ! " This meaningless gibberish formed 
 part of the incantations solemnly taught to the 
 Hauhaus by Te Ua, who professed to have the 
 " gift of tongues " of which the 'pakefia's New 
 Testament spoke ; his disciples fondly believed that 
 they were endowed by their prophet's " angel " 
 with wonderful linguistic powers. 
 
 The singular march suddenly ceased, at an order 
 from the shawl-kilted tohunga in the centre, and 
 then the people filed into the village meeting- 
 house, a large raupo-reed-huilt structure, taking 
 Bent with them. He was motioned to a seat 
 beside a Maori, whose name, he afterwards found, 
 was Hori Kerei (George Grey), and who could 
 speak English fairly weU. 
 
 Sitting opposite Bent was a white-bearded old 
 fighting-man, a dour-faced savage, his brown face 
 deeply scored with the marks of blue-black tattoo ; 
 his sole attire was a blanket ; in his right hand, 
 and partly concealed by the blanket, he held a 
 tomahawk. His hand twitched now and then, as 
 if he were about to flash out the tomahawk and 
 use it on the pakeha, from whose face he never 
 withdrew his fierce old eyes. He was the chief, 
 Te Rangi-tutaki.
 
 26 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 A long talk began. Hori Kerei interpreted. The 
 Maoris asked Bent why he had come to them, why 
 had he run away from his own people. The de- 
 serter frankly told tliem that he was tired of 
 being a soldier, that he had been ill-treated 
 and imprisoned, and that he came to them for 
 protection. 
 
 " Pakeha,^^ said Kerei, " they want to know if 
 you will ever leave the Maori and go back to the 
 soldiers." 
 
 " No," said Bent ; " tell them I'll never i-un 
 away from the Hauhaus. I want to live with them 
 always ; I don't ever want to see a white man 
 again ! " 
 
 " Kapai ! " said Grey good-hum ouredly. " That 
 the talk ! All right, I tell them true." 
 
 When Kerei had interpreted the white man's 
 reply, the old man with the tomahawk leaned over 
 and said, very earnestly, tapping the blade of the 
 weapon with his left hand as he spoke : 
 
 " Whahirongo mai ! Listen, qmkeha ! You see 
 this qmtiti in my hand ? Yes. If you had not at 
 once replied that you would never return to the 
 white soldiers I would have killed you. I would 
 have sunk this into your skull ! " 
 
 After this brief speech, delivered with a fierce- 
 ness of mien and glitter of eye that made the 
 refugee tremble in s])ite of his efforts to appear 
 calm, the old l)arbarian shook hands witli liim.
 
 THE CAMP OF THE HAUHAUS 27 
 
 Then Tito te Hanataiia — the man who had 
 brought tlie soldier to the pa — rose and said : 
 
 " O my tribe, hsten to me ! Take good care of 
 the pakeha, and harm him not, because our prophet 
 has told us that if any white men come to us as 
 this man has done, and leave their own tribe for 
 ours, we must not injure them, but must keep them 
 with us and protect them." 
 
 Tito's word assured Bent's safety, and the tone 
 of the people changed to one of friendliness ; many 
 of them shook hands with the lonely white man. 
 The women cooked some pork and potatoes for 
 him in an earth-oven, and he was given to eat, 
 and received into the tribe. Henceforth he was 
 as a Maori. 
 
 Now began for the runaway an even harder life 
 than that which he had endured in the army. He 
 found that he was virtually a slave amongst the 
 Maoris. He had had fond imaginings of the easy 
 time he would enjoy in the heart of Maoridom, but 
 to quote from his own lips, " they made me work 
 like a blessed dog." Soon after his arrival in the 
 pa a party of men was sent off to Taiporohenui — 
 a celebrated old village and meeting-place near 
 the present town of Hawera — and he was ordered 
 to go with them, and was set to work felling bush, 
 clearing and digging, gathering firewood, and 
 hauling water for the camp. Tito was his master 
 ■ — not only his master, but in hard fact his owner,
 
 28 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 Avitli power of life and dealli over him. Bent 
 divined the Maori nature too well to refuse " fatigue 
 duty," as he had done in the Manawapou camp. 
 There would have been no court-martial in Tai- 
 ])orohenui — just a crack on the head with a toma- 
 hawk. So he bent his back to the burdens with 
 what cheerfulness he might, and was thankful for 
 the good things Tito provided, tliough tliev took 
 no more elaborate form than a blanket and a flax 
 mat for a bed, and two square meals a day of pork 
 and potatoes. 
 
 Tito was, says Bent, a man of about forty-five 
 years of age, a stern, but not unkindly owner, with 
 a pretty young wife of seventeen or eighteen, 
 whose big, dark eyes were often turned with an 
 expression of pity on tlie unfortunate renegade 
 pakeha. 
 
 The ])eople watched the white man closoly, 
 thinking no doubt that as he was being worked so 
 hard he might be tem])tcd to run"'away if he got 
 Ihc chance. And whenever lie went out of doors 
 the old man who had sat opposite him in tlie meet- 
 ing-Jiouse on the day of liis first arrival followed 
 him al»oiit, never s])eakiiig a \\()r(l, with his toma- 
 hawk in his hand. 
 
 The news that a wliite soldier had run away to 
 the Hauhaus soon spread amongst the Ngati- 
 RuaiHii. One day a messenger from tlie large 
 village of Keteonetea came to Taiporohenui and
 
 THE CAMP OF THE HAUHAUS 29 
 
 announced that ho had been sent to fetch the 
 strange 'pakeha to that settlement. 
 
 " What do they want with me l " asked Bent, 
 when Tito told him that the envoy was waiting 
 for him. 
 
 " They want to see the colour of your skin," 
 replied Tito. 
 
 Bent, in alarm, begged Tito not to send him to 
 Keteonetea, for lie greatly feared that he would 
 be killed. 
 
 Tito reassured his white man, telling him that 
 the Keteonetea people were his relatives, and that 
 he was not to be alarmed at their demeanour, 
 because they would not harm him. 
 
 The messenger and his white charge tramped 
 away through the bush to the village, a lonely 
 little spot hemmed in by the dense forests — long 
 since hewn away and replaced by grassy fields and 
 dairy farms. A pahsade surrounded the kainga ; 
 witliin were clusters of large well-built reed wJiares, 
 and the inevitable Niu pole stood in the middle 
 of the marae. 
 
 Bent found a large number of Maoris, about 
 three hundred, assembled on the 7narae, the village 
 parade ground. The scene still lives vividly in his 
 memory — an even wilder, more savage spectacle 
 than that of his first day at Tito's 'pa. The men's 
 faces were painted red, in token of war — red smudges 
 of ochre on their cheeks and red lines drawn across
 
 30 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 their brows ; they wore feathers in their hair , 
 their only clothes were flax mats. The lone pakeha 
 might well have imagined himself back in the days 
 of ancient Maoridom, before missionaries or traders 
 had changed the barbaric simplicity of the aboriginal 
 life. The only modern note was the firearms of the 
 warriors ; all the men carried guns (most of them 
 double-barrelled shot-guns, and a few rifles and 
 carbines), and wore tomahawks stuck in their 
 broad-plaited flax belts. Most of the women were 
 as primitive in their garb as the men ; their clothing 
 consisted chiefly of flaxen cJoaks ; a few wore 
 shawls and blankets. 
 
 " The people looked at me very fiercely as I 
 came into the marae,'''' says Bent, " and I felt my 
 heart sinking low, in spite of Tito's assurance." 
 They put him into a raupo hut by himself, and 
 fastened the door — a proceeding that chd not at all 
 tend to elevate his spirits. 
 
 The ex-soldier was left to himself in the dark 
 whare for quite a couple of hours. He could hear 
 the people gathered on the village square discussing 
 him excitedly ; one orator after another declaiming 
 with frantic energy. At length a Maori unfastened 
 the door of the ivhare, and, taking Bent by the 
 hand, led him out on to the marae. The native 
 could speak English ; Bent afterwards found that 
 he had been an old whaJcr, and had lived amongst 
 white people for many years ; his name was Kere
 
 THE CAMP OF THE HAUHAUS 31 
 
 (Kelly). He told the pakeha, with some show of 
 kindness, that he must not be frightened, that no 
 one would harm him, but he must go to the sacred 
 Niu and promise that he would never return to 
 the pakehas. 
 
 The first thing that met Bent's eyes on stepping 
 out through the low doorway of the ivhare was a 
 great fire blazing in the centre of the marae, sur- 
 rounded by a ring of short stakes. Accustomed as 
 he was by this time to sights of terror, this struck 
 a fresh note of alarm, 
 
 " Good Lord ! " he said to himself, " are they 
 going to burn me alive ? "' 
 
 " Friend," he said to Kere, " tell me, what's 
 that fire for ? " 
 
 The Maori explained that it was an ahi tapu, a 
 sacred fire, used in the Hauhau war -rites. 
 
 Bent was very doubtful. '' I'm afraid," said he to 
 liis companion, " that it's for me ! Are they going to 
 throw me into it ? I've heard they do such things." 
 
 " No, no, pakeha ! It's all right. You'll be 
 safe. But remember, do as the tohunga tells you, 
 and promise him you'll never go back to the pakeha 
 soldiers, or you'll die ! " 
 
 The Maori led the white man up to the foot of 
 the Niu pole, a tall ricker, with rough crosstrees 
 and with fiag halliards of flax rope. Bent was 
 told to sit down at the foot of the pole. The 
 people aU gathered around in a ring.
 
 32 THE ADVENTURES OF KiMBLE BENT 
 
 A tall old warrior stood iii the middle of the ring, 
 facing Bent — the prophet of the Niu. He was 
 naked from the waist up ; his face was completely 
 covered with tattooing. He was a tohunga, or 
 priest, Bent afterwards discovered ; by name 
 Tu-ahi-pa, or Tautahi-ariki, a man held in much 
 awe by the people as a worker of inakutu (witch- 
 craft). 
 
 For a long time the old wizard closely eyed the 
 pale-faced stranger before him. Then he said, 
 through the interpreter, Kere : 
 
 " You behold this ring of people, the people of 
 Keteonetea i " 
 
 " Yes," said Bent. 
 
 " I ask you this, will you return to your people 
 or remain with us ? " 
 
 " I will never return to the pakehas,'' Bent re- 
 plied ; " 1 want to live with the Maoris and to 
 make them my people." 
 
 " Good ! " exclaimed theHauhau priest. " Now, 
 turn your eyes upon yon fire, burning there upon 
 the iuarae. Well, if you liad not promised to be- 
 come a Maori and live with us, the tribe would 
 have thrown you into that blazing oven. It is 
 well that you have spoken as you have.'' 
 
 This, to Bent's great rehef, ended the ordeal. 
 The Hauhaus, at a cry from the priest, began their 
 mad march round the Niu — men, women, and 
 cliildren — chanting as they went their savage psalms.
 
 THE CAMP OF THE HAUHAUS 33 
 
 rolling their eyes and lifting their arms high in 
 the air as every now and again they cried their 
 wild refrain, " Rire, rire, hau ! " — the last word 
 literally barked out from the hundreds of throats. 
 
 When the Hauhau ceremony was at an end, a 
 young woman who had joined in the march round 
 the Niu came to Bent, took liim away to a hut and 
 gave him a meal of pork and potatoes, and then 
 led him to her father's house. The father was the 
 principal cliief of the kainga, and, as it turned out, 
 cousin to Bent's rangatira Tito. 
 
 Here the white man spent the night, the chief's 
 daughter lying across the entrance just inside the 
 doorway, for fear — as the chief told him — that some 
 young desperado might take it into his head to 
 earn a little notoriety by tomahawking the pale-face. 
 Outside, the Maoris were gathered on the 7narae, 
 by the light of great fires, the chiefs making speeches 
 and taki-ing up and down in excited fashion, 
 weapon in hand ; now and again the fanatic crowd 
 would burst into a loud Hauhau chant that echoed 
 long amidst the black encirchng forest. So the 
 wild korero went on, far into the night.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 IN THE OTAPAWA STOCKADE 
 
 The return from Keteonetea — The hill-fort at Otapawa — 
 A korero with the Hauhaus — Bent's one-eyed wife — " The 
 wooing o' 't " — Bent is christened " Ringiringi." 
 
 Morning came at last, but the solitary white man 
 in this nest of savages had hardly closed liis eyes. 
 More than once he fancied some one was trying the 
 low door of the whare, and he looked round the 
 dimly-lighted hut — a small fire was kept burning 
 in the centre of the floor — in search of a weapon, 
 but found none. Bent lay there, listening intently, 
 and longing with an inexpressibly bitter longing for 
 the old camp-life, hard though it was, and for the 
 sound of a white comrade's voice. It had not 
 always been "pack-drill and C.B." in liis army life, 
 in spite of the tyrant sergeants. But now it was 
 the bush and the ivhare for the rest of his days — 
 or, in other woi'ds, for just so long a ])eriod as he 
 might be able to save his head from the tomahawk. 
 Daybreak — and no sooner was it light than the 
 Hauhaus began to gather round the pakeha^s hut, 
 
 34
 
 IN THE OTAPAWA STOCKADE 35 
 
 while the women were hghting the hangis — the 
 earth steam-ovens — for the first meal of the day. 
 " Come out to us ! " they yelled ; " come out, 
 pakeha ! " They ran to and fro in front of the 
 ivhare, and raised barking cries that sounded fear- 
 fidly menacing to the pakeha sitting on his low 
 mat-bed, and feeling not in the least disposed to 
 respond to the invitation to come outside and be 
 kUled. 
 
 But the old chief speedily ended the uproar by 
 opening the sliding door and shouting angrily : 
 
 " Haere atu ! Haere atu ! " an imperative phrase 
 that the deserter had already learned to recognise 
 as one that could be exactly translated " Clear 
 out ! " 
 
 Thereafter there was comparative peace. The 
 white man was under the protection of the chief, 
 and was allowed to wander round the village pretty 
 much as he chose ; but he was warned not to go 
 far, or some warrior might take a fancy to his head. 
 
 Four or five days passed without incident, and 
 then a horse was brought up for Bent, and he 
 returned to Tito's kainga, escorted by the chief's 
 daughter and ten armed men, all mounted. Tito 
 seemed relieved to have his pakeha back again in 
 safety, and after feasting the Maori guard on the 
 best the village women could lay on the dinner- 
 mats, he sent them back to Keteonetea loaded with 
 new clothes and baskets of kmnara (sweet potato)
 
 .{G THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 and iaro — another tropic root-food brought from 
 Polynesia by the ancestors of the Maori, but now 
 no longer grown by the Taranaki people. 
 
 Soon Bent Avas on the tramp again. His chief, 
 Tito, set off one morning, taking his white man 
 with him, for a fortihed village caUed Otapawa, 
 where the Hauhaus were preparing to offer a strong 
 resistance to the British troops. Otapawa was 
 about four miles away by a narrow and winding 
 forest track. A small river, the Mangemange, 
 had to be forded on the way, and here Bent had 
 a taste of some of the minor adventures of the 
 bush. Bent being a rather small man and Tito a 
 big, poweriid fellow, the Maori good-naturedly took 
 his pakeha on his back to pikau him across the 
 stream. Bent was rather heavier than Tito had 
 imagined, and after balancing to and fro precariously 
 on a shppery place in the deepest part of the ford, 
 the Maori's feet suddenly went from under him, 
 and he and his protege were capsized in the middle 
 of the creek. Tito, however, kept a tight grip of 
 the white man, and, though the stream was running 
 swiftly, they managed to struggle out to the oppo- 
 site bank in safety, and after drying their clothes as 
 well as they could continued their bush journey. 
 
 About midday the Hauhau chief and his com- 
 panion emerged from the sohtudes of the forest 
 to find themselves in the Otapawa clearmg. A 
 hill about tluee hundred feet high rose hke an
 
 m THK OTAPAWA STOCKADE 37 
 
 island from the great rhmi and rata woods that 
 compassed it on every side ; at the back ran the 
 Tangahoe River. At the foot of the hill there was 
 some cultivation ; a steep winding path led to the 
 top ; here were a ditch and a bristhng double 
 stockade of tall tree-trunks set solidly in the 
 ground, connected by cross-rails lashed with forest 
 vines ; within was the Hauhau village. The only 
 access to the interior of the stockade was through 
 a low and narrow gateway, painted red. 
 
 A shawl-clad figure with a gun rose from a 
 squatting position just outside the q)a gate as the 
 two travellers walked out from the shade of the 
 forest and began the ascent of the mound. A loud 
 cry of astonishment and warning brought out the 
 villagers, one after the other, bobbing their heads 
 as they ran through the gatcAvay. Then the shout 
 was raised, as they recognised Bent's companion : 
 
 " Aue ! Here comes Tito with a paJceha^ ! A 
 pakeha ! " 
 
 Waving shawls and blankets and weapons, the 
 people cried their greetings to the chief, and the 
 white man and his protector walked in between 
 two hues of wondering men and women and chil- 
 dren, who pressed in close behind the new-comers 
 as they passed into the palisaded fa. 
 
 A long, low-eaved, thatched house stood near the 
 middle of the pa, somewhat apart from the smaller 
 whares. Into tliis building Tito and ' Bent were
 
 38 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 taken, and finely woven flax mats, patterned in 
 black and white, were spread out for them. Tito 
 rose and addressed the crowd. He explained, with 
 a good deal of pride, as Bent imagined, how he had 
 become possessed of a live white man — a somewhat 
 unusual acquisition amongst the Maoris in that 
 unrestful period, for the impatient Hauhau was, as 
 a rule, too fond of trying his new tomahawk on a 
 paJceha skull to keep a prisoner long. The korero 
 over, food was brought in in freshly plaited baskets 
 of green flax — boiled pork, dried shark (a present 
 from a seaside tribe), boiled iaro and humara — quite 
 a bountiful meal for a war-time bush camp. 
 
 Up to this time the deserter's adventures had 
 been, if not exactly tragic, at least of a severely 
 unpleasant turn. Now, however, they took a 
 humorous twist — humorous from an onlooker's 
 view, though to the white man himself it seemed 
 rather the final pannikinful in the bucket of his 
 misfortunes. 
 
 A woman was brought into the ivhare. She 
 walked over and seated herself on the flax whariki 
 by Bent's side. 
 
 The white man turned and looked at her in some 
 surprise. Her vision still haunts the memory of 
 the old adventurer as that of a particularly ugly 
 woman. She was not old, probably not above 
 twenty-five, but she was blind in one eye, her lips 
 were of negroid thickness — such " blubber " lips
 
 IN THE OTAPAWA STOCKADE ,'i9 
 
 as seen here and there among Maori tribes tell 
 their tale of an ancient Melanesian strain in the 
 blood of the Polynesian immigrants. She was 
 tattooed on the chin, and there was a deeply 
 chiselled blue line on the inner cuticle of her lower 
 lip. Her hair hung round her face in a tangled 
 mop. " Well," said Bent to himself, " she is no 
 beauty." 
 
 The woman spoke some words of greeting to 
 Bent, but he steadily gazed on the floor and said 
 nothing. 
 
 Then a Maori sitting near by, who could speak 
 a little English, said, " This woman wants to marry 
 you ! " 
 
 " Oh, Lord ! " exclaimed Bent. " What for ? 
 I don't want to get married." 
 
 An old man, whose name was Peneta, and who 
 was draped from shoulder to ankles in a red blanket, 
 Avalked up to the white man and, halting in front 
 of him, pointed to the one-eyed woman. 
 
 " Pakeha,^^ he said, with a quiet grimness in his 
 tone, " this is my niece, Te Rawanga. You must 
 marry her {me moe korua). If you refuse, you 
 will die ! That is all." 
 
 This was translated to Bent. 
 
 Here was a dilemna, indeed ! Bent had nothing 
 to say. He looked at the woman by his side, and 
 she smiled at him as coquettishly as her one good 
 eye allowed. He looked, and the more he looked
 
 40 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 the less he hked her. Tlien he glanced at the dour 
 old uncle, and cast his helpless eyes around the 
 crowded meeting-house. The men were glum and 
 scowling ; one or two of the young girls seemed 
 to perceive the humour of the situation, for they 
 giggled, and then hid their faces in their shawls. 
 
 Bent eye(\ liis ])r()spec(ive unch^-in-law again. 
 The old man was impatient. He said again, " Take 
 my niece as your wife." 
 
 " yle," assented the white man, who could see 
 no hope of escape. " I'll take her." 
 
 So the young soldier was mated, to the satis- 
 faction of every one but himself. " She wasn't my 
 fancy, to put it mildly," he says. " But I suppose 
 it was her last chance, and the old man would have 
 tomahawked me if I hadn't taken her." 
 
 Mrs. Bent's wedding-furnishings, which she 
 bundled a little later, with determined air, into the 
 corner of the communal house assigned to the white 
 man, were spartan and primitive in the extreme. 
 
 They consisted solely of a large plaited ivhariki 
 (sleeping-mat) and a wooden pillow, which, to the 
 white man, seemed alarmingly like some weapon 
 of chastisement. 
 
 Matrimony amongst the Hauhaus was simplicity 
 itself. 
 
 Bent, now fully received into the tribe, had a 
 Maori name given to him. It was " Ringiringi," a 
 name he bore for two or three years, until the
 
 IN THE OTAPAWA STOCKADE 41 
 
 war-chief Titokowaru rechristened him " Tu-iuii-a- 
 moa." 
 
 The origin of this name " Ringiringi " may be 
 explained, as an examjilc of the way in which the 
 Maoris so frequently acquire new names often from 
 very trivial incidenls. It was a contraction of 
 "Te Wai-ringiringi," which was one of 'I'ito te 
 Hanataua's nicknames, bestowed upon the chief 
 about two years ])i-cviously. A party of Ngati- 
 Maniapoto Maoris fioui the King Country were at 
 that time on a visit to Taiporoheniii, where a large 
 war-council of the rebel tribes was held. Tito te 
 Hanataua was one of the Taranaki orators, and as 
 he taki'd up and down, spear in hand, in the usual 
 )nergetic manner of the Maori speech-maker, he 
 ;poke so rapidly and fluently that the Kingites 
 dubbed him " Te Wai-ringiringi," meaning " The 
 Pouring Water," because his words poured from 
 his lips like water. Tito was rather proud of this 
 nickname, and his bestowal of it upon Bent was in 
 a sense a mark of favour. 
 
 Bent at this time was a thin, rather weak-looking 
 man, and his slimness was made the subject of a 
 haka chorus amongst the people, a little song for 
 which his one-eyed wife was responsible. These 
 were the words : 
 
 " Ki te Jcai, e Ringi, 
 Kai poropnro te nutnaira, 
 Te I'ti to hope, 
 Whukapai Angorc,'
 
 42 THE ADVENTURES OF KIiAIBLE BENT 
 
 ("Eat away, O Ringi, 
 
 Eat your fill of poroporo berries 
 To make you strong again ; 
 Lest your waist be small and weak, 
 Eat to become a fine Englishman ! ") 
 
 The foroporo is a forest shrub which bears an 
 abundance of Large red berries, a favourite food of 
 the tui and pigeons, which become very fat on this 
 rich bird-fare. 
 
 The white man, however, as he told his wahine, 
 preferred to leave the poroporo to the tuis, and to 
 fill out his attenuated waist, which the people 
 looked upon with some amusement, with good 
 Maori pork and potatoes.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 TE UA, PRIEST AND PROPHET 
 
 Te Ua and his gods — The Pai marire faith — " Charming " 
 the British bullets — Bent's interview with the prophet — His 
 life tapuW — Prepaiing for battle — Life in the forest pci. 
 
 About this time Kimble Bent became acquainted 
 with a man whose name has passed into New 
 Zealand history. This was Te Ua Haumene, the 
 founder and high-priest and prophet of the Hauhau 
 religion, or, more correctly speaking, fanaticism. 
 Te Ua came riding into the Otapawa village one 
 day with a bodyguard of armed men. Bent de- 
 scribes him as a stoutly built man of between forty 
 and fifty, attired in European clothing, and carry- 
 ing a carved taiaha — a chief's halbert or broad- 
 sword of hardwood, flattened at one end in a blunt 
 blade, and sharpened at the other into a tongue- 
 shaped point, and decorated with tufts of red kaka 
 feathers ; in a plaited flax belt round his waist was 
 thrust a green-stone mere. 
 
 Te Ua was the man who taught the Taranaki 
 rebels the karakia, or incantations — some of them a 
 curious medley of Maori and English — which they 
 
 43
 
 44 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 chanted in their wild marches rounrl the sacred 
 Niu in their villafje squares. Tliese incantations 
 and chants he professed to have heard from super- 
 natural visitants, the spirits who came on the four 
 MM*nds, and from the angel Gahriel, who spoke in 
 his ear as he lay asleep in his raicpo hut and bade 
 him go abroad and spread a new religion, which 
 should band together the tribes of the Maori nation. 
 Many strange tales Bent had heard about the 
 prophet and his wondrous mava. Te Ua had 
 succeeded in imbuing his fanatic disciples with an 
 unquestioning Moslem-like faith in the potency of 
 the Hauhau cult and its accompanying charms and 
 magic formulae. He was the Mahomet of the 
 Taranaki people, and exercised an influence over 
 the bush-fighters of Ngati-Ruanui and allied tribes 
 almost as great as that which Te Kooti, the Chatham 
 Islands escapee, commanded a few years later 
 amongst the warriors of the East Coast. 
 
 The absolute faith the Hauhaus reposed in Te 
 Ua's precepts and his pretences to supernatural 
 power has parallels in the records of the Mahdi's 
 wars in the Soudan, and in other campaigns waged 
 under the banner of Islam, and more recently still 
 in the Zulu rebellion in Natal. He assured his 
 followers that when they went into battle the 
 bullets of the white soldiers would be turned aside 
 in their flight if they but raised their right hands as 
 if warding tho ball off, at the same tijne repeating
 
 TE UA, PRIEST AND PROPHET 45 
 
 the words '^ Hapa / Pai mariref' ("Pass over me! 
 Righteousness and peace ! ") The expression " Fai 
 marire " was adopted as one of the designations of 
 the Hauhau rehgion ; and the sign of the upraised 
 hand became the outward sign and symbol of the 
 warrior faith. To-day, should you visit the large 
 European-built house of the late Te Whiti, the Pro- 
 phet of the Mountain, at Parihaka, you will see a 
 picture of Te Ua on the wall of the speech-hall, his 
 right hand raised to his shoulder, palm outwards, 
 as if in the act of invoking his gods to turn the 
 pakeha bullets aside — '' Hapa ! Fai 7narire I " 
 And many a deluded Hauhau fell to the rifles of the 
 wliite men before the Maori confidence in the effi- 
 cacy of the charm was shaken. But Te Ua had a 
 very good explanation to offer for any casualties — 
 that if the pakeha bullet refused to be waved aside 
 and insisted on entering the body of a " righteous and 
 peaceful " son of the faith, it was because the 
 stricken man had lost faith in the karakia — the 
 ritual — and, very properly, suffered for his unbelief. 
 
 A subhmely simple explanation, and one that 
 was perfectly satisfactory to the prophet and 
 every one concerned, except perhaps the Hauhau 
 who had happened to stop the bullet. 
 
 Even when the glacis of the Sentry Hill redoubt 
 was strewn with the dead bodies of Hepanaia and 
 fifty of his red-painted braves, the best manhood 
 of Ngati-Ruanui and Nga-Rualiine — who fell in a
 
 46 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 mad attack upon the walled fort in open daylight 
 chanting their " Hapa ! Pai mar ire ! Hau ! " — 
 the faith in Te Ua and his charms was but little 
 abated. And, unlike the Moslem warrior, who 
 fought to the death in the certain hope of a speedy 
 translation to Paradise, the Maori fanatic expected 
 no heavenly reward for his faith and his death- 
 despising ferocity. No houris with welcoming 
 arms ; no eternity of fleslily bliss. No, it was just 
 utter blind bravery, a sheer trust in a mad creed 
 of Death-to-the-Whites and Maori Land U)y the 
 Maori Race. 
 
 So the visit of the high-priest of Hauhauism was 
 a great event in the bush pa. The prophet was 
 received with a powhiri, or chant and dance of 
 welcome, by the people of the village ; then the 
 tangi and the doleful hinn of weeping for the dead. 
 'I'he tangi over, the prophet addressed liis disciples 
 in the meeting-house ; and hearing that there 
 was a white runaway soldier in the pa, he sent 
 for Bent. 
 
 It was a curious interview. The white nuin no 
 longer appeared in the soldier's uniform, which ho 
 had woiii for some time after deserting, but had 
 taken to the garb of the savage. He was bare- 
 headed and bare-footed. His sole garments were a 
 sliirt made of pieces of blanket and a flax mat tied 
 round his waist. He entered the crowded council- 
 house and stood before the prophet.
 
 PATARA, A HAUHAU PROPHET.
 
 TE UA, PRIEST AND PROPHET 49 
 
 "^ noho ki raro " (" Sit down "), said Te Ua, 
 pointing to the floor-mat in front of him. 
 
 By the prophet's side was a flax basket contain- 
 ing some potatoes and pork, with which he had 
 been breaking his fast after his journey. This 
 food being appropriated to his use was, of course, 
 tapu in the eyes of the assemblage. Te Ua took 
 a potato from the basket, broke it into two pieces, 
 and gave one piece to Bent and told liim to eat 
 it ; the other half he ate himself. 
 
 " Now," said the prophet, " you are tapu — your 
 life is safe ; no man may harm you now that you 
 have eaten of my sacred food. Men of Tangahoe ! 
 This pakeha is my pakeha ; and if any other white 
 men should come to us as this man has done, fleeing 
 from their people and forsaking the pakeha camps 
 for our pas, you must protect them, for the gods 
 have sent them to us." 
 
 " You are a Maori now," added Te Ua to Bent, 
 " and you must have a woman to cook your food 
 for you." 
 
 Bent, in his imperfect Maori, informed the 
 prophet that he had already been supplied with a 
 wife by the Maoris, but, like a prudent man, made 
 no comment on her imperfections. 
 
 " That's aU right then," said the prophet. And 
 he gave Bent a large cloak of dressed flax, called a 
 tatara. " Wear this," he said ; " it is a tapu garment 
 and sacred to you ; no other man may wear it." 
 4
 
 50 THE ADVEi^^rURES OF KE.VIBLE BEJ^r 
 
 During the next few days, before Te Ua returned 
 to his home at Opunake, on the coast, Bent had 
 further interviews with the prophet, who treated 
 liim with kindness, and gave liim what was to the 
 runaway a very welcome present — some pakeha 
 tobacco. Though something of a madman, like 
 most Maori prophets, Te Ua was of more benevolent 
 spirit than his acolytes, Kereopa and Patara, and 
 their kin, who had been sent to preach the gospel 
 of Pai marire to the outer tribes. Had Kereopa, 
 for instance, come to Otapawa, Bent would, in all 
 probability, have fallen under the tomahawk as 
 a sacrifice for the savage ritual of the Niu, and 
 his head would have been smoke-dried and carried 
 over forest-trails from distant tribe to tribe, or 
 stuck up like a scarecrow on a palisade-pole. 
 
 Bent learnt a good deal of the personal history 
 of the prophet, and of his peculiar delusions. Te 
 Ua had fought the white soldiers at Nukumaru 
 about a year before this, when a force of Hauhaus 
 made a desperate attack on the camp of two thou- 
 sand British troops, under General Cameron, and 
 killed and wounded nearly fifty soldiers before they 
 were driven off with the loss of about thirty killed. 
 
 The outward and visible sign or incarnation 
 {aria I of Te Ua's deity was a ruru, or owl. This bird 
 is sacred amongst Taranaki Natives ; they will 
 not kill or harm one ; they say it is an atua, a god, 
 and has a hundred eyes.
 
 TE UA, PRIEST AND PROPHET 51 
 
 An incident which Bent relates as occurring in 
 another bush settlement where he and Te Ua both 
 happened to be staying is illustrative of the prophet's 
 peculiar respect for his owl-god. Just at dusk, 
 when the evening meal was over, and the night 
 creatures began their roamings, an owl flew softly 
 from the trees and settled above the window of the 
 house in which Te Ua was sitting. " Ha ! " said 
 the prophet, when he saw it ; " there is my atua.'^ 
 He recited an incantation, caUing the ruru by name, 
 and when the karakia was ended the bird as noise- 
 lessly Hew back to the forest. Te Ua said notliing 
 more tiU the next morning, when he announced 
 that he would leave the place at once, because liis 
 owl-god had appeared to him as a warning to return 
 to his home. 
 
 Soon after the wandering prophet rode out of 
 Otapawa, word reached the 'pa by a spy who had 
 been in the British camp that the troops under 
 General Chute were preparing for an advance 
 against the Hauhaus, and that it was probable the 
 hill stronghold, being so close to the wliite men's 
 base of operations, would shortly be attacked. 
 
 Ail was excitement in the pa when tliis became 
 known. The pahsading of the pa was strengthened 
 with stout timbers from the torest ; trenches and 
 rifle-pits were dug within the wads. The natives 
 worked away like mad, and Bent with them. He 
 had caught the fever of the moment, and in all but
 
 52 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 skill was a Maori, lie was not at all happy, how- 
 ever, at the news that his old regiment, the 57th, 
 was expected to march on Otapawa, and he heartily 
 wished liimself far away from these scenes of 
 constant commotion and terror. But for the 
 present he was safer with the Hauhaus than with 
 the men of his own colour and tongue. 
 
 Day after day passed, and the Maoris lay behind 
 their strong stockade waiting for the attack. The 
 underground food-stores were well supplied ; water 
 was carried in in UiIki, or calabashes, made by scoop- 
 ing out the soft inside of the /me gourd ; bullets 
 were cast and cartridges W'ere made. Then, as no 
 troops appeared, and the scouts who kept constant 
 watch on the forest outskirts reported that there 
 was no sign of immediate action on the part of the 
 enemy, the tension of garrison life relaxed, and 
 the ordinary avocations of the kalnga were resumed, 
 
 In a clearing hewn and biu'iit from the heart of 
 the woods were the cultivation grounds. Here all 
 the able-bodied men of the fort were set to work, 
 turning up the rich black soil and planting potatoes, 
 kumara, and taro. Planting over, the lengthening 
 days were spent in hunting wild pigs, and in gather- 
 ing wild lioney, which was plentifid in hollow trees 
 in the forests ; or in strolling, pipe in mouth, about 
 the fa ; playing draughts {kaimu) on the marae in 
 Maori fashion ; singing songs and narrating old 
 stories and legends. Night and morning there were
 
 IE TTA, PRIEST AND PROPHET 53 
 
 long Haiihau prayers, led by the priest of the 'pa, 
 old Tiikino, wlio was one of Te Ua's apostles. 
 
 Life in this bush-fort presented to the lonely 
 pakeha a picture of barbaric simplicity. Few of the 
 people had European clothing ; the men's working 
 garb was just a rough flax mat hanging from the 
 waist to the knees. They lived on the wild foods of 
 the forest until their crops were ready for digging ; 
 snared kaha (parrots) and the sweet-tongued Tcori- 
 mako, or bell-birds ; tui, or parson-birds, and the 
 swarming wood-pigeons, and shot or speared the 
 pigs that abounded in the dense woods. They 
 lived to a large extent, too, on aruhe, or fern-root, 
 which they dug up in the open patches of fern- 
 land ; and in the bush they gathered the berries 
 of the hinau-tree, steeped them in water to rid 
 them of their astringency, dried them in the sun, 
 and then pounded them into cakes, which made a 
 sustaining if not very palatable food. Another 
 food-staple was kaafiga-jnrau, or maize steeped in 
 water until it was quite decayed. "The smell of 
 this Indian corn," says Bent, with an emphasis 
 begotten of unpleasant memories, " was enough to 
 kill a dog. Nevertheless, I had to eat it, and in 
 time I got used to it." 
 
 " I had at this time," continues the deserter, 
 recounting his wild days in Otapawa, " no boots, 
 no trousers, no shirt — just Maori flax mats to cover 
 me, and a mat and blanket for my bed. I had
 
 54 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 managed to procure some needles and thread, 
 together with paper and pencil (I kept up a sort 
 of diary now and then), and one or two other little 
 things which I kept in a kit, thinking that, though 
 I had nothing to sew with the needles and thread, 
 and very little to do with the other belongings, they 
 might come in useful before very long. One of 
 my greatest troubles was the want of salt ; as for 
 bread, I had not tasted any for many months."
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE STORMESTG OF OTAPAWA 
 
 British forces attack the stockade — The bayonet charge — 
 riirrht of the Huuliaus — Througli the forest by torchlight — 
 Doctoring the wounded — Tlie Tangi by the river. 
 
 Summer was on the forest. The beautiful mid- 
 summer of Maori Land, with its soft airs and bril- 
 hant sunshine, its blaze of crimson blossom on the 
 grand old rato-trees, and its showering of scented, 
 white, peach-like flowers on the tliickets of ribbon- 
 wood. Birds flooded the outskirts of the bush 
 with song ; the early morning chantings and 
 pipings and chimings of the tui and the korimako 
 made a feast of melody to which the brown forest 
 men were in no way deaf, for they dehghted as 
 much as any pakeha in the sights and sounds of the 
 free, wild places, and the call of the creatures of the 
 bush. "Te Waha-o-Tane;' literally "The Voice 
 of the Tree-God " — the Song of Nature — they called 
 these morning concerts of the birds ; it was their 
 poetic expression in the classic tongue of old Poly- 
 nesia for the sounds that betokened the daily 
 
 55
 
 56 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 awakening to light and life of the deep and solemn 
 forests of Tane-mahuta, Pigeons, kti-ku-mg to 
 each other, with blue necks and white breasts 
 gleaming in the sun, went sweeping across the 
 clearing on softly winnowing wings, and flapped 
 from tree to tree and shrub to shrub in search of 
 the tenderest leaves, for it was not yet the season 
 of the choicest bush fruits, the big blue tawa berry, 
 the sweet yellow Jcoroi, and the aromatic miro. 
 
 Life went easily in the pa when the early harvest- 
 ing was over. There was little to do but eat and 
 sleep and lie about in the sun, or join in the daily 
 prayers and the procession round the Niu pole, 
 where the brightly coloured war-flags hung.* There 
 was abundance of food in the camp — potatoes, 
 maize, potted birds, pork, and dried fish sent as 
 presents from the coast tribes. Early morning, and 
 again in the warm, golden evenings, long, straight 
 columns of pale blue smoke arose from tlie cooking- 
 ovens of the village, and mingled with the thin 
 vapours that crept about the tree-tops ; then 
 
 * These flags, displayed (ni tlui war-jxilcs in (ho Uauliau 
 villages in 18G5-70, carried many a strange device. The ground 
 was white calico, on which red patterns and lettering were 
 sewn or painted. Favourite designs were a red half-moon, like 
 the crescent of Islam, a five-pointed star representing Tmnera, 
 " the bright and morning star," and what was called a Kororin, 
 in shape; like the half of a mcrc-pounamu, or greenstone club, 
 cut longitudinally. These colours had been made in the Waikato 
 during the war, and had been sent round after the manner of 
 the Highlanders' fiery cross to the various tribes in the Island.
 
 THE STORMING OF OTAPAWA 57 
 
 little clouds of steam curled up as the women, with 
 lively chatter, uncovered the harigis and arranged 
 the well-cooked food in little round flax baskets, 
 which they presently carried off, women and girls 
 in a double line, keeping time with a merry old 
 dance-song — the lilt of the " tukii-Jcai," the " food- 
 bringing " — as they marched on to the green marae 
 and laid the steaming meal before their lounging 
 lords. 
 
 It was all very pleasant and idyllic from the 
 point of view of the brown bushmen. But " Ringi- 
 ringi," the pakeha-Msiori, though he led by no 
 means a hard life now that the heaviest work of 
 the year was over, had an uneasy mind. He was — 
 or had been — a civilised man, and he could not 
 forget ; moreover, he often woke from unpleasant 
 dreams. One was a vision of a British regiment 
 charging him with fixed bayonets and pinning 
 him against the palisades of his pa. Fervently he 
 hoped that he would not be in the fort when the 
 troops marched to the assault, and that the Hau- 
 haus would not compel him to level a tupara against 
 his one-time comrades, the old " Die-Hards." 
 
 This peaceful state of things did not endure for 
 long. In a few days^ — it was early in the year 1866 
 — the long-expected attack on Otapawa was de- 
 livered. Before the troops came, however, the 
 prophet of the pa ordered all the old people and 
 most of the women and children to retire to the
 
 58 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 forest in rear of the fort, and told " Bin^'rin^' " to 
 accompany them. News had just been brought 
 in that the scouts out in the fern country had 
 noticed signs of an impending movement in the 
 British camp. The white man and the tribal 
 encumbrances pushed back into the bush for about 
 three miles, and camped in a quiet little nook by 
 a creek-side, with high, forested hills towering 
 around. The weather now became cold and bleak, 
 and there was little food to sustain the refugees, 
 for the principal stores of hai had been left in the pa. 
 
 Early one morning the sound of cannon was 
 heard in the distance, then heavy rifle-volleying, 
 followed by desultory firing. 
 
 The Queen's soldiers were storming the fort. 
 
 Here -I may give a more detailed description of 
 the defences of Otapawa than has appeared in the 
 preceding pages, to enable the reader to realise the 
 sort of place the white general was attacking. 
 Curving round under the rear of the pa and partly 
 protecting it on the flanks, flowed the Tangahoe 
 Biver. The hill-top where the pa stood was flat, 
 and the rear dropped precipitously to the Tangahoe, 
 The only access to the interior of the stockade was 
 Ilii()\igh a low and narrow gateway. Just within, 
 the entrance was blinded by a short fence, so that 
 an enemy could not charge straight, even if the 
 gate were open, but would have to turn first to the 
 left for a short distance and then to the right, exposed
 
 THE STORMING OF OTAPAWA 59 
 
 to a fire from between the palisades, before the 
 open marae was reached. The pa was defended 
 by two rows of palisading, with a ditch between, 
 and another shallow trench inside the inner stock- 
 ade. The outer stockade, the peJcerangi, was about 
 eight feet high, and was the lighter fence of the two. 
 The principal timbers were six or eight inches 
 thick, but the stakes between were smaller and 
 did not quite reach the ground ; they were fastened 
 with bush-vines and supplejack to the sapling 
 rails that ran along the stockade. The open spaces 
 at the bottom of the fence were for the defenders 
 in the outer trench to fire through. The inner 
 fence, the tuwatawata,, was a stouter structure, of 
 strong, green tree-trunks set solidly in the ground, 
 and with openings here and there for rifle-fire. 
 And finally — an important thing in Maori eyes — 
 there was the " luck-stone " of the fort, the green- 
 stone whatu. This was buried under the foot 
 of a large stockade post, close to the right-hand 
 corner nearest the river, as one approached from 
 the pa gate. 
 
 It was soon after daylight that the ^Kt, was at- 
 tacked. The assaihng British force was assisted 
 by some Colonial troops and a contingent of 
 " friendly " Maoris, or Kupapas, chiefly men from 
 the Wanganvii district, under the afterwards 
 celebrated bush-fighter, Kepa te Rangihiwinui 
 (Major Kemp). General Chute commanded the
 
 60 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 operations. An Armstrong gun was brought to 
 witliin a short distance of the hill-fort, and several 
 shells were fired into the stockade. Then the 
 general gave the order for the assault. 
 
 As the storming party of Imperial soldiers, with 
 bayonets fixed, doubled eagerly up the hill face to 
 the front stockade, the Hauhau chiefs, Tukino and 
 Tu-ahi-pa, cried to their men, crouching in the 
 outer trench with levelled guns : 
 
 " Sons ! Be steady, and wait till they come close 
 up, then let them have it ! " 
 
 As the first files of the soldiers dashed up to 
 the stockade, " PuMa ! "— " Fire ! "—shouted the 
 chiefs, and under the thundering volley many 
 whites fell. Another volley, and then the soldiers 
 were at the stockade, firing through the gaps in 
 the obstruction, and slashing at the ties of the 
 fence. Hand-gienades were carried by some of 
 the stormers, and one of these bursting in the 
 outer trench wounih'd fierce old Tu-ahi-pa, who 
 had just killed a soldier in the act of cutting away 
 at the pekerangi in an endeavour to force an en- 
 trance. 
 
 The Maoris did not wait for the bayonet. The 
 wild rush of the maddened troops was irresistible. 
 Leaving seven of their men kiUed in the trenches 
 and about the palisades, the defenders gathered 
 their wounded and fled. Tlie trenches led to the 
 steep bank overlooking the Tangahoe River. Down
 
 THE STORMING OP O^^APAWA Gl 
 
 the trendies they ran, and sliding down tlie bank, 
 they took to the bush, scrambhng up along the 
 river-side as hard as they could go. Kepa, with his 
 Whanganui friendlies, pursued the flying Hauhaus 
 and shot two or three. 
 
 As Bent had expected, it was Iiis old regiment, 
 the 57th, that stormed the pa. The 57th were led 
 by Lieutenant-Colonels Butler and Haszard, and 
 were supported by the 14th regiment, who were 
 very jealous of the famous old " Die-Hards." 
 Eleven whites fell and twenty were wounded. 
 One of those who received his death-wound was 
 Lieutenant-Colonel Haszard. It was generally re- 
 ported afterwards that he was shot by Kimble 
 Bent, but this was mere camp gossip. Gudgeon's 
 " Reminiscences of the War in New Zealand," gives 
 currency to the report, but it is strongly denied, 
 and with every appearance of truth, by Bent. 
 When the pa was attacked he was at least three 
 miles away, on the northern side of the Mange- 
 mange stream. "It is false to say that I killed 
 my old officer," says he, " or that I ever even 
 fired at him. I never fired a shot against the 
 wliites all the time I was with the Hauhaus." 
 This is confirmed by the Maoris, who say that 
 Bent was not allowed to handle a gun in an engage- 
 ment for fear he might use it against the Hauhaus 
 themselves.
 
 62 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 The refugees in the bush-camp with Bent waited 
 anxiously lor news of tiie fight. Was it a victory 
 or a defeat ? Soon, the first of the defenders of 
 tlie pa dropped into camp, blood-stained and 
 angry. And then, as the afternoon went on, the 
 rest straggled in. Many were wounded, and seven 
 dead bodies were carried in on hastily made litters 
 of supplejack vines lashed to poles. Then the full 
 story of the battle was told. 
 
 It was a sad and angry camj), that remote pocket 
 between the hills. Most of the Hauhaus came in 
 nearly naked, just as they had jumped up when the 
 first shot was fired in the grey dawn. They were 
 desperately sullen and grief-stricken over theh dead 
 and the loss of tliek* stronghold, M'hich to them had 
 seemed almost impregnable, for it was the strongest 
 stockaded position they had yet "built. Many a aark 
 look was bent upon the white man as he sat by one 
 of the fires, not daring to speak a Avord. 
 
 That night the camp was suddenly abandoned by 
 order of the Hauhau leader, who feared pursuit, not 
 by the Imperial soldiers, who had no relish for '' bush- 
 wiiacking " at night — or, indeed, at any other time — 
 but by Kepa's Government warriors, hereditary 
 enemies of the Taranaki men. Hurriedly packing 
 on their shoulders what few belongings they had 
 managed to save from the 'pa, they set off in single 
 tile through the thick forest, making for the banks 
 of the Tangahoe Kiver, which they reached before
 
 THE STORMING OF OTAPAWA 63 
 
 daylight, and there halted. The wounded who were 
 unable to walk were carried with difficulty through 
 the tangled bush, where it was often necessary to 
 cut away at the supplejacks and aka vines, so in- 
 tricately interlaced and festooned across theh path, 
 before a passage could be made for the litter-bearers. 
 There was no moon ; it was an intensely dark night, 
 rendered more Cimmerian still by the unbroken roof 
 of foliage overhead. The Hauhaus made torches of 
 pieces of dry pinewood, bound together with scraps 
 of flax torn from their scanty mat garments, and 
 with these they managed to dimly light their way 
 through the forest — a wild and savage band ; the 
 warriors in front and rear, then- cartouche-belts over 
 their naked shoulders, and guns slung across their 
 backs, or carried in their left hands ; in their right 
 they gripped then- tomahawks and slashed a^^'ay at 
 the twuiing impediments of the jungle. 
 
 A camp was made near the banks of the Tangahoe,* 
 and here, as soon as it a\ as light, the Hauhaus nius- 
 
 * There is an interesting Maori proverb concerning tiiis 
 rapid 'langaho6 stream and the Tangahoe tribe who hved on 
 Its banks. This is tlie proverb, or pfijeliu : 
 " Tanyuhue tunyuta, e haere ; 
 Tanyuhoe ia, e kore e haere." 
 This, being interpreted, is : 
 
 "iMen oi Tangalio6 depart ; 
 JtJut the current of Tangahoe remains." 
 A pepeha which recalls Tennyson's " Brook " : 
 "Men may come and men may go. 
 But 1 go on ior ever,"
 
 64 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 tered and reckoned up their losses. There were 
 about three hundred and fifty of them now in camp 
 — men, women and children. With wonderful 
 celerity the forest-men cut a little clearing, and 
 built wharau, or rough huts, of saplings, thatched 
 with the long fronds of the nikau palm and the 
 mamaku tree-fern. Here the wounded men were 
 attended to as well as the primitive methods of the 
 bush allowed. Women were sent out to search the 
 river-banks for flax-plants ; the flax-roots were dug 
 up, boiled, and the resultant mucilaginous juice 
 poured over the gunshot and bayonet wounds. This 
 was the Maoris' most favoured method of treating 
 injuries of this character, and it generally bore good 
 results. 
 
 " Ringiringi" himself took a hand in the bush- 
 surgery, for he had watched army surgeons at 
 their work, and the Hauhau wounded, though most 
 of them preferred tlieir own people's doctoring, 
 were grateful to the white man for his efforts to 
 ease their sufferings. 
 
 • A picked band of the fugitives scouted back 
 through the forest and cautiously reconnoitred 
 their captured fort, which had been set on fu-e by 
 the troops, and was now a heap of blackened ruins. 
 The Government force had by this time passed on 
 to the attack of other pas, and the scouts re- 
 entered their destroyed fortress and searched for 
 their dead.
 
 THE STORMING OF OTAPAWA 65 
 
 The scene in the camp by the Tangahoe waters 
 when the ^ar-party returned from Otapawa was 
 one that " Ringkingi " never forgot. It was the 
 first great tangihanga, or wailing over the dead, that 
 he had witnessed. The people gathered in the 
 middle of the little clearing, and for hours the sound 
 of lamentation rang through the forest, often rising 
 into a wild, heart-breaking shriek as some blanket- 
 draped or mat-kilted woman, her long hair un- 
 bound, and her cheeks streaming with tears, cried 
 her keening song for her slain. The chiefs taki'd up 
 and down, weapon in hand, and told of the deeds 
 of those who had fallen ; each ended his mournful 
 speech with a chanted dirge. When the song was 
 a well-knoAvn one, the whole tribe would join in and 
 sing the lament with an intensity of feeling that 
 made theu' very bodies quiver. It was the full and 
 unrestrained outpouring of the soul of the savage.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 BUSH LIFE WITH THE HAUHAUS 
 
 Wild days in the forest — The Hauliau hunters — Maori wood- 
 craft — Bird-snaring and bird-spearing — The fowlers at Te 
 Ngaere — The slayer of Broughton — Another runaway soldier, 
 and his fate — The tomahawking of Humplirey Murphy. 
 
 For some weeks the fugitives remained in their 
 well-hidden camp by the Tangahoe's stream. When 
 the wounded were able to travel, " Ringiringi " and 
 his Maori companions took them a few miles through 
 the bush to a place called Rimatoto, the overgrown 
 site of an olden village. All the able-bodied men 
 of the tribe now set to work to build a new settle- 
 ment. Thatched 7iikau-ipsdm. houses were quickly 
 run up, and the forest rang day after day with the 
 axes of the bush-fellers, clearing the ground for 
 potato-planting. 
 
 As it was intended to make this a permanent 
 Tcainga — always providing Kepa's dusky forest- 
 rangers did not find their way to it in their scouting 
 expeditions — a large clearing was made. The felled 
 trees were allowed to lie for about three months until 
 they were dry enough to be fired ; then the potatoes
 
 BUSH LIFE WITH THE HAUHAUS 67 
 
 were set in amongst the half -burned stumps and logs. 
 In the meantime the forest was scoured for food, 
 and foraging parties were sent out to Turangarere 
 and other villages on the outskirts of the forest and 
 returned laden with pork and potatoes, strapped 
 across their shoulders in the usual Maori pikau 
 fashion. 
 
 Four miles away by a rough bush track, a track 
 hardly discernible to any but a Maori, was the Maha 
 village. There the white man was taken by his 
 rangatira Tito, after the bush-felling work was over, 
 and three or four peaceful months were passed, 
 varied only by occasional armed scouting expedi- 
 tions to the forest edge, and by long fishing, birding, 
 and pig-hunting trips into the great Avilderness of 
 jungle-matted timber that hemmed in the lonely 
 village on every side. 
 
 Bent had now been a year with the Maoris, and 
 had thoroughly settled into the native life. He had 
 quickly picked up the language of his adopted 
 people, and there was nothing of the pakeha about 
 him but the colour of his skin, and that was browning 
 with constant exposure and outdoor labour. A 
 waist-shawl or a flax kilt was his single article of 
 everyday clothing ; in cold weather a shoulder-mat 
 or a blanket was added. In this village of the woods 
 there were few emblems of civilisation except the 
 weapons of the warriors. Stories of battle and 
 skirmish now and again reached the bushmen by
 
 68 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 messengers from the plains ; and the M'hite general's 
 great march through the forest from Ketemarae by 
 the Whakaahurangi track around the eastern side 
 of Mount Egmont to Mataitawa and New Plymouth — 
 when the soldiers fell so short of food that they had 
 to shoot and eat their pack-horses — was discussed 
 many a night in the village wharejmrii, the com- 
 munal council-room and sleeping-house. 
 
 Bent's half-Indian temperament soon adapted 
 itself to this wild life in the forest. No drill day 
 after day, no parades, no sentry-go, no buttons to 
 polish, and no uniform to mend — surely this savage 
 life had its compensations. When the Maoris had 
 urgent and laborious work on hand they worked 
 like fury, and compelled — with the spur of a toma- 
 hawk — the white man to toil with equal industry, 
 if not willingness. Fort-building, trench-digging and 
 timber-felling were undertakings in A\liicli the whole 
 strength of the community laboured from dawn 
 till dark, and the chiefs as hard as the common men 
 and slaves. It was warrior's work. But there Mere 
 periods of halcyon, lazy days in Maoridom, AA'lien 
 " Ringmngi " and his ragged comrades of the bush, 
 their work over, could just " lie around " and smoke 
 and eat, and take no thouglit for the morrow so long 
 as they could procure a pipe-full of strong torori 
 (tobacco) and a square meal of potatoes and pork. 
 Tito proved a not unkind master, Avhen he found 
 that his white man neither attempted to escape
 
 BUSH LIFE WITH THE HAUHAUS 69 
 
 from the tribe nor shirked the often heavy tasks 
 imposed upon him. 
 
 The paheka soon became an adept in the wood- 
 craft of the Maoris. He accompanied the young 
 men of the tribe on their forest expeditions, bird- 
 
 A BRITISH COLUMN ON THE MARCH. 
 
 (^Froiii a iral'T-colnur sketch hij Major von Tciiipski/, 1866.') 
 
 snaring and bird-spearing ; these camping-out trips 
 sometimes lasted for a week or more. Far into the 
 solitudes of the great woods the little hunting-parties 
 penetrated, always armed, for they never knew when 
 or where the Government Maori scouts might be 
 encountered. The days were spent in birding and 
 pig-hunting, and the lo7ig nights by the blazing
 
 70 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 camp-fire, when the white man learned from his 
 Hauhau comrades many a wild legend and folk- 
 story, hair-raising tales of witchcraft, and mournful 
 tangi-aongs and love-ditties without end. 
 
 Powder and shot were too valuable to waste on the 
 birds of the forest in those days. One of the Maori 
 snaring methods, as practised by " Ringiringi " 
 and his companions, was to cut out wooden waka, 
 or miniature canoes or troughs, fill them with water, 
 and place them in some dry spot in the forest where 
 pigeons and tui were plentiful. Just over these 
 troughs flax-snares were arranged, so that when 
 the birds, thirsting for water after feasting on the 
 bush-berries, flew down to drink, and stretched their 
 heads through the running loops, they were tightly 
 noosed. Other snares were set on the wiro- trees, 
 of whose sweet berries the pigeons and hii were 
 particularly fond. " Ringiringi " quickly learned 
 the art of setting snares of flax or cabbage-tree leaf 
 with cunning slip-loops in the branches of the fruit- 
 laden miro ; in a clump of these pines he sometimes 
 caught in a single day as many as three hundred or 
 four hundred birds — kaka parrots, tui, and pigeon — 
 for the forests were alive with feathered creatures, 
 and in the autumn time, when the \\'ild fruits were 
 ripe and abundant, they were to be taken with little 
 trouble ; the noisy kaka parrot was the most easily 
 lured of all. The only forest l)ird that was not wel- 
 comed by the hunters was the owl, or ruru ; should
 
 BUSH LIFE WITH THE HAUHAUS 71 
 
 one happen to be killed it was never eaten, because 
 in Maori eyes it was an atiia, a spirit or the incar- 
 nation of a tribal deity. 
 
 Bird-spearing was another forest art widely prac- 
 tised in those times. Long slender limber spears 
 of tawa wood, twelve feet long and more, were 
 used. 
 
 In making the ))ird-spears, the pole from which 
 each was cut was scorched with fire till very dry, then 
 it was scraped and scraped down with ^jaw^a-shells 
 and scorched again, and once more scraped and 
 shaped with great care and industry, until it had 
 been reduced to the size desired and was perfectly 
 smooth. These spears were armed with barbed 
 tips, often of bone, sometimes of iron. The villagers 
 trailed the weapons after them as they travelled 
 through the forest, until they came to some tree 
 where tui and pigeon perched in numbers ; then 
 the spear was slowly and cautiously pushed upwards 
 until close to the unsuspecting bird, and a sudden, 
 sharp thrust impaled it on the barbed point. 
 
 The pakeha was carefully schooled in the art of 
 using the spear, and was enjoined, above all, never 
 to strike the pigeon full in the breast, because the 
 bone would often snap the barb-tip off ; it must be 
 speared in the side. In the late autumn the pigeons 
 were " rolling fat " ; and many hundreds of them 
 were preserved or potted in iMaori fashion by the 
 birding-parties in taha, or cabalashes (the hue
 
 72 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 gourd), Avhich were hermetically sealed ^ith the 
 fat of the cooked bkds. 
 
 One foraging expedition which Bent accompanied 
 was farther afield than usual, up northwards to the 
 great Ngaere swamp, a huge morass near where the 
 present township of Eltham stands, and where dairy 
 cattle now graze on fields that in those days of '66 
 were seemingly irreclaimable bogs and wildernesses ; 
 lagoons, where millions of eels crawled, snake-like, 
 in the ooze, and where coinitless thousands of wild 
 fowl and water-birds fished and screamed and 
 squabbled all day long. To the edge of the great 
 swamp came the food-hunters ; they waded across 
 to the two islets which rose from the middle of the 
 bog — ancient refuge-places of fugitive tribes — and 
 camped there, catching and smoke-drying huge 
 quantities of eels for w inter food in the home kainga, 
 and snaring many ducks and other birds. In this 
 primeval spot the beautiful kotuku, the white heron 
 so famous in Maori song and proverb- — noAv never 
 seen in the North Island — then abounded ; the 
 white man often admired this graceful bird as he 
 stood on silent A\atcli on the marge of some sedgy 
 pool, then, like lightning-flash, darted his long spear- 
 bill on his prey. The birds were tame, and easily 
 caught, and many were snared and eaten by the 
 foragers. " Ringiringi " captured some on the shores 
 of the lagoon by the simple expedient of a bent 
 supplejack and an arrangement of flax loops, set
 
 BUSH LIFE WITH THE HAUHAUS 73 
 
 near the kotuku^s daily haunts ; a day seldom passed 
 without a heron being found flapping and choking 
 tightly noosed in the snares of the fowlers. 
 
 One day in the spring of 1866, when Tito and 
 his hapu, their bird-hunting expeditions over for 
 the season, were gathered in their bush-village Rima- 
 toto, three strange Maoris, fully armed, entered the 
 settlement. They had travelled overland from the 
 King Country, far to the north, on a mission from 
 Tawhiao, the Waikato King, who, after the con- 
 quest of the Waikato Valley by the white troops, 
 had taken refuge with the Ngati-Maniapoto tribe. 
 The envoys had been sent down to recover some 
 Waikato war-flags which were in the possession of 
 the Taranaki Hauhaus. 
 
 In the crowded ivharepuni that night, when the 
 Waikato warriors made theu" errand known, one 
 of them caught sight of the white man, sitting 
 silently in his corner, and asked who he was. When 
 Tito explained, the visitor asked, 
 
 "Why don't you kill him ? " 
 
 " He is my pakeha,'' said Tito, " and I will pro- 
 tect him, because our prophet Te Ua has tapu^d him, 
 and ordered us not to harm him." 
 
 " That is indeed a soft and foolish way to deal with 
 pakehas,'" exclaimed a fierce-looking young warrior, 
 one of the Waikato trio. " We don't take any white 
 prisoners in our country. You ought to have his 
 head stuck on the fence of your 2>«."
 
 74 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 Tito laughed. " Ringiringi is going to be 
 useful to us," he said. " Besides, he is a Maori 
 now." 
 
 Next morning Tito despatched the white man and 
 an old Maori named Te Waka-tapa-ruru through 
 the forest to Te Putahi, a stockaded vUlage some 
 ten miles away, on the banks of the Whenuakura 
 River, with a message to the people of that qwb re- 
 questing them to return the colours for which the 
 king had sent. This mission accomplished. Bent 
 stayed a while in Te Putahi, wheie he was treated 
 with much kindness, because of his association A\ith 
 Tito. 
 
 On the morning after his arrival a man came to 
 his sleeping-hut and, without saying a word, placed 
 on the mat before him a couple of blankets and a 
 watch. 
 
 The history of the watch was after\\ards explained 
 to him by Te Waka-tapa-ruru. This warrior was 
 a typical old bush-fighter. He had a very big 
 head ; he was tattooed on the cheeks ; he was 
 wiry and wonderfully quick on his legs. He told 
 Bent, with a devilish grin on his corrugated face, 
 that the watch had belonged to a white man, 
 called Paratene, whom he — Te Waka — had shot 
 the previous year at Otoia, on the Patea River. 
 This pakeha was Mr. C. Broughton, a native in- 
 terpreter who had been sent on a special Govern- 
 ment mission to the Hauhaus, and was barbarously
 
 BUSH LIFE WITH THE HAUHAUS 75 
 
 murdered while in the act of lighting his pipe in 
 the village marae. 
 
 Broughton's slayer, despite his repulsive ante- 
 cedents, became a friend of Bent's, and they were 
 close comrades until 1869, when the old man was 
 killed in the act of charging furiously on the Armed 
 Constabulary at the attack on the Papa-tihakehake 
 stockade. 
 
 At Te Putahi " Ringiringi " was astonished to 
 find another white man, clothed like himself in a 
 blanket. This man walked up and greeted him, and 
 the fakelia-M?bori recognised the long-haired, rough- 
 bearded fellow as an old fellow-soldier. His name 
 was Humphrey Murphy ; he, too, had been a 
 private in the 57th, and had become as dissatisfied 
 with the life as Bent had done, and deserted to the 
 Hauhaus. Bent sums him up as " a bad lot." 
 Murphy was an evil-tempered Irishman, faithful to 
 neither white man nor Maori. He belonged to two 
 chiefs, Te Onekura and Whare-matangi, who lived 
 in the -pa at Te Putahi. 
 
 Murphy, it appeared from his own story, had been 
 taken over as a taurekareka, a slave, by one of the 
 Hauhau chiefs when he deserted, and had been 
 sent as a food-carrier to Te Putahi by his owner, 
 who treated his " white trash " with scant considera- 
 tion. At Te Putahi he had been taken over by the 
 two local chiefs. The deserter bragged to Bent, 
 as they sat side by side on the village 7riarae, that
 
 76 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 he would shortly return to his old Maori " boss," 
 as he called him, and kill him, and take what money 
 he could find as payment for his enforced labour. 
 
 While Murphy was speaking, a young Maori girl 
 sat by quietly listening. 
 
 When the runaway soldier rose and walked off 
 to his hut, the girl said : 
 
 " Ringi, I heard Avhat that taurekareka white 
 man was saying. I have learned enough of the 
 pakeha's tongue to know that he is going to kill his 
 rangatira and steal his money." 
 
 " Kaati ! Don't .say a word about it," cautioned 
 Bent. 
 
 But the girl rose up in the meeting-house one 
 night after " Ringhingi " had departed to his home 
 at Rimatoto, and repeated the threat she had over- 
 heard from Murphy's lips. 
 
 That settled the taurekareka' s fate. Bent, some 
 time later, inquiring after Murphy from one of 
 Tito's men who had been on a visit to Te Putahi, 
 was told that he had been killed. The Hauhaus 
 had a short way with such as he. He was quietly 
 tomahawked one night as he lay asleep, and his 
 despised remains dragged out and cast into the 
 Whenuakura River that ran below the village. 
 
 At this time there were at least four white men living 
 with the Hauhaus in South Taranaki. One came 
 to Rimatoto to see " Ringiringi," and remained with 
 him for a week. His name was Jack Hennessy, and
 
 BUSH LIFE WITH THE HAUHAUS 77 
 
 he had, like Bent, deserted from the 57th Regiment. 
 He was in fact the " shut-eye sentry " who had seen 
 Bent steal off from the Manawapou camp in 1865. 
 He gave himself up to the white forces some time 
 later, thed of life with the Hauhaus, and was court- 
 martialled and sent to prison.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE HAUHAU COUNCIL-TOWN 
 
 Life in Taiporohenui — A gi'eat praying-house — The ritual 
 of the Niu — Singular Haiihau chants — " Matua Pai-marire " — 
 Bent's new owner, and his new wife — The tattooers— Another 
 white renegade 
 
 Another summer came, and the crops were gathered 
 in, and the men of Tito's Jiapv, after nearly a year 
 of comparative peace, wearied for the war-path 
 again. Rimatoto and other small bush-hamlets 
 were deserted, and the tribes gathered in, bearing 
 their food supplies to the Hauhau council-village 
 of Taiporohenui — close to where the to^^■n of Hawera 
 now stands. Taiporohenui was a famous name — 
 a \v()rd of inana, as the Maori would say — amongst 
 all the tribes from Whanganui to Waikato. The 
 name, say the wise men of Taranaki, goes back far 
 beyond the days of the later Maori migration to New 
 Zealand, in the canoes Aotea, Tokomaru, Tainui, 
 and other Polynesian Viking ships. It was that of 
 a great temple in Tahiti, in the tropic isles of the 
 Hawaiikian seas, countless generations ago. And 
 in this latter-day Taiporohenui the Maoris, mindful 
 of tiieir ancient traditions, built another temple. 
 
 78
 
 THE HAUHAU COUNCIL-TOWN 79 
 
 This Hauhau praying-house and council-hall, con- 
 structed of hewn timber with rau})0-reed walls and 
 7iikan-tha,tch roof, is described by Bent as the largest 
 building of native construction that he had seen. 
 It was about one hundred and twenty feet in length, 
 and Avas of such exceptional size that the ridge-pole 
 was supported by four pontoko-manawa, or pillars, 
 instead of one or two, as in the ordinary Maori 
 meeting-house ; there were five fires burning in it 
 at night, in the stone fireplaces down its long central 
 aisle ; on either side were the mat-covered resting- 
 places of the people. The timbers of the house were 
 of the durable totara pine. The inside was lined with 
 beautiful tukutuku work, of kakaho reeds and thin 
 wooden lathes artfully fastened with kiekie fibre, 
 arranged in many handsome geometrical patterns. 
 Beneath the first large poutoko-inanawa in the house 
 was buried a large piece of greenstone in the rough, 
 the whatu, or " luck-stone," of the sacred house. It 
 w^as the Maori custom when the centre-pole of a 
 large meeting-house or the first big palisade-post of 
 a fort was set in position, to place a piece of green- 
 stone, often in the form of an ornament, such as an 
 ear-drop or a carved tiki, at its foot.* 
 
 * We have survivals of this widespread ancient custom 
 amongst ourselves, in the practice of placing coins, etc., under 
 the foot of a mast of a new ship, and under the foundation-stone 
 of a church or other important building. The cult is found 
 amongst many savage nations in its primitive form. Here is 
 an instance narrated by Mr. T. C. Hodson in an article in Folk- 
 Lore (Vol. XX., No. 2, 190!*) on " Head-iiunting amongst the
 
 80 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 In front of the great house on the marae, or village 
 square, stood the sacred A^m-pole, a totara pine 
 flagstaff, nearly fifty feet in height, with a yard 
 about fourteen feet long ; the staff was stayed like 
 the mast of a ship. The war-flags of the Hauhaus 
 were flown from the Nhi, and the people daily 
 marched around its foot in their " Pai-marire ^^ pro- 
 cession, intoning the chants their prophet had taught 
 them. This N'iu was one of the first worship-poles 
 planted in Taranaki by the Hauhau prophet's com- 
 mand, and it was the centre of many a wild fanatic 
 gathering. At its foot there was planted a large 
 piece of unA\'orked greenstone — as was done when 
 the first house-pillar was set up — as the ivliatu of 
 the sacred pole ; this block of pounamu is still there, 
 says Bent. 
 
 Round this staft" of worship, w here the bright war- 
 flags hung, the people marched daily in their strange 
 procession, chanting their wild psahns. Tito te 
 Hanataua was one of the priests of the A^iu, and he 
 led his tribe in the services after the Hauhau religion. 
 
 Hill-tribcs of Assam " : " Tlie head-man of a large and powerful 
 village (on the frontier of the State of Manipur) was engaged 
 in building himself a new house, and to strengthen it had 
 seized this man (a Naga) and forcibly cut of? a lock of his hair, 
 which had been buried underneath the main post of the house. 
 In olden days the head would have been put there, but by a 
 refinement of some native theologian a lock of hair was held 
 as good as the whole head." 
 
 It was the olden Maori custom to jjlace a human head beneath 
 the central pillar of a sacred building, and to have a human 
 sacrifice at the opening of a new house.
 
 THE HAUHAU COUNCIL-TOWN 81 
 
 Some of the chants Mere amazing mixtures of English 
 and Maori ; some were all pidgin-English, softened 
 by the melodious Maori tongue. Here is a specimen 
 of the daily chants, intoned by all the people as they 
 marched round and round the holy pole. The priest 
 shouted, " Porini, hoia .^ " (" Fall in, soldiers ! ") ; 
 then " Teilmna ! " (" Attention ! "), and they stood 
 waiting. Then they chanted, as they got the 
 order to march : 
 
 
 Translation. 
 
 Kira . 
 
 . Kill 
 
 Wana 
 
 . One 
 
 Tu 
 
 . Two 
 
 Tin . 
 
 . Three 
 
 Wha— 
 
 Four — 
 
 Teihani ! 
 
 Attention 
 
 Round the sacred flag-staff they went — men, 
 women, and children — chanting : 
 
 Rewa 
 
 River 
 
 Piki rewa 
 
 Big river 
 
 Rongo rewa . 
 
 Long river 
 
 Tone . 
 
 Stone 
 
 Piki tone — . 
 
 Big stone — 
 
 Teihana ! 
 
 Attention ! 
 
 Rori . 
 
 Road 
 
 Piki rori 
 
 Big road 
 
 Rongo rori . 
 
 Long road 
 
 Puihi , . , 
 
 . Bush 
 
 Piki puihi — 
 
 Big busli — 
 
 Teihana ! 
 
 Attention ! 
 
 Rongo puihi 
 
 Long busli 
 
 Rongo tone . 
 
 Long stone
 
 ;2 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 Hira . 
 
 . Hill 
 
 Piki hira 
 
 . Big hill 
 
 Ronijo hira — 
 
 Long hill — 
 
 Tcihana ! 
 
 Attention ! 
 
 Mauteni 
 
 Mountain 
 
 Piki mauteni 
 
 Big mountain 
 
 Rongo mauteni 
 
 Long mountain 
 
 Piki niu 
 
 . Big staff 
 
 Rongo niu — 
 
 Long staff — 
 
 Teihana ! 
 
 Attention ! 
 
 Nota . . 
 
 . North 
 
 No te pihi . 
 
 . North by East 
 
 No te hihi 
 
 N. Nor'-east 
 
 Norito mino. 
 
 . N.E. by North 
 
 Noriti 
 
 North-east 
 
 Koroni — 
 
 Colony — 
 
 Teihana ! 
 
 Attention ! 
 
 Hail . 
 
 . Hi ! 
 
 Kamu te ti . 
 
 Come to tea 
 
 Oro te mene . 
 
 All tlie men 
 
 Rauna . 
 
 Round 
 
 Te Niu— . 
 
 . The Niu— 
 
 Teihana ! 
 
 Attention ! 
 
 Hema . 
 
 Hliem 
 
 Rurawini 
 
 Rvile the wind 
 
 Tu mate wini 
 
 Too much wind 
 
 Kamic te ti — 
 
 Come to tea — 
 
 Teihana ! 
 
 Attention ! 
 
 And so on, a marvellous farrago of Maorified 
 English words and phrases. It ^\•as Te Ua's " gift 
 of tongues," they imagmed, that had descended 
 upon them. 
 
 Night and morning, too, the sound of Hauhau 
 prayers rose from the great camp. Here is one,
 
 THE HAUHAU COUNCIL-TOWN 
 
 83 
 
 the " Morning Song " ("* Waiala mo te Ata "), in 
 imitation of the Engliir^h Prayer-book : 
 
 Koti te Pata, nuii marire ; 
 Koti te Pata, mat tnarire ; 
 Koti te Pata, mai marire ; 
 To rire, rire ! 
 
 Koti te Tana, mat marire ; 
 Koti te Tana, mai marire ; 
 Koti te Tana, mai marire : 
 To rire, rire ! 
 
 Koti te Orikoti, mni marire 
 Koti te Orikoti, mai marire 
 Koti te Orikoti, mai marire 
 To rire, rire ! 
 
 To mai Niu Kororia, mai 
 
 nuirire ; 
 To mai Niu Kororia, nuti 
 
 marire ; 
 
 Translation. 
 God the Father, have mercy on 
 
 me ; 
 God the Father, have mercy 
 
 on me ; 
 God the Father, have mercy 
 on me ; 
 Have mercy, mercy (or peace, 
 peace) ! 
 
 God the Son, have mercy on 
 
 me ; 
 God the Son, have mercy on 
 
 me ; 
 God the Son, liave mercy on 
 
 me ; 
 Have mercy, mercy ! 
 
 God the Holy Ghost, have 
 
 mercy on me ; 
 God the Holy Ghost, have 
 
 mercy on me 
 God the Holy Ghost, have 
 
 mercy on me ; 
 Have mercy, mercy ! 
 
 My glorious Niu, have mercy 
 
 on me ; 
 My glorious Niu, have mercy 
 
 on me ; 
 
 To m,ai Niu Kororia, m,ai My glorious Niu, have mercy 
 marire ; on me ; 
 
 To rire, rire ! Have mercy, mercy ! 
 
 The more warlike cliants ended in a loudly barked 
 " Hau ! " the watchword and holy war-cry of the
 
 84 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 rebel biishmen. Very wild they were, these savage 
 hymns, haunting in rhythm, and stii'ring the people 
 to a frenzy of fanatic fire. 
 
 Kimble Bent joined in these Hauhan war-rites 
 like any Maori, and marched, chanting witli his wild 
 comrades, round and round the Niu. 
 
 Several skirmishes between the whites and Maoris 
 occurred in the winter and early spring of 1866, and 
 one of these had some concern for the exile. About 
 three miles away from Taiporohenui was a village 
 called Pokaikai, to which " Ringiringi " was sent 
 awhile by his chief. While he was there the prophet 
 Te Ua arrived. He dreamed a dream, one of bad 
 omen, and he straightway counselled '" Ringiringi " 
 to return at once to Taiporohenui. " Ringi " 
 obeyed. Three days, or, rather, three nights after- 
 wards, a force of colonial soldiers under Colonel 
 McDonnell unexpectedly attacked Pokaikai and 
 rushed the village, killing several Hauhaus. In some 
 way the Forest Rangers under McDonnell had heard 
 that the deserter Kimble Bent was in Pokaikai, 
 and they were eager to capture or shoot him. Some 
 of them surrounded one of the irhares in which they 
 imagined Bent was sleeping. A young volunteer 
 named Spain had just previously, unnoticed by 
 them, gone into the irhare to bring out a dead 
 Hauhau, and while he was there the Rangers — 
 hearing some one say there was a white man w ithin — 
 fired a volley into the hut, which unfortunately
 
 THE HAUHAU COUNCIL-TOWN 87 
 
 mortally wounded Spain. This young soldier was 
 the only pakeha killed in the fight. 
 
 When " Ringiringi " heard of the Pokaikai affair 
 from the fugitives who fled through the bush to 
 Taiporohenui, he felt that the Hauhau prophet 
 had indeed been his good angel, for it was only Te 
 Ua's injunction to return to the main Hauhau camp 
 that had saved him from the vengeful bullets of his 
 fellow-whites. And thenceforward the white man 
 was a dreamer of many a strange dream, and he came 
 to believe almost as implicitly as the forest-men 
 themselves in the omens that lay in the visions of 
 the night, and in warning voices from the spirit- 
 world. 
 
 About this time "Ringiringi" changed hands, 
 much as if he were a fat porker or a keg of powder 
 or any other article of Maori barter. Rupe (" Wood- 
 pigeon "), a chief of Taiporohenui, made request 
 of Tito — to whom he was related — for his jmkeha 
 mokai, his tame white man. He had never owned 
 a pakeha, he explained, and would like one all to 
 himself, and he knew that " Ringiringi " would be 
 a handy man to have around, to keep his armoury 
 of guns, of miscellaneous makes and dates, in repair, 
 and to make cartridges for him. So " Ringiringi " 
 was passed over to his new owner, whom he served, 
 with the exception of some short intervals in the 
 war-time and in the period of exile on the Upper 
 Waitara, until 1878,
 
 88 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 Soon after " Ringiringi " had become one of 
 Rupe's household, his chief's son, a young lad named 
 Kuku (another name for the wood-pigeon), fell 
 seriously ill. The white man doctored and care- 
 fully nursed the boy, and under his treatment he 
 recovered. Rupe's gratitude to his mokai took a 
 chieftain-like form. As payment, or uhi, for curing 
 his son, he led up his daughter, a young girl of fifteen 
 or sixteen, and presented her to " Ringkingi " as 
 his wife. 
 
 " Indeed, she was a pretty gu'l," says the old 
 'pakeha-M.dion, recalling the dead past. " I'll never 
 forget her. She had handsome features, almost 
 European, though she was of pure Maori blood. 
 Her lips were small, her hair was wavy and curly, 
 instead of hanging in a straight, black mat, and she 
 had what was very strange in a Maori, blue eyes — 
 the first blue-eyed native I have ever seen. She 
 was a very gentle girl — she never kaiuja'd or said 
 unpleasant things about others, never quarrelled 
 with the other women. She did not smoke either, 
 which was unusual. Her chin was tattooed, but 
 not too thickly or deeply. She had, too, the ra'pe 
 and tiki-hope patterns engraved on her body, the 
 hip, and thigh, tattooing which was in fashion in 
 those days, and which the girls and women were 
 proud of displaying when they went out to bathe." 
 
 With this agreeable young wife, whose name was 
 Rihi, or Te Hau-roroi-ua, Bent lived for nearly three
 
 THE HAUHAU COUNCIL -TOWN 89 
 
 years. She bore one child, which died, and soon 
 after she, too, died, to the 'pakeha-M.siori''s great 
 sorrow. His one-eyed wife, the lady of Otapawa, 
 had left her unwilling husband some months before 
 he took Rilii in Maori marriage. 
 
 Amongst the primitive arts of the Maori with 
 which " Ringiringi " became familiar about this 
 time was that of moko, or tattooing. The kauae 
 tattooing — on chin and lips — w^as still universal 
 amongst the native women, though few of the men 
 now submitted their faces to the chisel or the needle 
 of the tattooing artist. A popular form of tattooing 
 amongst both sexes was that technically known as 
 tiki-hope, the scroll-patterns on the thighs and other 
 parts of the body usually concealed by the waist- 
 shawl. The white man saw numbers of women 
 as well as men decorated in this fantastic fashion. 
 In fact, he was so thoroughly Maori by this time 
 that he was about to undergo the operation himself, 
 in the winter of 1867, when living at the village Te 
 Paka, near the old fort Otapawa. He had the 
 ngarahu, or kapara, the blue-black pigment, ready 
 for the dusky engraver, and would shortly have been 
 made pretty for life in Maori eyes had not the 
 tattooing been peremptorily forbidden. 
 
 "I wanted my face tattooed," says Bent, "for 
 I was as wild as any Maori then. I intended to have 
 the curves called tiivhana, or arches, tattooed on my 
 forehead, over the eyes, and the kaivekaive lines on
 
 90 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 the cheeks, extending to the corners of the mouth. 
 What a curiosity I would have been, though, when 
 I caitie out of the bush ! I would have been able 
 to earn my living in my old age, going on exhibition, 
 like the bearded lady in the circus ! " 
 
 It was Te Ua the prophet who forbade the tattoo- 
 ing. He happened to be in residence at Te Paka 
 just then, and he reminded " Ringiringi " that he 
 liad kijnid him, and explained that to moko his skin 
 would be a violation of that particular brand of tapu. 
 To the white man this was not quite clear ; never- 
 theless, he agreed to obey the prophet's Mosaic 
 command " to make no cuttings " in his flesh, and 
 remained a plain, undecorated 'pakeJm. 
 
 However, he acquired some skill himself with the 
 tattooing instruments, and exercised it in printing 
 names and sundry devices on the persons of the 
 villagers. He learned, too, how to manufacture 
 the indelible rigarahu, or kapara, pigment. In 
 making this tattooing-ink the soot from fires of 
 white-pine {kahikatea) wood was used. A cave-like 
 hole was dug in the side of a bank, with an opening 
 resembling a chimney in the top. A large fire was 
 kindled in the cave, or rua, and for several days was 
 constantly fed with the resinous timber of the 
 kahikatea. Above the earth-chimney were arranged 
 a number of twigs of the karamu shrub (a coprosma), 
 with the bark stripped off, set up in the shape of a 
 tent, and covered with a layer of leaves. The dense
 
 THE HAUHAU COUNCIL-TOWN 91 
 
 smoke from the fire deposited a thick soot on the 
 karamu sticks. For some days the fire was kept up ; 
 then the twigs were removed, and the soot scraped 
 off into wooden receptacles. It was mixed with 
 water, and worked into little round balls. The soot- 
 balls were then placed on a layer of 'poroporo leaves 
 in an umu, or earth-oven, and steamed for about 
 three hours, when they were taken out and set to 
 dry. In later times, after the war, Bent cften em- 
 ployed himself in the manufacture of this tattoo- 
 dye ; and was, he says, accustomed to receive ten 
 shillings for a ball of figarahu the size of a peach. 
 
 To Te Paka vUlage there came one day another 
 renegade white man, an Irish soldier named Charles 
 Kane, or King. He had been a private in the second 
 battalion of the 18th Royal Irish Regiment, and 
 had, like Bent, revolted against army discipline, 
 and deserted to the Hauhaus. The Maoris had 
 christened him " Kingi." He lived in Bent's whare 
 in Te Paka for some time. He was exceedingly 
 bitter against his old officers, and, in fact, against 
 his fellow-whites in general ; so much so, that he 
 boasted of his intention to fight against them, and,, 
 as will be seen later, actually did so in the attack on 
 the Turuturumokai redoubt. Like most of the 
 soldiers who traitorously deserted their colours in 
 those war-days, he fell at last a victim to the toma- 
 hawks of his Hauhau companions.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 A FOREST ADVENTURE 
 
 The two eel-fishers — Bivouac in tlie Inisli — A nuiriicrous 
 attack — The Waikato's tomaliawk — " Riiigiringi's " escape. 
 
 Far away to the east and north of the great Hauhau 
 council-camp stretched the forest, clothing hill and 
 valley with one endless wavy garment of unvarying 
 green. For weeks one might tramp through these 
 vast, jungly woods and not see or hear sign of man, 
 or of any living thing but the twittering birds in the 
 tree-tops and a stray A\ild jug rooting in the soft, 
 fern-matted earth or scampering away through the 
 thickets. The free, unspoiled wilderness of Tane- 
 Mahuta. 
 
 Climbing to the wooded crest of some of the steep 
 little hills that rose from the gently undulating plain, 
 one might here and there, through the gaps between 
 the towering tiers of foliage, catch narrow glimpses 
 of the surrounding country ; and })orhaps far away 
 to the nor'-west see between the branches, set like 
 a picture m its forest-frame, the pure white snow- 
 cone of tent-shaped Taranaki. 
 
 Deep in these bush solitudes one day, when the 
 
 'J2
 
 A IFOREST ADVENTURE Oli 
 
 spring had come, the voice of man broke upon the 
 silences. The wild boar stopped his root-foraging to 
 listen, and then turned and crashed off through the 
 supplejacks. A band of brown men, some clad in 
 nondescript articles of European clothing, some 
 wearing only a shoulder-cape of flax and a shawl or 
 blanket-kilt, wound in single file through the bush, 
 striking due east. There were fourteen or fifteen 
 of them. Most of them carried weapons — double- 
 barrelled guns and short-handled tomahawks, stuck 
 in the waist-belt of flax ; all had large flax baskets, 
 some containing gourd-calabashes, strapped across 
 their backs. Some sang little lilts of Maori song, 
 and some called now and then to the others, or 
 mimicked the tui and the kaka parrot that cried 
 above them in the trees. 
 
 Mid-line in the file was a fairer-skinned young 
 forester, bare-footed like the rest, clad only in a 
 " home-made " shirt that seemed to have been 
 cut out of a blanket and a coloured shawl strapped 
 round his waist. He had a thick beard, and his hair 
 was so long that it would have fallen down over his 
 shoulders had it not been caught at the back of his 
 neck and tied with a piece of flax. This was " Ringi- 
 ringi," the 'pakeha-MRori, wearing as little clothing 
 as his Hauhau companions, and to all appearance 
 as seasoned a bushman as they, as he bent along 
 the jungly way with the easy, noiseless jog of the 
 Maori scout.
 
 94 THE ADVENTURES OP KIMBLE BENT 
 
 This party had been despatclied from Taiporo- 
 henui by Rupe, to work inland through the bush 
 to the upper w aters of the Patea River, and scour 
 the country for food supplies for the assembled 
 tribes. They were ordered to bring home wild pork 
 and wild honey, and to catch as many eels as they 
 could carry. They travelled far into the heart of 
 the bush, and then divided into small parties of twos 
 and threes for eel-catching in the creeks. 
 
 The white man's companion on the eel-fishing 
 excursion was an old Maori from the " King " 
 Country, a Ngati-Maniapoto man, who had joined 
 the Taranaki Hauhaus ; he was a short but strongly 
 built fellow, with a big head and of dark and sullen 
 visage, made more forbidding still by the blue-black 
 tattoo with which cheeks and brow and nose were 
 scrolled and lined. The couple, leaving the others 
 after arranging a general rendezvous for the follow ing 
 day, selected a small creek, winding in a slow, brown 
 current beneath the roof of verdure which the out- 
 stretching branches of the rata and the pines nearly 
 everywhere held over it. It was a tributary of the 
 Upper Patea above Rukumoana. They fished with 
 short rods and flax lines, with worms for bait, and 
 by the evening had caught between them about 
 sixty good-sized eels. 
 
 The eel-fishers bivouacked where the t\\ilight 
 found them, in a tiny nook near Orangimura, where 
 there was just room to build their camp-fire and
 
 A FOREST ADVENTURE 95 
 
 spread their bush-couches of fresh-pulled tree-fern 
 fronds, between the buttressed raius and the creek- 
 side. 
 
 " Ringiringi " had a little cold food in his pikau 
 kit, potatoes and kopaki corn ; that is, maize in the 
 sheath. He was about to grill some of the fat eels 
 on the fire when his Maori companion stopped him. 
 
 *' E tama ! " he said. " Don't you know it is 
 unlucky to cook the tuna in the night-time ? Do 
 not touch those eels until the morning ; should you 
 disobey, it will surely bring heavy rain." 
 
 The superstitious old warrior was so insistent that 
 " Ringiringi," to please him, agreed to his wishes ; 
 he contented himself with the little he had in his kit, 
 and then, filling his pipe with torori tobacco, lit it, 
 and smoked as he lay beside the camp-fire. His 
 Maori mate squatted smoking on the other side. 
 
 The warmth of the fire, and the low, murmurous 
 singing of the little river — the wawara-wai, the 
 babble of the waters, in the musical Maori tongue — 
 pleasantly lulled the tired pakeha. He lay there, 
 with his scanty bush-ranging garments wrapped 
 about him, listening, half -asleep, to the lazy run of 
 the creek, and to the songs that his savage old com- 
 panion recited to himself in a monotonous chant. 
 War-songs of Waikato, songs that he and his Kingite 
 comrades had shouted in many an armed camp 
 before the white man drove them out beyond the 
 Aukati line, the frontier of the Waikato. In one
 
 OG THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 of these chants the eel-fisher's voice was lifted in a 
 quick burst of passionate remembrance — a defiant 
 Aa^-song the Hauhaus of Taranaki, too, had 
 adopted as a composition exactly expressing their 
 opinion of pakehas in general, and of the pakeha 
 Governor in particular. It likened Governor Grey 
 to a bush-bullock devouring the tender leaves of 
 the raurekau shrub — a Maori simile for the land- 
 hunger of the A\hites : 
 
 " A he kau ra. 
 He kau ra ! 
 
 U II ! 
 
 He kau kauxma koe 
 Kia miti mai 
 Te raurekau. 
 A he kau ra. 
 He kau ra ! 
 A u u ! 
 
 (" Ha ! A beast art thou, 
 A beast that bellows — 
 
 Ooh ooh ! 
 
 A beast art thou, O Governor, 
 
 That lickcst in 
 
 The leaves of the raurekau. 
 
 Ho ! A beast, indeed, 
 
 A beast art thou ! 
 
 Oo on ooh 1 ") 
 
 The old Hauhau, warming to the haka, almost 
 yelled the virulent words. The chant broke the 
 white man's drowsing, and he sat up and listened 
 as his companion r('])cated the vigorous dance- 
 song.
 
 A FOREST ADVENTURE 97 
 
 " Well, pakeha ! " he said ; " that is our Waikato 
 iigeri, our A\'ar-cry. That is what we think of the 
 Governor — and of all pakehas I I hate all white 
 men ! They are thieves and pigs. I could cook 
 and eat them all ! All, every one ! I would not 
 leave a white-skin alive in this island ! They are 
 slaves, taurekarekas — like you ! Now go to sleep, 
 for we must rise w^hen the kaka cries." 
 
 And the old man curled up by the fire, Awhile 
 " Ringiringi " found uncomfortable reflection in 
 the fact that he ^^'as here alone, far in the heart of 
 the forest, with a murderous old savage who was 
 armed with a war-tomahawk, while he, the weaker 
 man, though the younger, had nothing with which 
 to defend himself. But by this time he Mas familiar 
 with the face of danger, and worked and slept in 
 the midst of alarms ; so simply remarking to the 
 Maori, "Friend, I am sleepy," and throwing some 
 fresh fuel on the fire, he lay down again on his 
 ferny ivhariki. 
 
 However, he had his suspicions of the old savage, 
 and presently he glimpsed the Maori eyeing him 
 dangerously through his narrowed lids and handling 
 his tomahawk restlessly. When he lay down to 
 rest, the white man had drawn his blanket partly 
 over his face, as if he were asleep, but he kept one 
 eye lifting. Once the Maori half rose and looked 
 cunningly over at his companion, with his hand on 
 his war-axe, then he sank down again.
 
 98 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 The little dark brook went singing on beneath 
 the forest ; the fire gradually burned lower and 
 lower as the night wore on ; the niorepork noA\' and 
 then cried his sharp complaint of " Kou-kou ! " fioni 
 the shadoAA's. The two fishers lay silent ; to all 
 appearance both were asleep. But in the Maori's 
 heart was black, treacherous murder. 
 
 Utu — payment, satisfaction, revenge — summed 
 up in a word the darker side of the Maoii character. 
 The lone •pakeha's head would be indeed a trophy 
 to bear back through the wilderness to his tribe. 
 He would be a hero ; he could brag to the end of 
 his days how he slew a white soldier in single combat, 
 and none could contradict him. He saw himself 
 already taki-mg and prancing up and down the 
 home marae before his admii'ing clan, the pakeha's 
 head in his hand, his tomahawk — the victor's toma- 
 hawk ! — flashing in air. Ah ! That, indeed, would be 
 utu — though long-deferred utu — for his kinsmen who 
 fell to the pakeha bullets at Rangirii'i and Orakau ! 
 It must have been nearly midnight, and " Ringi- 
 ringi " was half-asleep with fatigue, in spite of his 
 fears, when suddenly all his senses were awakened. 
 Through his half closed eyelids he saw tlie Maori 
 rise, tomahawk in hand ; he rose from his blanket 
 noiselessly, then cautiously stretched one foot across 
 a tawa log that lay on the fire, with its end pro- 
 jecting. His eyes blazed, his face was frightful, with 
 intent to murder ])l;tiii upon il in tlic firelight.
 
 A FOREST ADVENTURE 99 
 
 He Avas just in the act of stepping over tlie log, 
 with his little axe upraised, when the white man 
 suddenly threw off his blanket and leaped for the 
 savage. 
 
 The old fellow flew at him with his upraised toma- 
 hawk glittering in the little light that the bivouac- 
 fire yet threw^ out. 
 
 But " Ringiringi " was too quick for him. He 
 ducked dexterously, and caught the Maori by the 
 ankle, and, with a lightning twist that he had learned 
 from his Taranaki people, threw him to the ground. 
 
 The murderer-in-intent fell on his back and 
 almost on the fire, and the tomahawk dropped 
 from his hand. 
 
 " Ringiringi " pounced on the furious old savage 
 as he fell, and with a knee on his bare chest, and one 
 hand on his throat, reached out with the free hand 
 for the tomahawk, which lay just within his grasp. 
 
 The Maori would have continued the struggle, 
 and in the rough-and-tumble would probably have 
 got the better of the white man, had not " Ringi- 
 ringi," now roused to murderous mood himself, 
 threatened to split his head in two if he moved, 
 and emphasised his words by bringing the weapon 
 down until the blade was within an inch of the old 
 fellow's ugly, tattooed nose. 
 
 The Maori sulkily promising to lie quietly in his 
 sleeping-place for the rest of the night, the pakeha 
 relinquished liis grip of the old man and backed to
 
 UM) THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 hi.s own side of the bivouac. He fed the fire ^ith 
 dry branches of pine, and presently the little glade 
 was a blaze of light again, and the black tree- 
 shadows danced like forest-ghosts to the rising and 
 falling of the flames. 
 
 The old Maori pulled his blanket over his face 
 and pretended to go to sleep, but " Ringiringi " did 
 not take his eyes ofif him the rest of that night. He 
 sat by the fire till daylight, the captured tomahawk 
 between his knees. 
 
 In the morning the two enemies silently packed 
 their takes of eels in their kits, and slung them on 
 their backs by flax-leaf straps, for the home-journey. 
 
 The little river had to be forded. It was about 
 knee-deep. The Maori hung back, waiting for Bent 
 to cross first ; but the white man knew that if he 
 did so his enemy would spring upon him or trip 
 him up and try to drown lihn in the creek. 
 
 " Now, you go first," ordered Bent, when he had 
 settled his pikau on his shoulders and stood, toma- 
 hawk in hand, facing the Maori, " and walk in front 
 of me all the way home, or I'll kill you ! " 
 
 So the old fellow sulkily stepped into the stream 
 and waded across. Bent following liim, and in this 
 order they travelled. 
 
 So they made their way homewards, striking west 
 through the pathless forest, wading watercourses 
 and climbing and descending hills, until they einerged 
 on the fcni country. "' Ringu'ingi," immensely re-
 
 A FOREST ADVENTURE 101 
 
 lieved, and weary beyond words, reported himself 
 to his chief. 
 
 Rupe was furiously angry when he heard the story 
 of the Waikato's attack on his jjakeha. 
 
 " The kohuru ! " he cried, as he leaped to his feet. 
 " The murderer ! I shall slay him this instant, on 
 the marae, though all Waikato come down to avenge 
 him ! " And seizing an axe from the wall, he ran 
 out in chase of " Ringiringi's " night antagonist. 
 
 The old fellow, when the chief rushed out at him 
 like a madman, turned and fled from the village, 
 and ran for his life until he disappeared in the shelter 
 of the bush. Rupe did not pursue him far ; his fit 
 of anger was soon spent, and he returned to his ivhare, 
 and made his white man relate again, with Maori 
 wealth of detail, the story of the eel-fishing bivouac. 
 
 " Ringii'ingi's " would-be slayer was never heard 
 of again ; at any rate, he did not venture back to 
 the camp of the Hauhaus ; and whether he ever 
 succeeded in taking a pakeha head in settlement of 
 his uhi bill no man knows.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE WAR-CHIEF AJSfD HIS GODS 
 
 The war-chief Titokowaru — Ancient ceremonies and religimi 
 revived — Uenviku, the god of battle — Titokowaru's mana-tapa 
 ■ — Bent makes cartridges for the Hanhaus — A novel weapon. 
 
 The year 1867 was one of little activity amongst 
 the Hauhaus with Avhom " Ringiringi " lived, except 
 in respect of theu' interminable meetings and Niu- 
 parades and prophesyings. Hostilities had been 
 suspended by both sides for the time, but the tem- 
 porary peace was only the prelude to the fiercest 
 fighting of the Ten- Years' War. 
 
 The Avhite man worked for his master Rupe all 
 that year, digging and planting, carrying wood and 
 water, and performing, in fact, the duties of a 
 household slave. But it was a slavery that had 
 its privileges and its compensations, and there were 
 long days of abundant food and little work, in the 
 intervals between the seasons of communal labour 
 in the potato-fields and the periodical birding and 
 eeling and pig-lumling expeditions. 
 
 It was while living at Te Paka that " Ringiringi " 
 became well acquainted with the celebrated Tito- 
 
 102
 
 THK VVAII-CHIKJ^^ AND HIS (H)I)S 103 
 
 kowaru, the great war-chief of tJie Hauhaus. Ti- 
 toko, as his name was usually abbreviated, came 
 riding into the little bush-village one day at the head 
 of an armed band of Ngati-Ruanui and Nga-Ruahine 
 men, and held a meeting in the marae, urging the 
 people to renew the war. He was travelling from 
 village to village, haranguing the Hauhaus, and ex- 
 plaining his new plan of campaign, which briefly 
 was to make surprise attacks on small isolated 
 redoubts garrisoned by the white soldiers, and to 
 lay ambuscades. He declared, too, that his tactics 
 would be, not to build any more stockaded forts in 
 positions where the Europeans could easily reach 
 them, but to entice the troops into the midst of the 
 forest, where the Maori warrior would have the 
 advantage. This scheme met with general approval, 
 and the tribespeople signified their intention of 
 joining Titoko and fighting his battles for him when- 
 ever he gave the word to begin. 
 
 Titokowaru was the most brainy, as well as the 
 most ferocious, of the Taranaki chiefs who led the 
 Hauhaus against the whites. It was his strategy 
 that was responsible for the most serious defeats 
 inflicted on the Government forces in the war of 
 1868-9. In appearance he was a stern, commanding 
 man, with a countenance disfigured by the loss of 
 an eye — reminder of the Battle of Sentry Hill. He 
 was not tattooed. "When roused," says Bent, 
 " he had a voice like a roaring lion." In his attke
 
 104 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BEN^r 
 
 he wa.s often quaintly pakeJia, for he frequently 
 appeared in a black " hard-hitter " hat and a full 
 suit of European clothing. He carried no weapon 
 but his sacred taialm, his tongue-pointed staff of 
 hard\\ood, ornamented A\itli a plume of red kaka 
 feathers. 
 
 The war-chief revived many a half-forgotten 
 savage practice in the campaign that followed. 
 Besides being a Hauhau "prophet," he was a tohunga, 
 or priest, of the ancient Maori religion. 
 
 Before despatching a war-party he invariably 
 recited the customary spells {karoMa) to ensure 
 their success, and the ^^'orship, or rather placation 
 and invocation of Uenuku, the war-god, was re- 
 suscitated in every armed camp and on every battle- 
 field. 
 
 Titoko possessed, in a strong degree, Avhat the 
 Maoris termed mana-tapu — personal ta'pu, or sacred 
 prestige, heritage from his priestly forefathers of 
 Ariki rank. His body was sacred in Maori eyes, 
 and he A\as accredited A\ith many a singular super- 
 natural attribute : " Even the A\inds of heaven are 
 his," said the Hauhaus. When the ichakarua, the 
 north-east breeze, blew, it was a fitting time for 
 the war-parties to set out, for the ichakarua was the 
 breath of Uenuku, Titoko's deity, and his familiar 
 spirit, and it was an omen of success in battle. 
 
 Bent gives some curious instances of Titokowaru's 
 mana-tajM. Once, wlien tlir wliito man Mas travel-
 
 THE WAR-CHIEF AND HIS G0D8 105 
 
 ling through the forest with Titoko and his band 
 of Hauhaus, the chief's shoulder accidentally struck 
 against a flax kit containing some cooked potatoes 
 which an old man was carrying on his back, Titoko 
 immediately ordered the man to throw the potatoes 
 and basket away, for the food had become infected, 
 through contact with the priest, with the mysterious 
 and deadly microbe of the tapu, and consequently 
 unfit to be eaten. So the old fellow had to cast 
 his day's rations into the bushes and go fasting. 
 
 Titokowaru would suffer no rivals in the 'pa. Now 
 and then it happened during the war-days that some 
 budding tohunga would arise and prophesy things, 
 in bold opposition to the chief, and announce that 
 his familiar spirit, or his ancestral gods, had con- 
 ferred priestly powers upon him. Titoko had "a 
 short way with dissenters." His usual and most 
 effective method of silencing the pretender was to 
 take a basket of potatoes in his hand and seek out 
 his rival. 
 
 " What," he would say, " have you then an atnu, 
 a god of your own ? " Should the Hauhau be so 
 imprudent as to answer " Yes," Titoko would lift 
 his potato-kit and set it on his rival's head. " That 
 for your atua ! " It was enough. The other's tapu 
 — if he ever had any — would be immediately de- 
 stroyed by such an act, for the head of man must 
 not be touched by food, and any self-respecting 
 atua \\ould desert a toy>i<-less Maori without delay.
 
 urn THE ADVENTURES UE KLMHLE BENT 
 
 But no man dared, by way of retaliation, to tiv tlie 
 potato-basket trick on Titokowaru. 
 
 " Ringiringi " had noAv been nearly thrt'c yeai-s 
 with the Maoris, and s})oke their language well. 
 " I lived exactly like a Maori," he says ; " worked 
 like a nigger, and always went about bare-footed. 
 They would not give me a gun, nor did they make 
 me fight — for Titokowaru made me tapu, and would 
 not permit me to go out on the war-path — but I had 
 to make cartridges for them. They managed to get 
 plenty of gunpowder ; I have often seen it brought 
 in in casks and in 25 lb. weights. They got a good 
 deal of it from the neutral and so-called ' friendly ' 
 tribes, who procured it from the pakehas. The Puke- 
 tapu tribe, and some of the Whanganuis, helped vis 
 in this way. I know there was a white man, Moffatt, 
 living on the Upper Wanganui River, who made a 
 coarse powder for the Hauhaus there, but I don't 
 think any of it came our way. I had a w'ooden 
 cartridge-fille]', and we always had plenty of old 
 newspapers to make the cartridge-cases. Bullets 
 were plentiful, too, as a rule ; but sometimes in the 
 bush, when the Hauhaus ran short, they A\'ould use 
 old iron, stones, and even pieces of hard Mood. I 
 have sometimes loaded my cartridges wdth bits of 
 supplejack, cut to size, when I had no lead bullets." 
 in those bush-whacking days the Hauhaus made 
 use of some I'enuvrkable devices against their enemies. 
 One of these Maori engines of war was called a
 
 THE WAR-CHIEF AND HIS GODS 107 
 
 tawhiti, or trap. It was a sapling of some tough 
 and elastic timber, matipo for choice. When a 
 suitable one, about ten feet long or so, was found 
 growing in a likely position outside a pa or along- 
 side a bush-track by which the enemy were ex- 
 pected, it would be stripped of its branches, and 
 bent doAvn and back without breaking it, untU it 
 was lying in as near as possible a horizontal position, 
 so that it would sweep the road. The end was 
 fastened with flax in such a way that any unsus- 
 pecting person marching along the track or ap- 
 proaching the village and touching the trap. Mould 
 cause the flax to slip, and release the tawhiti. The 
 tree in its rebound could inflict a terrible blow. 
 
 In 1866 Bent saw ten or twelve of these tawhiti 
 set on the tracks just outside Te Popoia, a small pa 
 near Keteonetea. The place was attacked by the 
 Government forces in the night, and in the darkness 
 several of the Ku papas, or Government Maoris, 
 who formed the advance guard, were injured by the 
 unexpected release and rebound of these savage 
 traps.* 
 
 * Compare this with the ingenious form of " spring-gun " 
 which an EngUsh exploring expedition found in use in 1910 
 amongst the Negrito pigmies on the slopes of the Snow Moun- 
 tains, in New Guinea. This spring-gun is made by setting 
 a flattened bamboo spear against a laent sapling, fastened to a 
 ti'igger in such a way that it is released by the passer-by stiunbling 
 against an invisible string stretched across a game-track. These 
 hardened bamboo spears inflict serious wounds, as they are 
 launched with consideraljlo force.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE BEAK-OF-THE-BIRD 
 
 The stockade at To Xgiitu-o-te-Manii — In the Wharc- 
 kura — Singular Hauhaii war-rites — Tlie " 'J'wehc Apostles " 
 — The enchanted tainha — Tlie heart of the pakeha : a human 
 Ijurnt-offering — An ambuscade and a cannibal feast. 
 
 Early in 1868 " Ringiringi " and his Hauliau com- 
 rades took up their quarters in the stockaded village 
 of Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu ("The Beak-of-the-Bird "), 
 soon to be the scene of the sharpest action of the 
 war. This settlement was deep in the rata forest, 
 about ten miles from where the town of HaA\era 
 now stands, in the direction of Mount Egmont. 
 Out on the fern-lands on the edge of the bush were 
 the European redoubts of Waihi and Turuturu- 
 Mokai ; the smaller of these, Turuturu, was singled 
 out by Titokowaru as a position wliich could ap- 
 parently be easily stormed ; he therefore laid his 
 plans to attack it, and gathered in his best fighting- 
 men in the forest-fort. 
 
 Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu was now the headquarters 
 of tlie Ngati-Ruanui and Nga-Ruahine belligerents, 
 and all hands were set to work to fortify the village 
 
 108
 
 "THE BEAK-OF-THE-BIRD " 109 
 
 and to gather in food-supplies for the hapus who 
 crowded the " Bird's-Beak " pa. The front of the 
 village faced a cleared stretch of fern-land, but the 
 forest surrounded it on the other sides ; at the rear 
 ran a little creek. There were no trenches or earth- 
 parapets ; the principal defences were stout pali- 
 sades, solid tree-trunks and split timber, eight to 
 ten feet high, sunk firmly in the ground, and con- 
 nected by cross-ties of saplings, fastened to the posts 
 with forest vines. Close to the palisades were some 
 great ?'ato-trees, very ancient and hollow ; several 
 of these the Hauhaus converted into miniature re- 
 doubts. Some of the hollow trees Avere cunningly 
 loopholed for rifle-fire, and within them stagings 
 were made for the musketeers ; rough stages, too, 
 were constructed up among the rata branches, where 
 the dense foliage and the interlacing boughs formed 
 a perfect shelter for the brown-skinned snipers. 
 One of the tree-platforms, just inside the pa walls, 
 was used as a taumaihi, or look-out tower. 
 
 At one end of the village was the large Hauhau 
 meeting-hall and praying-house called Whare-kura 
 ("House of Learning," or "Red-painted House"), 
 after the olden Maori sacred lodges of priestly instruc- 
 tion. This building, built of sawn timber in semi- 
 European style, was about seventy feet in length. 
 It was erected by Titokowaru's working-party in 
 six days — in obedience to the Scriptural command 
 " Six days shalt thou labour " ; they finished it on
 
 no THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 the sixtli day, and religiously rested on the seventh 
 — and for many days thereafter. The Whare-kura 
 was consecrated by Titokowaru in the ancient 
 heathen fashion ; it was the temple of the Hauhau 
 ritual, and here the high chief assembled his men 
 when he wished to select war-parties for assaults 
 and ambuscades. At the rear end of the great 
 house was his sacred seat and sleeping-place, laid 
 with finely woven flax mats and hedged by the 
 invisible but potent barriers of tajpu. 
 
 As often happened in Maori warfare, the first 
 intimation the Hauhaus gave of their intention to 
 rencAv the fighting was the murder of two or three 
 incautious pakehas on the frontier. 
 
 Titokowaru's war-parties despatched on special 
 missions usually numbered sixty men. Though 
 consisting of this number they were termed the 
 Tekau-ma-rua, or " The Twelve." 
 
 This term, though applied to the ^\'hole war-party, 
 really belonged to the first twelve men, the advance- 
 guard, who were usually the most daring and active 
 warriors of all, but who had been selected in a peculiar 
 manner which will be described. These t^^ elve were 
 ta2ou, and were all tino toa — tried and practised 
 fighting-men. They numbered twelve because of 
 the mystic force or prestige supposed to attach to 
 that number. Titokowaru and all his Hauhaus 
 were students of tlie pakeha Scriptures — Titokowaru 
 mIicu a young man liad been a ])U|)il in a mission
 
 " THE BEAK-OF-THE-BIRD " 111 
 
 school — and " The Twelve " were so named and 
 numbered for several reasons : one was that there 
 were tAvelve Apostles in the Bible ; and another 
 that there Avere the twelve sons of Jacob ; then, also, 
 there were twelve months in the year. Clearly to 
 the Maori mind there was much virtue in twelve. 
 In Maori belief none of the Tekau-ma-rua proper 
 could be touched by a bullet in a fight if they but 
 obeyed the instructions of Titokowaru. 
 
 Singular heathen ceremonies were practised in 
 the selection of these war-parties. The spirit of 
 ancient Maoridom was but slightly leavened by 
 pakeha innovations and missionary teachings ; and 
 the savage gods of old New Zealand took fresh grip 
 on the hearts of these never-tamed forest-men. 
 
 " Ringiringi " on several occasions witnessed the 
 rites of the Whare-kura what time the one-eyed 
 general picked out the soldiers of the Tekau-7na-rua. 
 
 On the day before an armed expedition was to 
 set forth from " The Beak-of-the-Bird," Titokowaru 
 summoned the people by walking up and down 
 outside his great tvhare chanting a song which 
 began : 
 
 Tenet hoki an 
 Ki te Ngutu-o-te-Manu.'''' 
 
 (" Here am 1 
 
 In tlie Beak of tlie liinl.") 
 
 Then the people would all file into the sacred house 
 and seat themselves on the mat-covered floor, the
 
 112 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 figliting-inen of the pa in front. The war-chief took 
 his seat cross-legged on his sacred mat that was 
 spread on an elevated stage at the rear of the Whare- 
 kwa, with a short rail in front ; this dais was tapn 
 to him. The men all chanted together a wild haka 
 song, and then sat silent as death, waiting the will 
 of Titoko's war-god and the divination-by-tow//«. 
 
 The chief stood, grim and stern, facing his people, 
 his sacred carved hardwood taiaha, called " Te 
 Porohanga," in his hand. His wild eyes glittered 
 as he recited in quick sharp tones his invocation of 
 the war-god Uenuku and the battle-spirit breathed 
 on the wings of the whakarua breeze. Then, balanc- 
 ing his long plumed weapon in a horizontal position 
 on his thumb and forefinger, the tongue-shaped point 
 directed at the warriors, he stood stiff and motionless 
 as in a trance. He was awaiting the message of his 
 atua, the guiding-breath of Uenuku. 
 
 Suddenly, apparently of its own volition, and 
 without any visible movement or effort on the part 
 of the chief, the weapon would move. It \\ould 
 slowly, slowly turn^ — watched A\itli intense, breath- 
 less earnestness by hundreds of fanatic eyes— until 
 its tongue pointed so as to indicate some particular 
 man. Ha ! 'Twas the breatli of Uenuku, deity 
 of blood and fire, that gave it its impulse ; Titoko 
 was but the medium of the gods ! 
 
 The warrior indicated would be questionefl by 
 the war-chief, and asked wlidlici' liis "hciiit was
 
 ■TH1<: IJKAK-OF-THE-BIRD " 115 
 
 strong " within him. If liis answ er were deemed 
 satisfactory, he would be told off as one of the 
 Tekau-ma-rua, the sanctified advance-guard. 
 
 Again and again this strange method of divination 
 was repeated, the balanced weapon indicating- — to 
 the perfect satisfaction of the superstitious Hauhaus 
 — the men whom the Maori war-god desired as the 
 instruments of vengeance on the whites. Name 
 after name the priest and chief pronounced, as his 
 taiaha pointed along the squatting ranks, until the 
 tale of bare-legged warriors was complete. 
 
 Then, when the taua, or war-party, had filled 
 their cartridge-belts and seen to their weapons, 
 there was a ceremony of a livelier sort. The women 
 and girls of the pa attired themselves in their waist 
 piuphi of coloured flax, decked their hair with 
 feathers, dabbed ochre-paint on their cheeks, and 
 lined up on the marae for the poi-dd^nce, to send the 
 warriors off " in good heart," as the Maori has it. 
 Hakas, too, were danced by the men and boys of the 
 village, and the merry poi-aongs and the loudly 
 yelled war-chants put a brisker jig into the feet of 
 the brown soldiers as they marched out of the 
 settlement and struck into the forest, hunting for 
 pakeJias. 
 
 As the men of the Tekau-ma-rua left the stockade, 
 Titokowaru himself would loudly farewell them, 
 shouting in his teii'il)le gruflf voice the ferocious 
 injunction :
 
 llfi TUK ADVRNTURKS OF KTMBLE BV.WV 
 
 " Fatuu, kaimja ! Palua, kainga ! E kai nuiti ! 
 Katia e tukua kia haere ! Kia mau ki tou ringa.''^ 
 (" Kill them ! Eat them ! Kill them ! Eat them ! 
 Let them not escape ! Hold them fast in your 
 hands.") 
 
 Should the Tekau-7na-rua meet with success in 
 theii" murderous raids, it was usual for the leader 
 of the party to chant in a loud voice, as the home- 
 palisades were neared, a song beginning, " Tenei te 
 mea kei te mou ki tokn ringa,^'' meaning that he had 
 in his hand a portion of the flesh of a slain pakeha. 
 This was called the maice ; it A\as an offering to the 
 f';od of war. The mawe was almost invariably a 
 human heart, torn from the body of the first man 
 of the enemy killed in the fight. 
 
 On tw o or three occasions Kimble Bent witnessed 
 the ceremony of the offering of the mawe, the ancient 
 rite of the Wliangai-hau. The heart (manawa) or 
 other piece of human flesh, was brought into the 
 marae and given to a man named Tihirua, who was 
 the priest of the burnt sacrifice. He w'as a young 
 man about twenty-five years of age, belonging to 
 the Ngati-Maru tribe, of the Upper Waitara. " He 
 would take the heart in his hand," says Bent, " and 
 strike a match, or take a firestick and singe the flesh. 
 When it was slightly scorched he would throA\' it 
 away ; it was tapu to Uenuku. This was an ancient 
 war-custom of the Maoiis ; Tilokowaru adopted 
 it Ix'caiisc he believed it \\(MiI(I cause the jxike/ias
 
 " ^IH K BEAK-OF-THE-BIRJ) " 117 
 
 to lo8C strength and courage, and become unnerved 
 ill time of battle. After the fight at Papa-tihake- 
 hake, in 1868, I saw this man Tihirua cut a white 
 man's body open outside the viarae, tear out the 
 bleeding heart, hold lighted matches underneath 
 it until it was singed, and then throw it away." * 
 
 A more frightful scene still that the sun looked 
 down upon in that forest den was a cannibal feast. 
 On June 12, 1868, a party of about fifteen Hauhaus 
 from, the pa, prowling out in the direction of the 
 Waihi redoubt, cut off and shot and tomahawked 
 a trooper of the Armed Constabulary, a man named 
 Smith, who had incautiously ventured out to look 
 for his horse beyond rifle-range of the redoubt. 
 An Armed Constabulary officer, who happened to 
 be walking across the parade ground at the time, 
 heard and saw the firing, and with his field-glasses 
 distinctly saw the flashing of the tomahawks as the 
 Hauhaus cut the man to pieces An armed party w as 
 immediately sent out at the double, but all they 
 found when they reached the spot was half the body ! 
 The legs and hips were lying on the trampled and 
 blood-drenched ground amongst the fern ; the head 
 and the upper part of the body doAvn to the waist 
 had been carried off by the savages, w^ho had 
 vanished into the forest as quickly as they had 
 come. The remains of the poor trooper were cooked 
 and eaten by the people in Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu, 
 
 * Tihiiua died at Oliangai, near Hawera, iji 11)07.
 
 US THK Al)Vb:NTURI^:S OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 after the heart liad been offered to Titokowaru's 
 god of war by the young priest Tilriiiia. 
 
 Titokowaru, according to Bent, did not eat liiiiiian 
 flesh himself, but a boastful letter sent by him a few 
 days later to a Y>\\i\.o-pakeha chief at Mawhitiwhiti, 
 seems to indicate that he was a cannibal of the most 
 ferocious sort, unless, as is quite possible, he was 
 speaking of his people generally when he used the 
 first person singular. In this letter, addressed to 
 Puano, and dated " Whare-kura, June 25, 1868," he 
 wrote this emphatic warning : 
 
 " Cease travelling on the roads, cease entirely 
 travelling on the roads that lead to Mangamanga 
 (Camp Wailii), lest ye be left upon the roads as food 
 for the bii'ds of the air and for the beasts of the field, 
 or for me. Because I have eaten the M^hite man ; 
 he was cooked like a piece of beef in the pot. I have 
 begun to eat human flesh, and my throat is con- 
 tinually open for the flesh of man. Kua hamama 
 to7iu toku korokoro ki te kai i te tafigata. I shall not 
 die, I shall not die. When death itself shall be dead, 
 I shall be alive {Ka mate ano te mate, ka ora ano 
 ahau). — From Titoko."
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE ATTACK ON TURUTURU-MOKAI REDOUBT 
 
 Hauwliemia's war-jjarty — A niglit march — Attack on Turu- 
 turu-Mokai Redoubt — A lieroic defence — The heart of the 
 captain — Tovich-and-go — Rehef at last. 
 
 One biting cold evening in July, 1868, the whole 
 population of the " Bird's-Beak " fa gathered on 
 the marae to watch the departure of a fighting- 
 column launched by Titokowaru against the whites. 
 It was a night fitter for the snug ivhare than for 
 the war-path, but the omens were propitious for 
 the expedition, and the war-god's sacred breeze, the 
 whakarua, breathed of Uenuku, blew across the 
 forest. 
 
 The sixty warriors of the Tekau-ma-rua took the 
 trail with the lUt of the dance-girls' poi-ohs^nt in 
 their ears, and the war-choruses yelled by their 
 comrades in the village gritted theu" batUe-spu'it. 
 They vcqyq fittingly and thickly tajm'cl for the night's 
 work, karakia'd over with many liardening and 
 bullet-averting karakias, and thoroughly Hauhau- 
 bedevilled for the fight. 
 
 110
 
 120 THE ADVEN^J^URES OF Kl.MBLlO BIONT 
 
 Some of the warriors, belted and painted, carried 
 long Enfield muzzle-loaders, some double-barrelled 
 guns, some stolen or captured carbines, and a variety 
 of other fire-arms. Each rifleman's equipment in- 
 cluded a short tomahawk thrust through his flax 
 girdle ; a few — the storming-party — were armed 
 with long-handled tomahawks, murderously effective 
 weapons in a hand-to-hand combat. Though a 
 Avinter's night, most of them were scantily clad, as 
 befitted a war-party. Some wore shirts and other 
 part-European dress ; some only flax mats and 
 waist-shawls. 
 
 Up and down the village square, as the Hauhau 
 captain, Hauwhenua, led his band out into the 
 forest, strode Titokowaru, in a blaze of fanatic 
 exaltation, crying his commands to the ^\'arriors. 
 Waving his plumed taiaha, he shouted, " Kill them ! 
 Eat them ! Let them not escape you ! " And as 
 they disappeared in the darkness he returned to 
 his place in the great council-house, where on his 
 sacred mat he spent the night in connnune w ith his 
 ancestral spirits and in reciting incantations for the 
 success of his men-at-arms. 
 
 In single file the Hauhau soldiers struck into the 
 black woods. As they entered the deeper thick- 
 nesses of the forest, where not a star could be seen 
 for the density and unbroken continuity of the 
 roof of foliage above them, they chanted this brief 
 karakia, a charm invoking supernatural aid to clear
 
 THE ATTACK ON TURUTURU-MOKAI liM 
 
 tlieii- t'orcst-path of obstructions and smooth tlicii' 
 A\ ay : 
 
 " \\'<(l>i /(intldid c — •/, 
 il/c tuku k'i tc Ariki 
 Kiel taoro atu c — i, 
 N<ja jmkepukc i noa.'' 
 
 Away through tlie bush they tramped, lightening 
 the march with Hauhau chants, until their objective 
 \\as neared — the little redoubt of Turuturu-Mokai. 
 
 One \Aord of ^^arning Titokowaru had given the 
 Tekau-ma-rua when he chose them for this expedi- 
 tion. Kimble Bent, squatting with his fellows in 
 the big house, had watched the divination-by- 
 taiaJm and the demon-like red tongue of the high 
 priest's sacred weapon turning now to one silent 
 warrior, now to another. He heard Titokowaru's 
 injunction to the chosen of the war-god : 
 
 " Kami e haere ki te kuivaha o te pa ; kei reira 
 te raiana e tu ana ! Ka pokanoa koutou, ka ngaua te 
 raiana ia koutou!'''' ("Do not charge at the gate 
 way of the fort ; there stands the lion ! Should you 
 disregard this command, the lion will devour you ! ") 
 
 This caution was designed to restrain the more 
 impetuous of the young warriors, for Titokowaru 
 was a crafty general, and did not believe in wasting 
 good fighting-men. He had learned by dear ex- 
 perience at Sentry Hill in 1864 that to dash straight 
 and blindly at the foe, though valiant enough, ^^'as 
 not alw^ays sound tactics.
 
 122 1^HE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 The leader of the taua, old Hauwhenua, mu.st have 
 been nearly seventy, but he was as active and agile 
 and keen-witted as any young man of his fighting 
 band. He was a product of the ferotdous old can- 
 nibal times when every tribe's hand was against its 
 neighbour's, and when year after year Waikato 
 armies besieged the stockaded holds of Taranaki. 
 In person he was not the ideal of a Maori warrior, 
 for he was short of stature, a stoutly built man, with 
 short grey beard and no tattoo-marks on his face. 
 But he had fought against Maoris and against 
 whites for many years of his life, and no war-captain 
 surpassed him in the many stratagems of bush- 
 warfare, and particularly in the artful laying of 
 ambuscades. 
 
 Marching with the savages of the Tekau-ma-rua 
 was the white man — Charles Kane, or King, called 
 by the Maoris " Kingi," the deserter from the 18th 
 Royal Irish. He was armed with a gun, intending 
 to assist his Hauhau friends in theu- attack on his 
 fellow- whites. Kimble Bent, it was 'reported after- 
 wards in the pakeha camps, also accompanied the 
 warriors, but he denies this, asserting that he did 
 not stir from the pa all night ; this is confirmed 
 by the Maoris. "Kingi," he says, was a fiercely 
 vindictive man, and swore to have a shot at the 
 white men from whom he had cut himself off 
 for ever. 
 
 Emerging from the forest, the warriors stole
 
 THE ATTACK ON TURUTURU-MOKAl 12.3 
 
 quietly doMii over the fern-slopes, and crossing the 
 Tawhiti creek, which wound dowji through a valley 
 close to the present towji of Hawera, they worked 
 round to the front of the little parapeted fort that 
 stood in a singularly unstrategic position on a gently 
 rising hillside, close to the celebrated ancient 'pa, 
 Turuturu-Mokai. Hauwhenua passed round the 
 word to hide in the fern and remain in cover there 
 as close up to the redoubt as possible, until he yelled 
 the " Kokiri ! " cry — the signal for the charge. 
 
 The Turuturu-Mokai redoubt was but a tiny work, 
 so small that the officer in charge, Captain Ross, 
 had to live in a raupo hut built outside the walls. 
 The entrenchment, consisting of earth-parapet and 
 a surrounding trench, was being strengthened by 
 its garrison of twenty-five Armed Constabulary, and 
 the work was not quite finished when the Maori 
 attack was delivered. 
 
 The night dragged on too slowly for the impatient 
 and shivering warriors. Some wished to rush the 
 white men's pa at once, but Hauwhenua and his 
 sub-chiefs forbade it till there was a little more 
 light. Several of the younger men began to crawl 
 up through the fern towards the wall of the little 
 fort. The form of a solitary sentry was seen, 
 pacing up and down outside the walls. He could 
 easily have been shot, but the Hauhaus waited. 
 
 The sentry was relieved at five o'clock in the morn- 
 ing. The new sentinel was not left in peace very
 
 124 THE ADVENT UHEtS OF KlMliLE JiEiNT 
 
 long. Five miiiiites after he went on duty, while he 
 was walking smartly up and down to keep warm, he 
 heard a suspicious rustle in the fern. He stopped 
 and peered into the dimness. Yes, he couhlirt l)e 
 wrong ; those dark forms crawling towards him 
 through the fern were Maoris ! He raised his carbine 
 and fired, then turned and raced for the redoubt, 
 shouting out, " Stand to your arms, boys ! " 
 
 The darkness — it was not yet dawn — was instantly 
 lit up by the blaze of a return volley, and, with a 
 fearful yell, the host of half-naked Maoris leaped 
 from the fern and rushed for the redoubt. 
 
 The white soldiers, roused by the firing, rushed 
 from their tents and manned the parapets and angles 
 of the work, so furiously assailed by the swarming 
 forest-men. 
 
 Captain Ross had leaped from his sleeping-place 
 at the first alarm. He ran out from his ivhare, 
 armed with his sword and revolver, and clothed 
 only in his shii't. He just managed to cross the 
 ditch by the narrow plank-bridge ahead of the 
 enemy, who missed the plank in the darkness. 
 
 The captain quicldy called for volunteers to de- 
 fend the gate. 
 
 " I'll make one, sir ! " cried Michael Gill, an old 
 Imperial soldier. 
 
 "All right. Gill," said the captain ; it was pitch 
 dark, but he knew Gill's voice. " Any more ? " 
 
 Yes ; they rushed for the gate — Henry McLean,
 
 THE ATTACK ON TURUTURU-MOKAT 125 
 
 George Tulliii, !S\\ ords, Gayiior, and (Jill. The others 
 manned the two flanking angles. 
 
 Private George Tuffin, one of the garrison — who is 
 stUl alive, in Wanganiii — was up Avith the others 
 at the first alarm. He fired his revolver into the 
 mass of Maoris outside the gateway ; then, dropping 
 tlie revolver, he got to Avork with his carbine. He 
 had fired one shot out of his carbine, and stooped 
 under the shelter of the parapet to slip in another 
 cartridge. Just as he was rising to fire again he 
 was struck in the head by a Maori bullet, and fell 
 to the ground unconscious. He could not have 
 been in that condition very long, for Avhen he came 
 to, Captain Ross Mas still alive and fighting to keep 
 the Maoris out of the gateway. 
 
 " Hello, old man ! " cried the captain ; "are you 
 hit ? " 
 
 Young Tuffin lay there, unable to reply. 
 
 " Where's your rifle ? " asked the captain ; he 
 was reloading his revolver while he spoke. 
 
 Tuffin pointed to where his gun was lying on the 
 muddy ground beside him. 
 
 " Come on, boys ! " yelled the captain ; " they're 
 coming in at the gate ! " 
 
 Those were the last words Tuffin heard his com- 
 manding officer utter. A few moments later, in 
 that fearful confusion of attack and defence in the 
 darkness, the gallant Ross was struck down, de- 
 fending the gateway to the end with liis sword.
 
 12G THE ADVENTURK8 OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 A liauhau eliarged right into the redoubt, and 
 killed the captain with his long-handled tomahawk 
 Making a clean cut in his breast, he tore out the 
 heart, a trophy for the terrible ceremony of the 
 maive offering. Then he darted back as quickly 
 as he had come, yelling a frightful cry of triumph. 
 And another heart was torn from a white man's 
 body even before it had ceased to beat. This was 
 the corpse of Lennon, the keeper of the store and 
 canteen. He had been killed alongside his little 
 hut, just outside the redoubt, when the fight began. 
 He was tomahawked almost to pieces and his heart 
 cut out. 
 
 And in the very midst of that battle in the dark 
 the pagan ceremony of the whangai-liau was per- 
 formed, the oblation to the god of war. The priest 
 of the war-party offered up one of the paheha hearts 
 ■ — some Maoris say it was Captain Ross's, althougli 
 Lennon's would really be the heart of the mata-ika, 
 the "first-fish" slain, which was usually the one 
 offered to the gods. The savage tohunga lit a match 
 (he carried pakeha matches for this dreadful purpose)^ 
 and held the bleeding heart over the flame. Im- 
 mediately it began to sizzle and smoke, he cried in 
 an exultant voice, " Kei au a Tu ! " ( " I have Tu ! "), 
 meaning that Tu, the supreme god of war, was with 
 him, or on his side. Then he threw down the burnt 
 sacrifice, and, clutching his long-handled tomahawk, 
 rushed into the figlit again. Tlu' captain's heart
 
 THE ATTACK ON TURUTURU-MOKAl 127 
 
 was difscovcrccl after Ihc light was over lying on ilio 
 blood-stained ground outside the trench. 
 
 For two hours it was desperate work. The Hau- 
 haus charged up to the parapets, and many of them 
 jumj^ed into the ditch, whence they attempted to 
 swarm over the walls, but were beaten off again and 
 again by the little garrison. The endeavour to 
 rush in force through the gateway of the redoubt 
 did not succeed. The impulsive young men, how- 
 ever, disregarded Titokowaru's warning about the 
 "lion " in the path, and it was in this tomahawk 
 charge at the fort gate that most of those who Avere 
 killed fell. 
 
 After the captain's death Gill and McLean took 
 up their posts in one of the angles, and fought there 
 till daylight. Theii" Terry carbines gave them a 
 good deal of trouble. After a few rounds had been 
 fired the breech-blocks jammed, and were difficult 
 to open and close. 
 
 Unfortunately, all hands did not show equal 
 bravery. At least four — Michael Gill says five — 
 men bolted for the redoubt, some of them jumping 
 from the parapet, soon after the fight began. Gill 
 called to them to stop and help to protect the 
 Avounded. But they fled and left their comrades. 
 
 One of the pluckiest men in the redoubt was 
 Cosslett Johnston (now of HaAvera), a military 
 settler. Mr. Johnston's intrepid example put fresh 
 coMiagc into his desj)airing comiades on that terrible
 
 12S THE ADVENTURES OF KTMBLE BENT 
 
 morning. Michael Cill was an old Imperial soldier ; 
 he had served in the 57th Regiment, the old " Die- 
 hards " — Kimble Bent's regiment — and his coolness 
 did a lot to steady his fellow-soldiers. Gill was re- 
 commended for the Victoria Cross for his bravery, 
 but did not get it. He, like his comrades, certainly 
 deserved that decoration or the New Zealand Cross, 
 but did not get either. 
 
 When the Captain fell, Tuffin crawled, more than 
 half-dazed with his wound, to one of the angles. 
 There he received four more bullet A\ounds. In the 
 angle there were five other men ; of these two were 
 killed. 
 
 Failing in their first attempt to take the redoubt 
 by assault, some of the Hauhaus took post on the 
 rising ground a little distance off, where they could 
 fire into the work, and one after another the defenders 
 dropped, shot dead or badly mounded. The ditch 
 was full of Maoris. Only the narrow parapet 
 separated them from the whites, and they yelled 
 at the defenders and shouted all the English " swear- 
 words " in their vocabulary. The pakehas '' talked 
 back " at them, says one of the few survivors of 
 the heroic garrison, and cried "Look out! The 
 cavalry are coming ! " })ut the Hauhaus only laughed 
 and said, " Gammon, pakeha — gammon ! " Then, 
 finding that any Maori who showed his head 
 above the parapets was quickly shot down, they 
 started to dig away at tlic wall witli llicii' toma-
 
 THE ATTACK ON TURUTURU-MOKAI 129 
 
 hawks, and succeeded in undermining the parapet 
 in several places. By this time half the garrison 
 had been shot down. One of the first killed was 
 Corporal Blake, who fell in one of the angles. Private 
 Shields, the captain's orderly, wan killed in one of 
 the angles ; Private George Holden was shot dead 
 behind the parapet ; Gay nor Avas killed at the gate. 
 Then Sergeant McFadden fell while bravely helping 
 to hold an angle against the swarming enemy. 
 
 Private Alexander Beamish, who fell mortally 
 wounded while helping to defend an angle of the 
 fort, told his brother, John Beamish (now a resident 
 of Patea), who was fighting by his side, just before 
 he died, that he believed it was a white man who 
 shot him. Bent says that the deserter Kane, Avhile 
 taking part in the attack, was wounded in the right 
 cheek by a pakehoj bullet, and then retired from 
 the fight. John Beamish was struck by an Enfield 
 bullet and severely wounded about the time his 
 brother was shot, but though then unable to shoulder 
 his carbine, he opened packets of ammunition and 
 passed cartridges to Gill, the only unwounded man 
 in his angle of the redoubt, untU the end of the 
 combat. 
 
 Here is John Beamish's story of the fight, as he 
 told it to me some years back : 
 
 " The Maoris surrounded the redoubt and tried 
 again and again to swarm over the wall, and they 
 kept it up till broad daylight. We could not see 
 9
 
 I.'JO ^rHE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 iniicli at first but the flasliing of guns all around us. 
 Presently some of the Maoris set fire to the whnres 
 outside the redoubt. They were armed with muzzle- 
 loading Enfields and shot-guns, and we could now 
 and then see the ramrods going up and down as they 
 rammed the charges home. Then sometimes we 
 would see the flash (A a tomahawk and catch a 
 glimpse of a black head above the parapets. One 
 of our troubles was that there \Aere no loopholes in 
 the parapets, otherwise ^\'e could have shot many 
 of the Maoris in the ditch. We were exposed to 
 the fii'e of the enemy on the rising ground close by, 
 and this was how so many of the men in our angle 
 were hit. 
 
 " Then they started to dig and cut away at the 
 parapets Avith thek tomahawks. We could plainly 
 hear them at this work, and I heard one Maori ask 
 another for a match. I suppose he wanted to try 
 and fire our buildings inside the walls. One after 
 another our men dropped, shot dead or badly 
 wounded. I had very little hope of ever getting out 
 of the place alive. But we well knew what our fate 
 would be if the Maoris once got over the parapets, 
 so we just put our hearts into it and kept blazing 
 away as fast as we could load. We had breech- 
 loading carbines which had to be capped. One in- 
 cident I remember was a black head just appearing 
 over the parapet in the grey light, then came a body 
 with a bare arm gripping a long-handled tomahawk.
 
 THE ATTACK ON TURUTURU-MOKAI 131 
 
 Quietly the Hauhau raised himself up, and was just 
 in the act of aiming a blow at one of our men who 
 did not see him when we fired and brought him 
 down. 
 
 " My younger brother was fighting not far from 
 me. He fell mortally wounded, and before he died 
 he told us he believed it was a white man who shot 
 him. I was wounded about the same time. An 
 Enfield bullet struck me in the left shoulder. It 
 took me with a tremendous shock, just as I was 
 stooping down across a dead man to get some dry 
 ammunition. The bullet slanted down past my 
 shoulder-blade and came out at the back. This 
 incapacitated me from firing, or, at any rate, from 
 taking aim, so I had to content myself with passing 
 cartridges to Michael Gill — one of the men in my 
 angle — who kept steadily firing away, and A\ith 
 levelling my unloaded carbine as well as I could 
 with my right hand whenever I saw a head bob up 
 above the parapet. When the fight ended Gill was 
 the only unwounded man in our angle of the redoubt ; 
 out of the six who manned it when the alarm was 
 given, three were shot dead and two were wounded. 
 One man, George Tuffin, was wounded in five places. 
 " Daylight came, and those of us who could 
 shoulder a carbine were still firing away and won- 
 dering whether help would ever reach us. We knew 
 they must have heard the firing and seen the flashes 
 of the guns at Waihi redoubt, only three miles away.
 
 132 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 Suddenly the Maoris ceased firing and retired into 
 the bush. Their sentries had given them warning 
 that troops were coming. As they dropped back 
 we rushed out of the redoubt and gave them the 
 last shot, and then Von Tempsky and his A.C.'s 
 arrived at the double, and the fight was over. My 
 wound kept me in the hospital for five months. 
 The only wonder is that any of us ever came out of 
 that redoubt alive." 
 
 The sun had risen before the fight A\as over. A 
 few minutes more and the Hauhaus ^\■oldd have 
 succeeded in undermining the parapets sufficiently 
 to force an entrance, and the defenders Mould have 
 fallen to the last man, and the whole of theii* arms 
 and the post-supplies have been carried off to Tito- 
 kowaru's fort in the forest. 
 
 The little redoubt was a frightful sight. Dead 
 and wounded men A\ere lying all over the place 
 in pools of blood ; two of them were shockingly 
 mutilated with tomahawks. Out of the twenty-one 
 defenders of the redoubt, ten were killed and five 
 were wounded ; only six came through the fight 
 without a wound. 
 
 Hauwhenua withdrew his disappointed Tekau- 
 ma-rua, carrying those of their wounded who were 
 unable to walk, and marched back to Te Ngutu- 
 o-te-Manu. The " lion " of Titoko's speech, though 
 sore wounded, had in truth closed his mouth on 
 some of their most daring braves. Takitaki, a
 
 THE ATTACK ON TURUTURU MOKAI 133 
 
 bold, athletic young Hauliau, who was in the Tekau- 
 ma-rua, was one of those who attacked Captain 
 Ross at the gateway. The Captain shattered Taki- 
 taki's left arm with a bullet from his revolver before 
 he fell.* 
 
 * Of this Hauliau Colonel W. E. Gudgeon wrote in the 
 Polynesian Society's Journal, No. 59 (Sept. 1906) : " Had there 
 been but ten men of the stamp of Takitaki the redoubt must 
 have been taken ; but luckily there were not, and therefore a 
 mere handful of men held the redoubt to the end."
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE KILLING OF KANE 
 
 Bent and Kane brought before Titokowaru — Kane's flight — 
 Captured by tlie Hauhaus — A traitor's end. 
 
 When the renegade Charles Kane, or "' Kingi," 
 fled from the Tunituru-Mokai fight after receiving 
 his bullet-wound, he made his way to the Turanga- 
 rere village, and announced that he would not 
 return to Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu. The Maoris, how- 
 ever, took him back to Te Ngutu, and he and Kimble 
 Bent were brought befoie Titokowaru, who was 
 sitting in the Whare-kurn. Bent now appears, from 
 his own account, to have wearied of his terrible life 
 amongst the Hauhaus. 
 
 The war-chief fiercely questioned "Kingi," whom 
 he suspected of an intention to return to the 
 European camps. 
 
 Then turning to " Ringiringi," he said : 
 
 " E Ringi, speak ! Do you ever think of leaving 
 us and running away to the pakehas ? " 
 
 Bent confessed that he now desii'cd to return to 
 the men of his own colour, adding " But I will 
 never take arms against you." 
 
 134
 
 THE KILLING OF KANE L35 
 
 TitokoMarii glared at his Avhite man, then he went 
 to the door of the council-house and called to the 
 people in the marae to enter. 
 
 When they were all in the big ivhare, Titokowaru 
 ordered them to close the door and the sliding- 
 windoA\'. 
 
 In the gloom of the praying-house the people 
 sat in terrible silence, and the white men trembled 
 for their heads. 
 
 Titokowaru, fearfully stern and menacing, ad- 
 dressed the pakehas. 
 
 " Whakarongo mai ! Listen to me. If you per- 
 sist in saying that you wish to returii to the white 
 men, it will be your death ! I will kill you both 
 with my tomahawk, now, in this house, unless you 
 promise that you will never leave the Maoris ! I 
 wiU slay you, and your bodies will be cooked in the 
 hangi ! " 
 
 " Ringiringi," in real fear of his life, made answer 
 that he would remain with the Hauhaus if Titoko 
 would protect him, for he dreaded some of the chief's 
 fiercer followers. " Kingi," too, hastened to give 
 the requii'ed promise — a promise which he, unlike 
 his ieMow-pakeha, broke at the first opportunity. 
 
 When the peoj)le had left the Whare-kura, Titoko 
 spoke to " Ringiringi " in a more friendly and re- 
 assuring tone, saying that he wished the pakeha to 
 remain with him in the pa, and that, in order to 
 assure his life against the \rildbr spii'its in the tribes
 
 136 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 gathered under his command, he A\ould tapu him, 
 as Te Ua had done two years before. For his tapu, 
 he explained, was a far more effective and binding 
 one than that of the Opunake prophet ; a spell that 
 no man dared break on pain of death. 
 
 Not many days later the Irish traitor " Kingi " 
 deserted from the j)a, taking with him a watch, a 
 revolver, and some clothing which he had " com- 
 mandeered " from the natives. 
 
 For some little time nothing was heard of him. 
 At length the warriors of the Tekau-ma-rua, while out 
 scouting one day in the direction of Turangarere? 
 discovered on the track leading to the settlement a 
 note addressed to the white soldiers' commander 
 at Waihi, stating that the writer (Kane) and Bent 
 were at Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu, awaiting a favourable 
 opportunity to tomahawk Titokowaru, cut off his 
 head, and bring it in to the Government camp. Kane 
 was evidently clearing the way for his return to 
 civilisation, and this note — which he had left in a 
 spot where he hoped the white troops would come 
 across it — was obviously intended to serve as a 
 palliative in some measure of his military offences. 
 
 The deserter's letter was brought to the " Bird's- 
 Beak " pa, where it was translated by an English- 
 speaking Maori. " Ringiringi," questioned, dis- 
 claimed any knowledge of it, and as to the in- 
 criminating reference to himself, he assured Titoko- 
 waru that " Kingi " was lying.
 
 THE KILLING OF KANE 137 
 
 Titokowarii immediately despatched the white 
 man and four armed Maoris after " Kingi." They 
 found him at Te Paka village ; he disappeared that 
 evening, but was later caught by a party of seven 
 Maoris and confined in a rauyo hut at Te Paka. 
 
 They killed him there that night. 
 
 Bent was lying half-asleep in a whare in the settle- 
 ment when the seven Maoris, who had brought 
 " Kingi " in, entered, in an intensely excited state, 
 sat down, and asked him if he had heard of the 
 judgment on his fellow- white. Then one of them 
 said, " Kingi is dead." 
 
 Another man, leaning forward until his passionate 
 face almost touched Bent's, exclaimed : 
 
 " Ringi, had you done as Kingi has done, we would 
 not have killed you in the ordinary way. Your 
 fate would have been burning alive in the oven on 
 the marae ! " 
 
 Then the seven, after a conversation between 
 themselves in a strange language the white man could 
 not understand, listen as he would — the Maoris some- 
 times improvise a secret tongue, by eliding certain 
 syllables in words and adding new ones— the exe- 
 cutioners rose and left the whare. 
 
 It was not until next day that " Ringiringi " 
 learned the details of the deserter's end. 
 
 " Kingi," after being given a meal, was left alone 
 in his hut, but was watched through crevices in 
 the wall until he sank to sleep, fatigued with his
 
 138 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 enforced tramp. He lay A\ith a blanket partly 
 drawn over his head. One of the Hauhaus, a man 
 named Patumutu ("' The Finishmg Stroke "), stole 
 quietly into the whare, and attempted to deal him 
 a fatal blow with a sharp bill-hook. The blow, 
 however, only gashed his nose, and he leaped up 
 and grappled with his assailant. 
 
 The Maoris outside, hearing the noise of the scuffle, 
 rushed in. An old man — Uru-anini of the Puketapu 
 — seized the white man by the leg, brought him 
 down, and dealt him a terrible blow with an axe 
 as he lay on the floor. 
 
 The other Hauhaus completed the work with 
 their tomahawks, and the dead body of the renegade 
 Irishman, cut almost to pieces, was dragged out 
 and thrown into a disused potato-pit on the out- 
 skirts of the village.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 ADVENTURES AT TE NGUTU-0-TE-MANU 
 
 In the midst of dangers — Bent stalked by Hauliaus — Old 
 Jacob to the rescue — " Come on if you dare ! " — The white 
 man's new Maori name — Government forces attack and burn 
 Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu — A new use for hand-grenades. 
 
 When Bent returned to the " Bird's-Beak " stockade 
 he found himself in a position of extreme peril. 
 
 The Hauhaus, excited by the news of Kane's 
 treachery and summary execution, were fiercely 
 hostile in demeanour, and some of the young bloods 
 came dancing about the white man, as he walked 
 into the village, with menacing shouts, emphasised 
 by savage thigh-slapping, pukana-ing, and grimacing 
 with out-thrust tongue and rolling eyes, and similar 
 demonstrations of derision and hatred. 
 
 A council of the people was held on the marae, 
 and the killing of Kane was narrated in minutest 
 and barbaric detail. Then several Hauhaus rose in 
 turn and demanded the death of " Ringiringi," on 
 the principle that all pakehas were unreliable, and 
 that it was a foolish policy to keep one in the camp 
 who might sooner or later betray them. " Let us 
 
 13i)
 
 Uo THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 lead him outside the jm and shoot him," proposed 
 one truculent young warrior of the Tekau-ma-rua. 
 
 " Kaati ! " cried Titokowaru, in his great roaring 
 voice, as he rose with his spear-staff in his hand. 
 " ' Ringiringi ' is my pakeha. I have tapu'd him, 
 and I have told him that his life is safe. If you 
 want to shoot him — well, you must kill me first ! " 
 
 Then, turning to the white man, the war-chief 
 took him by the hand, led him to his own house, 
 and shut the people out. He told " Ringhingi " 
 that in the present temper of the tribesmen he had 
 better remain as much as he could in the irhare, and 
 that, at any rate, he must not venture far from the 
 door unless he, Titoko, were with him or in view. 
 
 Some days later, " Ringii-ingi," imagining from 
 the more settled and pacific attitude of the Hauhaus 
 that he no longer ran any risk in taking his walks 
 abroad, wandered a short distance outside the 
 stockade into the forest, and, seating himself on a 
 fallen tree-trunk, filled his pipe for a quiet smoke. 
 Suddenly he heard a cough. He looked about l)ini, 
 but saw no one. 
 
 " Who's there ? " he called out. 
 
 A voice close above him icj)licd, " It is I — 
 Hakopa." 
 
 " Ringiringi " looked up quickly, and saw an old 
 tattooed man named Hako])a (Jacob) te Matauawa, 
 perched on the lowest branch of a rato-tree, with a 
 double-barrelled gun in his hand. Hakopa was a
 
 ADVENTURES AT TE NGUTU-0-TE-MANU 141 
 
 tall, lean, straight old fellow, a veteran of the ancient 
 fighting type. Bent had a thorough admiration 
 for him as a man of singular courage, without the 
 braggadocio of the young toas ; Hakopa had for a 
 long time exhibited a kindly leaning towards the 
 white man, and had been a firm friend of his all 
 through the troubled days in the pa. 
 
 " Quick, c^uick ! " he said, in a low, cautious voice. 
 " Hide yourself, Ringi ! When you walked out 
 of the pa I heard two men who were watching you 
 say that they would follow you up and kill you as 
 they had killed Kingi. They went to their whares 
 for their weapons, and I followed you quickly to 
 warn you. I saw you standing there, and climbed 
 on this branch to see what those men are doing. 
 E tama ! Conceal yourself ! They are coming." 
 
 The white man hastily selected a hiding-place. 
 He lay down behind a big log near by, a fallen 
 pukatea-tree ; the log and the creepers and ferns 
 that grew about it quite concealed him from the 
 view of any one approaching from the jm. 
 
 Hardly had he hidden himself than two villainous- 
 visaged young Hauhaus walked c^uickly along the 
 track from the pa gateway. Both swung toma- 
 hawks as they came, and one carried at his girdle 
 a revolver — trophy taken from some slain white 
 officer. 
 
 Seeing Hakopa descending from his tree-perch, 
 they stopped and asked :
 
 42 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE JM^:NT 
 
 " Where is the pakeka ? Did you see him pass ? " 
 
 " Why do you ask ? " said the old man. 
 
 " We have come to kill him," replied one of the 
 men. " Where is he ? " 
 
 Hakopa instantly put his cocked twpara to his 
 shoulder and levelled it at the foremost of the 
 Hauhaus, the man with the revolver. 
 
 " Haere atu ! " he said sharply. " Go ! Leave 
 this spot at once, or I will shoot you. ' Ringii-ingi ' 
 is my friend." 
 
 The old fellow's determined au- quite overawed 
 the pakeha-huntev^, and they sulkily and silently 
 returned to the pa. 
 
 Jacob watched them off, and when the white man 
 had risen from his hiding-place he escorted him 
 back to the ?ja, walking in front of him with his gun 
 cocked, on the alert for any attack on his protege. 
 He took " Ringu'ingi " to his house, and then re- 
 ported the affair to Titokowaru. 
 
 The chief showed genuine anger. He assembled 
 the fighting-men, and sternly ordered them to molest 
 the white man no more. " If you harm him," he 
 said, " I shall leave the pa and return to my own 
 village. Listen ! ' Ringu-ingi ' is henceforth my 
 moko-puna — my grandchild — and I now give him 
 another name, the name of one of my ancestors. 
 His name is now Tu-nui-a-moa." 
 
 And behind Titokowaru leaped up old Hakopa, 
 a bright tomahawk in his hand. Making sharp, quick
 
 ADVENTURES A1^ T K NGU1TT-0-TE-MAN U 14.'] 
 
 cuts in the air with liis tomahawk, he cried, as lie 
 danced to and fro : 
 
 " Yes, and if any one attempts to touch the wliite 
 man, he will have to kill me too ! Kill me and Tito- 
 kowaru ! Who will dare it ? Come on, come on ! " 
 
 Thereafter Bent was not molested. He went by 
 his new name, and " Ringiringi " he was called no 
 more; at any rate, not by Titokowaru's tribe. 
 
 The " Bird's-Beak " soon received its baptism of 
 blood and fire. Colonel McDonnell, with a force of 
 about three hundred Armed Constabulary and 
 volunteers, under Majors von Tempsky and Hunter, 
 attacked the pa on August 21, 1868. The whites 
 charged right into the village under a heavy fire, 
 and the Maoris fled to the bush, losing several killed. 
 
 Bent, fortunately for himself, was not in the jm ; 
 he had gone over to the Turangarere settlement, a 
 few miles away, to procure gunpowder and paper 
 for the manufacture of cartridges, and most of the 
 other men were out cattle-shooting in the bush. 
 Titokowaru retired to his praying-house when the 
 firing began, and sat there muttering incantations, 
 and it was only with great difficulty that he was 
 persuaded by his people to leave the ivhare and 
 retire. The great house was set fire to by Colonel 
 McDonnell when the pa was captured, and the sacred 
 whare-kura, where the high-priest had so often 
 exhorted his people and with enchanted taiaka told 
 off the warriors of the Tekau-ma-rua, was soon a
 
 lU THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 mass of flames. The Government troops lost four 
 men killed and eight wounded in the engagement. 
 Most of these casualties occurred in the march back 
 to Waihi, which became a heavy rear-guard action, 
 for the main body of the Hauhaus came up in time 
 to attack the troops l)riskly as they retu'ed through 
 the thick bush. Then they drew off and returned 
 to their half-demolished pa, to weep over theii' dead 
 and the ashes of their great ivhare-kura and rebuild 
 their ruined homes. 
 
 The troops had placed a number of hand-grenades, 
 small shells filled with powder, in the thatch of the 
 ivhares when they fired the village ; but some of 
 the houses were not destroyed, and on the return 
 of the Hauhaus, they found some of these grenades 
 unexploded. The dangerous shells were given to 
 Bent to handle. He pulled out the fuses — which 
 the Maoris called wiki, or wicks — and emptied the 
 precious powder into flasks. In this way a sufficient 
 quantity of powder to make eighteen gun-cartridges 
 was obtained from each hand-grenade.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 A BATTLE IN THE FOREST ; AND THE DEATH 
 OF VON TEMPSKY 
 
 The second fight at To Ngutu-o-te-Manu — Titokowaru's 
 prophecy — Tutange and his sacred war-mat — Bent's narrow 
 escape — Government forces defeated — How von Tempsliy fell 
 — A terrible retreat — Colonial soldiers' gallant rearguard fight. 
 
 Early one warm spring afternoon in 1868, when 
 the vast forest lay steeped in cahn and Taranaki's 
 sentry-peak rose like a great ivory tent out of the 
 soft blue haze that bathed its spreading base, the 
 sharp, cracking sound of rifle-shots broke the quiet 
 of the wilderness. 
 
 The shots came from the mountain side of " The 
 Beak-of-the-Bird," the opposite one to that by 
 which the white troops had advanced the previous 
 month. Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu was being taken in 
 the rear this time. Colonel McDonnell had set out 
 from the \^^aihi Redoubt before daylight in the 
 morning, with a force of about two hundred and sixty 
 whites, composed of three divisions of Armed Con- 
 stabulary (many of them ex-Forest Rangers), the 
 newly joined Wellington Rifles and Rangers, and 
 10 145
 
 146 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 a few veteran volunteers, besides about a hundred 
 Kupapas, the friendly Maoris from the Whanganui 
 and Ngati-Apa tribes under Kcpa te Rangihiwinui, 
 Fording the swift Waingongoro River (the " Waters- 
 of -Snoring "), the Colonel's force, guided by the 
 woman Takiora, marched through the native village 
 of Ma^\hiti^\hiti, \\hich was found deserted, then 
 turned into the dense forest, searching for the Hau- 
 hau stronghold, which was now reported to be at 
 Te Rua-ruru ("" The Owl's Nest "), situated some- 
 where in the rear of Te Ngutu-o-te-IVhinu. A disas- 
 trous search, for it ended under the palisades of the 
 " Bird's-Beak," the savage beak that closed savagely 
 on many a gallant pakeha before the sun A\'ent down 
 in the western sea that day. 
 
 McDonnell had hoped by his early start to take 
 the Hauhaus by surprise. But wary old Titoko- 
 waru was seldom caught napping. 
 
 On the [previous night— as the old warrior Tutange 
 Waionui tells me — Titokowaru gathered all his men 
 in the big house {ir/iurc-kiim), which had now been 
 rebuilt. Then, when the Hauliau prayers and 
 chants were over, the chief arose and cried : 
 
 " E koro ma, kia tupato ! He po kino te ])o, he ra 
 kino te ra ! '" (" O fi-icnds, be on your guard! 
 This is an evil night — a night of danger, and the 
 morrow will be a day of danger ! ") 
 
 This oracular warning seemed to the superstitious
 
 A BATTLE IN THE FOREST 147 
 
 people to be a message from the gods, of whom Tito- 
 kowaru was the living medium. That night was a 
 night of preparation for battle. Armed men slipped 
 out along the trail in front of the stockade, and lay 
 in wait for the expected enemy. 
 
 Long the grim old chief sat on his sacred mat that 
 night in the whare-kiira, his enchanted tongue- 
 pointed taiaha lying in front of him. Karakia after 
 karakia he recited in a low monotone, incantations 
 and charms, ancient pagan and latter-day Hauhau 
 karakia, for success in the conflict that he felt was to 
 envelop his pa on the morrow in a ring of smoke and 
 blood. 
 
 In his owai little thatched whare that day sat 
 Kimble Bent, the pakeha-VLsiOv\. He, too, was busy, 
 squatting there on an old flax ivhariki mat. By his 
 side were a keg of gunpowder and a bag of bullets, 
 and in front of him a pile of old pakeha newspapers 
 and leaves torn from looted books. He was making 
 cartridges for the Hauhaus. Round a wooden 
 cartridge-filler he deftly rolled a scrap of paper, 
 forming a cylinder, which he tied securely with 
 thread or with fine strips of flax ; then, withdrawing 
 the filler, he poured in the gunpowder. The cart- 
 ridges loaded, he slipped them into the cartouche- 
 boxes and holders, a number of which had been 
 brought to the whare by the men of the Tekau-ma- 
 rua ; when the boxes Avere full, the remainder of 
 the ammunition he stored carefully in a large flax
 
 148 THF. ADVENTURES OF KlMBLb] BP]NT 
 
 basket. Most of the receptacles for the ammunition 
 ■ — liamanu tlie Maoris called them — were primitive 
 affairs smacking of the bush. In size and shape 
 they resembled the ordinary military leather car- 
 touche-boxes, but they Avere simply blocks of light 
 Avood, generally pukatea timbci', slightly curved in 
 shape so as to sit well on tlie hcdy when strapped, 
 and neatly bored with from ten to eighteen holes, 
 each of which held a cartridge. A flap of leather 
 or skin — in the earlier days it was often a piece of 
 tattooed human skin — covered the cartridges ; and 
 straps of leather or of dressed and ornamented flax 
 were attached to the hamanu, which were buckled 
 or tied round the waist or over the shoulders. A 
 w^ell-equipped fighting-man usually wore two ha- 
 manu, by belts over the shoulders ; and at his girdle 
 he carried his pouches for bullets and percussion- 
 caps. 
 
 Such was the lone white man's occupation in the 
 forest stockade that day before tlie looming battle. 
 
 Next morning, after the first meal of the day had 
 been set before the warriors by their women and 
 had been quickly eaten, the \\ar-chief came out of 
 his house, taiaha in hand, and walked out on to the 
 village square in front of the sacred praying-house. 
 
 " Friends," he cried, as he stood there on the 
 marae, " I salute you ! You have eaten and are 
 content ; for the proverb says, ' When the stomach
 
 A BATTLE IN THE FOREST 149 
 
 is filled, then man is happy and satisfied ' (' Ka ki te 
 puku, ka ora te tangata '). Now, rise up and grasp 
 your weapons, for I wish to see you dance the haka 
 and the tutu-waewae of war," 
 
 When the men were assembled on the parade 
 ground, in their dancing costume of a scanty waist- 
 mat, Titokowaru cried in a loud voice and pro- 
 phesied, saying : 
 
 " Kaore e tu te ra, kaore e titaha te ra, ka tupono 
 tatou kia to tatou whanaunga " — of which the meaning 
 is, " The sun will not have reached its zenith, the sun 
 will not have declined, before we have joined issue 
 with our relatives "^ — the white soldiers. 
 
 " Then," says Tutange, " we danced our haka with 
 the fire of coming battle in our hearts, and we hard- 
 ened our nerves for the fight. For we knew that 
 Titoko was a true and powerful prophet {poropiti 
 ichai-mana, tino kaha), and we believed that that 
 day would see blood shed again around Te Ngutu-o- 
 te-Manu." 
 
 Tutange Waionui, who was now to distinguish 
 himself as a daring young warrior, was but a boy. 
 He was not more than fifteen or sixteen years old, 
 but was a strong, athletic youngster, full of fire and 
 courage, and as agile as a monkey. He was of the 
 momo rangatira, or " blue blood " of Taranaki, tracing 
 a direct descent through a line of high chiefs and 
 priests from Turi, the great sailor who navigated his 
 long mat-winged canoe Aotea to the black iron-sand
 
 150 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 beach of Taranaki from the far-distant Hawaiki, the 
 beautiful pahn-fringed island of Rangiatea (Raiatea, 
 as its people call it now) in the Society Group. His 
 father, the old warrior, Maruera Whakarewataua, 
 had carefully schooled him in the business of arms, 
 the handling of the spear-tongued taialia, most 
 beautiful of Maori weapons, the quick and fatal use 
 of the tomaha^^k, both the terrible long-handled 
 one and the short hatchet, or 'patiti, as ^\■ell as the 
 musket and shot-gun and rifle of the pakeha. So 
 here, no\\', was young Tutange on his first war-path. 
 
 That morning, when the very air seemed full of 
 rumours of battle and death, Tutange ^^as gu'ded 
 with the sacred war-mat, the maro-taua. 
 
 " My father's sister," says he, " called me to her, 
 together with certain other young men who were (»f 
 rangatira rank, and who had not yet fought the white 
 man. She was a chieftainess, by name Tangamoko ; 
 she was of ariki l)irtli in tlie Ngati-Ruanui tribe. 
 and being possessed of inana-tapu and of a know- 
 ledge of charms and incantations, she was as a 
 priestess amongst the people. She called us to her, 
 and t()ld us that she was about to make us tamariki 
 tapii, that is, sacred children, for the coming battle. 
 She girded us each with a fine waist-garment, the 
 koroivai, made of soft dressed and closely woven 
 white flax, with short black thrums, or cords, hang- 
 ing doMii it. These flax vestures, falling from our 
 waists to our knees, she had made herself. They
 
 TUTANGK WAIONUr, A HVUHATI 
 WARRIOR. 
 
 This photo, taken in 1908, shows, Tutange— 
 xvlio was one of Titokowaru's bc.-t fighting men 
 —stripped and armed for tlie war-path as he 
 was in 1868. 
 
 151
 
 A BATTLE IN THE FOREST 153 
 
 were the garments of war ; she had karakia^d over 
 them and charmed them so that the bullets of the 
 enemy should not touch them, and so that we, their 
 wearers, might conquer in the fight. And very 
 proud and confident tamariki tapu we were now, 
 parading the ]xi in our bullet-proof koroicai, and 
 dancing our weapons in the air as we leaped with 
 our elders in the haka and roared out the great 
 chorus of the war-song beginning, ' Kia kutia — au — 
 au ! ' and that other one which our fathers had 
 chanted when first they set up the Maori Land 
 League, ' E kore Taranaki e makers atu ! ' 
 (' Taranaki will not be cast away from us ! ') 
 
 " One of the songs which we chanted as we wildly 
 danced was this : 
 
 " ' Whakarongo ai au 
 Ki te koroki manu 
 Whakaorooro ana i te ngahere. 
 I na-wa e ! ' 
 
 (' I'm listening for the voices, 
 The singing of the birds. 
 Sounding, echoing in the forest ! ') 
 
 The ' singing of the birds ' was a figure of speech for 
 the voices of the soldiers on the march. 
 
 " That maro-taua was all the clothing I wore in 
 the fight. Round my brows I bound a handkerchief, 
 which held in place my tipare rangatira, my chief- 
 like war-feathers. My weapons were a double- 
 barrelled gun (tupara), and a short-handled toma-
 
 154 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 hawk, which I carried stuck in my belt. Round 
 me I had strapped a cartridge-holder. E iama ! 
 Now I was ready for my first battle." 
 
 Meanwhile, what of the pakeha-Ma,ov\ in this nest 
 of Hauhaus ? 
 
 That morning, after he had supplied the men with 
 ammunition, he sat on the marae watching the A\'ar- 
 dances. The morning went, but there was no sign 
 from the outlying Hauhau piquets. Most of the 
 women and children had been sent a\\'ay into the 
 bush at the rear of the pa in charge of the old chief 
 Te Waka-takere-nui, in anticipation of the predicted 
 attack. The pakeha-WojOvi was also a non-com- 
 batant, but he remained in the pa with Titokowaru 
 until the firing began. There were not more than 
 sixty fighting-men in Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu, but nearly 
 all of these were tried and experienced warriors, 
 and even those who, like young Tutange, were still 
 to be blooded, were moie than a match for the 
 average white soldier in bush-warfare. 
 
 It was well on in the afternoon before tlie first 
 shots were heai'd. The Maoiis had ex})ected attack 
 from the seaward or Waihi side, but to their surprise 
 the sound of the firing came from inland, indicating 
 that the troo|)s had worked round to the rear of 
 " The Beak-of-tlie-Bird. " The Maori advance- 
 guard of Colonel McDonnell's column had en- 
 countered the Hauhaus in the bush and fired into 
 them.
 
 A BATTLE IN THE FOREST 155 
 
 When the first sharp rifle-cracks echoed through 
 the forest, Titokowaru went up to his pakeha, with 
 a flax kit in his hand. 
 
 " Friend," said the stern old captain, " take this 
 kete of mine in your charge. It contains some of my 
 tapu treasures ; take great care of it, for I may not 
 see you again ; I may fall with my tribe. Take it 
 and leave the pa, and join Te Waka-takere-nui if 
 you can find his camp in the forest." 
 
 The white man took the carefully strapped kit 
 and hurried out of the stockade. Te Waka's camp, 
 he knew, was somewhere away in the rear ; the firing 
 was in that direction, and he was m danger of falling 
 into the enemy's hands. However, he struck out 
 into the bush from the rear fence, expecting to steal 
 through the thick timber on the flank of the troops, 
 who, he guessed, were advancing by the track which 
 led in from the east. 
 
 He managed to elude his fellow-countrymen as 
 it happened, but it was "touch-and-go" with him. 
 Scarcely had he run out from the stockade and 
 entered the hollow, through which a little creek 
 wound through the bush at the rear of the pa, than 
 the advance-guard of the white column also reached 
 the creek, and crossed it to attack the pa. A heavy 
 fke was at this moment opened on the troops by the 
 Hauhaus, and bullets flew thick around the pakeha- 
 Maori. 
 
 Two or three of the Armed Constabulary came
 
 156 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 almost upon him just as he mounted the farther 
 bank of the creek, near where a little burial-ground 
 clearing broke the continuity of the thick under- 
 growth ; it was here that the Hauhaus had interred 
 those of then" number killed in the previous attack 
 on the 'pa. 
 
 The Colonial soldiers must have mistaken Bent 
 for a Maori, for they immediately fu-ed at him but 
 missed, and next moment he ducked into the jungle, 
 and on all-fours scrambled down into the creek bed, 
 where he followed down the little stream as hard as 
 he could go. 
 
 There was small wonder the A.C.'s took Bent for 
 a Maori, for it would have been difficult in the half- 
 light of that bush, at the distance of a few yards, 
 to have detected nmch resemblance to a white man 
 in the dark, shaggy -headed, bare-footed fellow with 
 an old and dii'ty blanket strapped around his Maist, 
 a ragged jacket about his shoulders, and a red hand- 
 kerchief tied round his head. 
 
 Scrambling along, stooping low to avoid being 
 hit, the pakeha-Maori went down the creek until he 
 came to a large hollow ^nahoe-tree standing by the 
 side of the watercourse. He squeezed into the hollow 
 trunk of the tree, and there he remained for a few 
 minutes listening to the cracking of the rifles and 
 the loud reports of the Hauhau smoothbores and 
 the yells of the combatants. Soon the firing came 
 nearer, and bullets began to zip through the leaves
 
 A BATTLE IN 1HE FOREST 157 
 
 and come ])lunk into the mahoe, in whose hollow 
 heart the white man hid. 
 
 " The bullets are finding me out," said Bent to 
 himself. "I'm in a fix still ; anyhow, here goes," 
 and he cautiously crept out from his place of con- 
 cealment and took to the jungle-fringed creek again. 
 Following down the creek, crawling, scrambling, 
 running, he presently began to feel his head more 
 seciu^e on his shoulders, for the sound of the firing 
 grew fainter. He left the creek, and, striking 
 through the bush, found a familiar track which 
 led him to the little nook in the forest where old 
 Te Waka and the anxious women and terrified 
 children Avere camped. There he remained that 
 night. 
 
 From Te Waka's people he heard the account of 
 the morning's work. The Government Maori forces, 
 Kepa's men, came upon the camp of refugees and 
 killed two children ; one of these, a boy of about 
 nine years of age, was the son of the Hauhau Avarrior, 
 Katene Tu-Whakaruru. The other child, a little 
 girl, they most cruelly slew by throwing her up into 
 the air and spitting her on a bayonet as she fell. 
 Another child, a little boy, was captured, but was 
 saved by a Whanganui Maori, who carried him out 
 of the forest on his back. He was a son of Te 
 Karere-o-Mahuru ("The Messenger of Spring"). 
 This boy became a protege of Sir William Fox, who 
 had him educated, and he is to-day a well-known
 
 158 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 and gifted representative Taranaki man ; his name 
 is Pokiha (Fox) 0-Mahuru. When the camp was 
 surprised a woman ran away into the forest in 
 terror ; as she was never again heard of, it is 
 believed that the soldiers shot her. 
 
 For the rest of the story of that battle in the bush, 
 from the Maori side, my chief authorities are Tutange 
 Waionui, who gave me his narrative in 1908, and 
 Whakawhiria, of Taranaki. Of the disaster from 
 the European side there are numerous accounts, no 
 two of which agree. The truth is, it was a lament- 
 ably bungled aflfaii', redeemed by numerous acts of 
 personal heroism, and particularly by the gallant 
 rear-guard action fought by a portion of the column 
 under the brave young Captain Roberts during the 
 terrible retreat which followed the repulse of the 
 troops. 
 
 The Government force outnumbered the Hauhaus 
 in Ihe pa by more than five to one. Of this, how- 
 ever, McDonnell and his officers and men were 
 ignorant, otherwise there might have been a very 
 different story to tell. In the obscurity of the 
 dense bush, where the savage forest-men were in 
 their familiar haunts, eveiything was strange and 
 terrible to the recruits, and the imagination magni- 
 fied the numbers of the foe, who poured bullets from 
 their well-masked fastnesses. 
 
 Yet many of the whites were old and seasoned
 
 MAJOR VON TEMPSKY 
 
 (From a /'/»(/y, ]8U5.) 
 
 159
 
 A BATTLE IN THE FOREST 101 
 
 bushmen, who had served in Uie Forest Rangers 
 and other corps ; they had carried theii' carbines 
 on many a dangerous forest trail, and fought the 
 Hauhaus again and again, and they were led by 
 officers of ability, coolness, and bravery. Under 
 McDonnell there was, for one, that soldier of fortune, 
 Major Gustavus von Tempsky, most picturesque of 
 guerilla fighters, the central figure in many stories 
 of daring and adventure, the adored of his bush- 
 whackers and the terror of the Maoris. 
 
 " Wawahi-waka," the Waikato Maoris called him 
 — " The Splitter-of-Canoes " — because of his ex- 
 ploits in w^ar. " Manu-rau " — " Hundred Birds " — 
 ^\•as the name by which he was known amongst the 
 Taranaki Hauhaus. The name had been given him 
 because of his activity in rushing from place to 
 place, fighting here and fighting there, as swiftly 
 as the forest-birds that flitted from tree to tree. 
 Every Maori knew of " Manu-rau," and many of 
 those in arms had been chased by him at one time 
 or another during the three years of war since he 
 led his Forest Rangers to the assault at Otapawa 
 stockade. 
 
 Von Tempsky was of aristocratic Polish blood. 
 He had begun soldiering life as a Prussian chasseur, 
 had served under the unfortunate Emperor Maxi- 
 milian in Mexico, and fought in several little wars 
 in Central America ; had been a gold-digger on the 
 great tented fields of Victoria and the Hauraki ; 
 11
 
 162 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 he was a clever artist in A\ater-colours and a good 
 miniature painter, and lie had written a book of 
 travels in Mexico, " Mitla," illustrated with his own 
 sketches. In the Waikato War he and Captain 
 William Jackson had led their Forest Rangers in 
 several sharp skirmishes, and in Taranaki he was 
 in the thick of the bush-fighting, and had tramped 
 with his veterans through the forest in General 
 Chute's great march from Ketemarae northwards 
 to Mataitawa and New Plymouth, round the back 
 of the Mountain.* 
 
 He was a good shot, a finished swordsman, and 
 could throw a bowie-knife with deadly accuracy. 
 It was in Mexico that he learned the use of the 
 knife, and he never tired of impressing on his men 
 its advantages in bush fighting. 
 
 Swarthy of visage, with long, black, curling haii', 
 upon which a forage cap was cocked at a defiant 
 angle, his grey flannel shirt carelessly open at the 
 neck, his trousers tucked into long boots that came 
 nearly up to his knees, a bowie-knife in a sheath 
 and a revolver at his belt, a naked sword, long and 
 curved, in his hand — this was von Tempsky on the 
 war-path, a picturesquely brigand-like figure, upon 
 whom the soldiers' eyes rested with wonder and a 
 good deal of admu'ation. 
 
 Of that disastrous attack on "The Beak-of-the- 
 
 * See voii 'rciii|)sk\"s skftoli, isho\\ing General C'liute's culumii 
 sotting out on this march.
 
 A BATTLE IN THE FOREST 103 
 
 Bird " stockade many accounts have been given, 
 but the many discrepancies in detail that an examina- 
 tion of each account reveals are hardly to be won- 
 dered at, considering the confusion and misunder- 
 standings that arose and that largely wrought the 
 defeat of Colonel McDonnell's column. The dense 
 and roadless forest, with its intricacies of under- 
 growth and interlacings of supplejack, and the 
 inequalities of the ground made it difficult for the 
 Colonial soldiers to keep in touch with each other, 
 and the extraordinary activity and mobility of their 
 savage assailants, who were perfectly at home in 
 their jungly woods, more than compensated for 
 the difference in numbers. The forest trees were the 
 Hauhau redoubts. Amongst these trees, their naked 
 brown skins nearly blending in colour with the 
 trunks, they were almost invisible, and in most 
 cases only the puffs of smoke, or brown arms moving 
 up and down using the ramrods, indicated their 
 lurking places. They darted from one cover to 
 another with the quickness of monkeys, and though 
 their weapons were mostly muzzle-loading smooth- 
 bores, they managed to fire and reload with astonish- 
 ing celerity. Too many of McDonnell's force were 
 newly joined, raw young fellows, who now for the 
 first time met the Maori warrior in the bush, and 
 the hidden foe, with theu' merciless fire and their 
 terrible yells of hate and defiance, struck terror to 
 many a recruit's heart.
 
 164 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 Some of the large rata and j^ukatea trees groM ing 
 close to the stockade were hollow, and in several 
 of these the Maoris had cut loopholes, which they 
 used for musketry fire. Some of the trees, too, spat 
 leaden death. Brown figures flitted like forest- 
 demons from cover to cover. At these and at the 
 naked arms and shaggy heads that showed them- 
 selves for a moment the coolest and best shots of 
 the Constabulary sent theii' bullets, and every now 
 and then a Hauhau came crashing to the ground ; 
 but for every Maori that was hit five white men 
 fell. 
 
 The forest rang with the sharp cracking of the 
 rifles and the bang-banging of the heavily charged 
 nuizzle-loaders, and within the stockade the women 
 that remained encouraged their warriors with shrill 
 yells. 
 
 " Kill them ! Eat them ! " they screamed, as 
 they waved their sha^\ Is and mats. " Fight on, 
 fight on ! Let not one escape ! " 
 
 White men diopped quickly, wcunded or shot 
 dead. McDonnell evidently over-estimated the 
 strength of the enemy, fcr he concluded that it 
 would be impossible to rush the pa or to hold it if 
 it was successfully rushed, for the enemy were now 
 all round him. Had he only known the real state 
 of affairs, that there were barely sixty armed Hau- 
 haus, of whom only about twenty remained within 
 the stockade, the story of Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu would
 
 A BATTLE IN THE FOREST 105 
 
 have been far less saddening, at any rate to the 
 pakeha. 
 
 McDonnell, considering the position too strong 
 to be carried by assault, determined to strike out 
 to the left through the forest and retu-e. Von 
 Tempsky and Major Hunter pleaded with him to 
 let them charge the stockade, but the Colonel would 
 not consent, and presently ordered the retreat. 
 Moving off, he sent a message to von Tempsky 
 telling him to collect his men and form a rear-guard. 
 He sent the wounded on with Major Hunter and 
 Captain Newland, and followed with about eighty 
 men, cutting a way through the undergrowth. 
 
 Von Tempsky remained, angry and disgusted at 
 being refused permission to storm the pa, but too 
 good a soldier to disobey orders. With him were 
 most of the men of his two Armed Constabulary 
 Divisions, No. 2 and No. 5, with Sub-Inspectors 
 (Captains) Brown and J. M. Roberts, a few Patea 
 Rifle Volunteers under Captain Palmer, the Wel- 
 lington Rangers under Lieutenants Hastings and 
 Hunter, and about twenty-five Taranaki Volunteers 
 under Lieutenant Rowan. 
 
 Sword in hand, von Tempsky moved restlessly to 
 and fro, regardless of the bullets that hummed about 
 him. He ordered those nearest him to take cover 
 but himself remained erect, angrily cutting at the 
 undergrowth with his sword. And there he was 
 when a Hauhau bullet found him.
 
 1G6 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 Now I will let the Maoris tell their story of how 
 von Tempsky and his comrades fell. Tutange 
 Waioniii says : 
 
 " When the attack on our pa began, two or three 
 of us, including Hotu and Tihirua, climbed up on 
 an old partly hollow ra/a-tree that grew in a slanting 
 position near the centre of the stockade, in order 
 to see whether it would be a good place from which 
 to fire at the pakehas. A little way up it forked 
 into two large branches, and it was from this fork 
 that we intended to fire. However, we found that 
 it did not suit us, as we could not see anything of 
 the soldiers who were hidden in the thick bush out- 
 side the stockade, so Ave rushed out into the forest, 
 seeking our enemy. 
 
 " There were two large rato-trees outside the 
 stockade, but the statement made that von Tempsky 
 was shot from a rata is incorrect. I have seen a 
 picture which purports to show him being shot down 
 by a Maori perched in a tree. This is altogether 
 contrary to fact, as I will explain to you. 
 
 " When we rushed out to the rear of the pa the 
 soldiers were rapidly approaching the stockade. 
 We crouched down amongst the undergrowth, close 
 to the little creek, and directed our shots at the 
 thicket which grew between the jxi and the creek. 
 Some of the soldiers, crossing the creek, were in this 
 part of the bush, and soon I saw Manu-rau (von 
 Tempsky). Heavy firing was going on all this time,
 
 A BATTLE IN THP: FOREST KiT 
 
 and many white men had fallen. Presently many 
 of the soldiers withdrew, carrying their wounded, 
 but Manu-rau remained with his men, his draA\n 
 sword in his hand — the long curved sword which 
 had already become famous amongst the Maoris. 
 He came out into clear view of us, within a very 
 short distance of \\ here ^\'e were crouching — I should 
 say less than half a chain. I fired with the others. 
 One of our bullets struck him — -I have always be- 
 lieved it was mine. One of his fellow-soldiers, who 
 was close by, ran to pick him up, and he too fell, 
 shot by one of my companions. Others ran out to 
 rescue the fallen jjakehas, and they were shot down 
 by us and by the other Maoris, until soon there were 
 nine white men lying dead or wounded around 
 Manu-rau. 
 
 " When the Government forces had fallen back 
 before a kokiri, a charge, led by Katene Tu-Whaka- 
 ruru, the Hauhau leader and scout, I ran out to 
 where Manu-rau was lying dying on the ground. 
 He seemed to be still living when I reached him. 
 I snatched out my tomahawk from my girdle and 
 dealt him a cut with it on the temple, to make sure 
 of him, and kUled him instantly. Then I took from 
 him his uniform cap, his revolver and sword, and a 
 lever watch which he had in his pocket. 
 
 " The sword, revolver, watch, and cap which I 
 took from the soldier-chief's body I carried into the 
 fa and laid before our war-chief Titokowaru. That
 
 168 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 was one of the rules observed by TitokoAvarii's war- 
 parties ; tlie spoils of war must be taken to the chief 
 for division. I was given the revolver, and used 
 it afterwards in the A\ar. 
 
 '' That is the story of h<nv A^on Tenipsky was 
 killed. I hope you will, when the opportunity 
 conies, tell the jiakehas that the picture which re- 
 presents Manu-rau as being shot by a Maori who 
 was perched up in a rata-tree is not correct. You 
 pakehas will not regard my action in tomahawking 
 Manu-rau as a kohuru, a murder ? Well, then, as 
 you say, it was in the course of ^\'ar, and it was quite 
 tika and correct. I was but a very young man then, 
 just a boy, and it was my first battle." 
 
 By the side of this I will put Whakawhiria's 
 account. Whakawhiria lives at the big native 
 village of Pariliaka, the old-time town of the prophets 
 Te Whiti and Tohu. His narrative was given in 
 May, 1909, to the Rev. T. G. Hammond, of Opunake, 
 Wesleyan missionary to the Taranaki Maoris, who 
 has sent it on to me to supplement the other versions 
 of the fight. Whakawhiria's story is generally 
 accepted as authentic by the Taranaki Maoris ; 
 most of the survivors of the fight agree that it was 
 his father Te Rangi-hina-kau, as he says, A\ho shot 
 von Tem])sky. 
 
 Whakawiiiiia was a young man of eighteen or so 
 at the time of this engagement, but though so young 
 he was already a veteran on the war-path. He had
 
 A BATTLE TN THE F0RE8T 16'J 
 
 seen the smoke of battle in 1860, at Waii'eka, v\hen 
 the Taranaki settlers, for the first time met the 
 Maori on the field of war. 
 
 His estimate of the strength of the garrison in 
 Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu is even lower than Tutange's, 
 for lie says there Mere not more than forty-five 
 fighting men in the i)a wlien it was attacked. 
 
 Te Rangi-hina-kan, Whakawhiria, and a party of 
 others sallied out from the stockade and met their 
 enemy skirmishing in the bush. In the rear of the 
 IM ran a little stream, the Mangotahi. On the 
 banks of the creek the eight Hauhaus took cover, 
 Whakawhu'ia and his nearest companions crouching 
 under a karaka-t^ee, and it was from that point that 
 they shot von Tempsky and his men. The eight 
 warriors were Te Rangi-hina-kau, Whakawhiria, 
 Ika-wharau, Tutange Waionui, Te Whau, Heheu, 
 Umu-umu and Wau'au. They fired at von Tempsky 
 at very close range, not more than twenty paces, 
 just across the little creek. 
 
 " It was Te Rangi-hina-kau who shot von 
 Tempsky," said Whakawhiria. " He dropped on 
 one knee, and, taking careful aim, fired and shot 
 von Tempsky. He shot him through the head, 
 and afterwaids cut out his heart as an offering to 
 the Maori war-gods." (Kimble Bent's and 
 Tutange's versions given me contradict this.) 
 " Young Tutange," continued Whakawhiria, " acted 
 a very brave part, but it was not he who actually
 
 170 THE ADVENTURED OF KLMBLE BENT 
 
 shot the major. Tutange obtained von Tempsky's 
 watch as his share of the loot, and Wliakawhiria 
 got his gun and pistol." 
 
 During the engagement Titokowaru remained in 
 the j)a, shouting to his men, urging them to con- 
 tinue fii'ing, and yelling such battle-cries as " Whaka- 
 whiria ! Whakawhiria ! '" ("Twist them round 
 and round ! " or " Encircle them ! ") It was from 
 this cii'cumstance that the warrior Whakawhiria 
 assumed his present name.* 
 
 * The following account of Major von Tempsky's death, given 
 in Auckland by ]\Ir. James Shanaghan, who fought at Te-Ngutu- 
 o-te-Manu as an A.C. private, and was wounded while attempting 
 to rescue the major's body, is worth placing beside the Maori 
 story for purposes of comparison. It is the most circunastantial 
 narrative of von Tempsky's end ever given by a European 
 survivor of the bush-battle : 
 
 " Our brave old major was walking to and fro with his sword 
 in hand, furious at being caged as he was. I met him and he 
 spoke to me in his kindly, thoughtful way, and asked why I 
 did not take cover. I answered by putting the same question 
 to him. He then said, ' I am disgusted. If I get out of this 
 scrape I will wash my hands clear of the business.' He then 
 sent me to take ujd a position and keep my eyes open, as the 
 bullets were coming thick. I left him to obey the last order he 
 ever gave. I had not gone far when a man of our Company was 
 shot. The major went to his assistance and was shot, the 
 bullet entering the centre of his forehead. He fell dead on top 
 of the man to whose assistance lie was going. That w-as how 
 von Tempsky died. 
 
 " A Frenchman nanuHl Jancoy and 1 wont to the major and 
 lifted him up and laid him on his back, and just as we did so a 
 bullet struck Jancey on the side and travelled across his breast- 
 bone, and another struck the cartridge-box lie had on his back. 
 I left von Tempsky and picked \\\) Jancey, carrying him out 
 across the clearing. I then met ]>Jeutenant Hunter (of tho
 
 A BATTLE IN THE FOREST 171 
 
 On von Tempsky's fall, Captain J. M. Roberts, 
 a cool and gallant young Constabulary officer, 
 ordered his bugler to sound the " Halt " and the 
 " Officers' Call," and tried to form the rear-guard 
 into some order. Collecting as many of the wounded 
 as he could, he began his retreat through that 
 terrible death-haunted forest. 
 
 All through the fighting Titokowaru remained 
 within the stockade, dii'ecting the defence and 
 reciting incantations and chanting sacred waiatas 
 to his gods for success in the fight. With him was 
 the priestess Tangamoko, the woman who had that 
 morning garbed the young warrior Tutange with the 
 sacred war-mat. 
 
 When von Tempsky fell and the retreat of the 
 survivors began, Titokowaru ordered a kokiri, or 
 charge, in pursuit, which, as Tutange has mentioned, 
 was led by the warrior Katene Tu-Whakaruru. 
 
 Wellington Rangers), and when we were about ten paces from 
 von Tempsky's body Hunter was shot dead. I got hold of 
 him and started to pull him back. Then I said to one of our 
 men, ' Come along for Major von Tempsky's body.' This 
 man refused, but Captain Buck (Wellington Rifles) came up 
 and asked if I knew where von Tempsky was. I said, ' Yes,' 
 and he said, ' Come along, lad, let's get him out.' When we 
 came to the body I was hit by a bullet on the left thumb, which 
 was shot nearly off. Just as I changed the carbine to my other 
 hand a bullet went through my left hand and struck the carbine- 
 stock, knocking me backwards. Then Buck was shot dead, 
 and as I got up a bullet took my cap off. I got away from the 
 clearing, leaving von Tempsky and Buck dead together. There 
 were four of us who went for von Tempsky's body ; Jancey and 
 I were wounded, and Hunter and Buck were killed."
 
 172 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 Those of the Hauhaiis who were in or near the stock- 
 ade gathered under Katene and danced in their 
 ferocious joy a dance of victory, and tliis is the 
 ngeri (war-song) they shouted all together as they 
 leaped in that terrifying tutu-waewae : 
 
 " Kia kut'ki — 
 Au — au ! 
 Kia wherahia — 
 Au — au ! 
 A kia rere atu 
 Te Kawana hi tatvhiti, 
 Titiro mai ai f 
 Ac — ae — au ! " 
 
 (" Squeeze close — 
 Au — au ! (imitating the bark of a clog) 
 Spread out — 
 Au — au ! 
 
 See the Government soldiers flee away, 
 And turn and fearfully gaze at me. 
 Yes, yes — au / ") 
 
 The pnfty clonds of smoke now drew away from 
 the 'pa, as the Hauhaus followed their defeated foes 
 into the dark forest. With appalling yells they 
 rushed at their white enemies, tomahawking those 
 who had fallen to make sure of them, as Tutange had 
 done with von Tempsky. 
 
 " Ka horo ! Ka horo / " they yelled. " They 
 are beaten ! " And thrusting theii" bloody toma- 
 hawks into their belts they recharged their guns, 
 and, leaping from tree to tree, fired heavily and 
 incessantly at the gallant little rear-guard who were
 
 MAJOR VON TEMPSKV. 
 
 173
 
 A BATTLE IN THE FOREST 175 
 
 struggling througli tlie tangled bii^li, caps gone, 
 uniforms torn, nearly every man either wounded 
 or blood-stained from his comrades' wounds. 
 
 The sun had just set. The ghostly tree-shadows 
 lengthened, and it was already dark in the deeper 
 thicknesses of the bush. 
 
 Just after the retreat commenced one of Captain 
 Roberts' steadiest men. Corporal Russell, dropped 
 his carbine and fell ; a big-calibre bullet had 
 smashed his thigh-bone. 
 
 " Shoot me, boys — shoot me ! " he begged his 
 comrades. " Don't leave me to be tomahawked." 
 
 He knew as well as they did that his smashed 
 leg meant death. The rear-guard was already 
 encumbered with wounded and could carry no more, 
 
 " No, we can't shoot you, old man," said a big, 
 tall volunteer sergeant, who was a tower of strength 
 to Roberts' little band, shooting with deadly aim 
 from his post in the rear of the retreat. "Take 
 this," and he shoved into the wounded man's hand 
 a loaded revolver. 
 
 Then the sergeant (James Livingston) pickea up 
 the corporal's empty carbine, and swinging it by 
 the barrel, hot with much firing, smashed it against 
 a tree-butt. " Old Tito '11 never use that gun, 
 anyhow," he said. 
 
 Bursting from the trees, the brown, nearly naked 
 savages came yelling at the rear-guard. Hastily 
 slipping fresh cartridges into their carbines, the
 
 176 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 gigantic volunteer and his comrades sent a volley 
 at the enemy. It was taking iitu for the corporal 
 in anticipation. Then they sorrowfully turned and 
 went on into the dusky forest, leaving their comrade 
 stretched there on the mossy ground, gazing stern- 
 mouthed, unflinchmgly down the way of death. 
 
 Out from the ferns and supplejack leaped the 
 foremost of the Hauhaus, a tattooed, blanket-girded 
 man, with wild eyes rolling in blood-madness. His 
 double-barrelled gun he had shifted from his right 
 hand to his left, and he drew his shining toma- 
 hawk from his flax belt. 
 
 With an ear-ripping cry and the bound of a tiger 
 he came on, hatchet in air. 
 
 The corporal stiffened his ])ack, levelled his re- 
 volver, and fired. 
 
 The Maori fell, and lay with his face touching the 
 soldier's boot. 
 
 A yell of '' Patua ! Patua ! '''' came from the 
 trees, and more bare figures with crcssed cartridge- 
 belts came rushing on, war-axe in hand. 
 
 Gripping his revolver hard, his trigger-finger 
 steady, the corporal fired again, and another of his 
 foes fell. 
 
 Now they stood off and shot the brave corporal 
 dead, and so, after all, he died like a soldier and not 
 under the frightful tomahawk. 
 
 McDonnell's column, tlie slroneer one, was in the
 
 A BATTLE IN THE FOREST 177 
 
 meantime fighting its May out through the forest to 
 the Wai-ngongoro, hard beset by the Hauhaus, who 
 had by this time been reinforced by others from the 
 nearest villages. The Maoris followed closely m the 
 rear and kept up a heavy fire, to which McDonnell and 
 his officers and men could only return occasionally ; 
 then- ammunition was getting very short. With 
 McDonnell marched a French Roman Catholic priest, 
 Father Jean Baptiste Rolland, the padre of the 
 forces, \\ho had been described only a few weeks 
 before, in a letter written by von Tempsky, as "a 
 man without fear." Whenever a soldier fell, whether 
 he was Catholic or Protestant, the kind-faced father 
 was by his side in a moment, tending his wounds, and, 
 if dying, soothing his last moments with a prayer. 
 He took his turn, too, at carrying the wounded. 
 
 Three holes, drilled by Hauhau bullets, ornamented 
 the padre's old wide-brimmed soft felt hat when 
 he reached the Waihi camp that night. 
 
 It was just dark when the snoring Wai-ngongoro 
 was reached, and the bridgeless river, running high 
 and swiftly, was forded with some difficulty under 
 fire. At ten o'clock at night the redoubt was reached, 
 and here it was found that a mixed party of fugitives 
 from the battle-field, numbering about eighty 
 Europeans besides the Kupapas, had already 
 arrived, and had reported all the officers, McDonnell 
 included, killed or wounded and left on the field. 
 
 12
 
 178 THK ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 And how fared Captain Roberts' little rear-guard 
 of sixty men ? 
 
 Extending his force in skirmishing order, the 
 young officer pushed on as well as he could, carry- 
 ing his wounded — one in every six. When darkness 
 came on he halted, for it was hopeless to try to 
 force a way through the jungle-matted woods in 
 the blackness of the night. It was a cold frosty 
 night, and the wounded were in agonies of pain, 
 which their distressed comrades were helpless to 
 relieve. There on the damp and freezing ground 
 they crouched till the moon rose at two o'clock in the 
 morning. Now, guided by five brave fellows of the 
 Maori contingent, Whanganui and Ngati-Apa men, 
 who stood by Roberts and his A\ounded to the last, 
 the rear-guard recommenced the retreat. Struggling 
 wearily on through the tangling kareao and the 
 densely growing shrubs, stumbling over logs and 
 splashing through little watercoiu'ses, they emerged 
 at last thankfully on to the open country, and soon, 
 bearing their wounded and dying comrades across 
 the dark flooded Wai-ngongoro, were greeted by 
 the joyful cheers of their comrades. European and 
 Maori, under Ke])a te Rangihiw iiuii, who had set out 
 from the Waihi Redoubt to their rescue when 
 daylight broke. 
 
 Only then was the full story of the repulse pieced 
 together — a story of a fight that in point of numbers
 
 A BATTI.E IN THE FOREST 170 
 
 was only a skirmish, as battles go, but that was the 
 most serious set-back the A\hite man had yet suffered 
 at the hands of the brown warriors of the Taranaki 
 bush. Of the twenty-four whites killed five were 
 officers, men who could badly be spared in that 
 frontier ^^■arfare. The wounded numbered twenty- 
 six, whose rescue from the tomahaAvks of the Hauhau 
 was carried out in a way truly heroic.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE CANNIBALS OF THE BUSH 
 
 After the battle — The slain heroes of Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu — 
 A terrible scene on the marae — What Bent saw from his prison- 
 hut — The sword of " Manu-rau " — A funeral pyre — Priestly 
 incantations — A soldier's body eaten — Why the Hauhaus 
 became cannibals. 
 
 On the morning after the battle, Kimble Bent and 
 his companions, who had been informed by a mes- 
 senger the previous night of the result of the forest 
 engagement, hurried back to the stockade. 
 
 The news of the repulse of the white troops had 
 spread with incredible swiftness all over the Maori 
 country-side, and the Hauhaus from the neighbour- 
 ing villages gathered in Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu to hear 
 the story of the fight and to share in tlie distribution 
 of the loot taken on the battle-field. 
 
 The village w^as crowded with Hauhaus, all in a 
 fearful state of excitement, a delirium of triumphant 
 savagery. 
 
 Yelling like furies, shouting ferocious battle-songs, 
 wavmg their weapons in the aii", the victorious 
 warriors were there with their spoils — carbines, 
 swords, revolvers, soldiers' caps and belts. 
 
 180
 
 THE CANNIBALS OF THE BUS?I 181 
 
 More frightful still was the sight of which Bent 
 had just a glimpse as he entered the gateway of the 
 jxi. 
 
 Laid out in a low row in the centre of the marae, 
 side by side, were bodies of many white soldiers, 
 nearly twenty of them, all stripped naked — the 
 fallen heroes of Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu. 
 
 Just a glimpse the white man had as he entered 
 the blood-stained square. The next moment he 
 was surrounded by a howling mob of Hauhaus, 
 grinning, yelling, laughing fiendishly, shaking their 
 weapons in his face, all in sheer hate and contempt 
 of anything with a white skin. 
 
 Two or three of the Tekau-ma-rua men whom 
 Bent knew came bounding up. One of them said 
 to him : 
 
 " Tu-nui, you must come with me. It is Titoko's 
 command." The Maori led Bent to a small thatched 
 hut on one side of the marae. Here he shut the 
 white man in, and fastened the low sliding-door on 
 the outside. 
 
 For a little while the white man sat in the gloom 
 of the windowless whare, listening to the demoniac 
 shouts of the Hauhaus outside, and wondering 
 what would come next — whether, indeed, his own 
 body would not soon be added to the terrible pile of 
 slain soldiers on the marae. 
 
 At last, hearing Titokowaru's great voice raised in 
 commanding tones, Bent's mingled curiosity and
 
 182 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 fear impelled him to search for a loophole from 
 which he could see what was going on. 
 
 Discovering a small crack in the reed-thatched 
 walls of the hut, he enlarged it sufficiently to gain 
 a good view of the assemblage on the village square. 
 
 There they squatted, men, women, and children, 
 their faces smudged with charcoal or with red ochre, 
 the paint of the war-path. They were seated on 
 the ground in a great half-circle, facing the staring 
 white corpses of the slain pakehas. The frightful 
 clamour of the savages had given place with strange 
 suddenness to a dead silence, as the}^ listened to 
 their war-chief's harangue, and watched him pacing 
 quickly to and fro, with his sacred taiaJia in his hand, 
 now carrying it at the trail in the taki attitude, now 
 dandling it high in the air as he intoned a chant to 
 his battle-god Uenuku. 
 
 " Bring out my -pakeha Tu-nui-a-moa ! " cried 
 Titokowaru, when he had ended his speech. 
 
 A Maori rose, and, unfastening the tvhare door, 
 led Bent out on to the assembly -ground. 
 
 He was taken up to the corpses of the slain 
 soldiers, and one of the Hauhau chiefs asked him 
 if he knew any of them. 
 
 Bent walked slowly past the dead, scrutinising 
 each body carefully. He recognised two of them. 
 One was an old soldier vv^ho had been a comrade of 
 his in the 57th Regiment, and who had afterwards 
 joined the Colonial forces.
 
 THE CANNIBALS OF THE BU.SH 183 
 
 The other dead soldier he identified was von 
 Tempsky. The major's body lay there naked, with 
 a deep tomahaAvk cut on the right temple, and the 
 long, curly black hair matted with blood. The other 
 bodies \\ere hacked about the head with tomahawks; 
 this was the work of the Maori women, who de- 
 lighted in mutilating the dead in revenge for those 
 of their relatives who had fallen. 
 
 Before announcing his recognition of the white 
 warrior's remains, he turned to the people and asked 
 if any of them had taken from a pakeha officer a 
 sword with an unusual curve in it, and a cap bound 
 \\ith a brass band. 
 
 A Hauhau jumped up and said, " Yes, I have 
 them." 
 
 " Show me which soldier you took them from," 
 said Bent. 
 
 The Maori, with von Tempsky 's sword in his hand, 
 pointed to the major's corpse. 
 
 "' Well," said Bent, " that is the body of Manu-rau, 
 whom the pakehas called von Tempsky, and that 
 is his sword." 
 
 A great " Ah-h " came from the people, and the 
 exultant possessor of Manu-rau's sword of wondrous 
 mana went bounding down the marae, flashing the 
 weapon above his head, turning his painted face 
 from side to side in the hideous grimaces of the 
 pukana, and thrusting out his tongue to an extra- 
 ordinary length.
 
 184 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 The Hauhaiis were in a frenzy of excitement when 
 they reaUsed that the renowned Manii-rau Avas in- 
 deed lying dead before them. Some of them pro- 
 posed to drag the body out and cook it in the hangi, 
 so that they might have tlie satisfaction of devouring 
 their most dreaded enemy, and eating liis heart, the 
 heart of a tino-toa, a warrior indeed. 
 
 But Titokowaru, raising his sacred spear-staff, 
 forbade the handling of the dead for the present. 
 
 Bent was now ordered to return to his hut, and 
 the door was again fastened on him. The proposal 
 to cook and eat the bodies of von Tempsky and his 
 comrades A\"as debated in a wild korero. Bent, from 
 his eye-hole in the wall of the ivhare, saw Hauhau 
 after Hauhau, the orators of the tribes, jump up, 
 tomahawk or gun or sword in hand, and furiously 
 declaim as they went leaping and trotting backward 
 and forward in the open space between the ranks 
 of f he victors and the dead ; and the deeds of the 
 battle-field were told again and again in great boast- 
 ing words. 
 
 Von Tempsky's body, the pakelia-M-AOYi had 
 observed while on the marae, had not been mutilated, 
 except for that tomahawk cut. His heart had not 
 been cut out, though Bent half expected it would 
 have been. The rite of the Whangai-hau, the cere- 
 mony of propitiation and burnt sacrifice following 
 a battle, had not, however, been omitted. On the 
 previous night, Tiliirua, the young war-priest, had
 
 THE CANNIBALS OF THE BUSH 185 
 
 cut open a soldier's body and had torn out the 
 heart, A\'hich he had offered in smoke and fire as 
 oblation to Uenuku, the God of War, chanting a 
 karakia as he watched tlie heart of the hated white 
 man smoking in the flames. 
 
 " Manu-rau's " famous sword, too, was set apart 
 as a sacred gift to the gods ; it was a parakia, or 
 taumahatanga, a thank-offering for victory. It 
 became a tapu relic, and was religiously preserved 
 by the Hauhaus. It is in their possession to this 
 day. 
 
 Presently the bodies of the slain — the " Fish-of- 
 Tu " — were ceremoniously apportioned amongst 
 the several tribes represented in the village, as Bent 
 again watched from his eye-hole in the wall. 
 
 One of the chiefs paced up and down past the pile 
 of dead, with a stick in his hand. Pointing to a 
 soldier's corpse, he cried : 
 
 " This is for Taranaki ! Take it away ! " 
 
 Pointing to the others, he said : 
 
 " This is for Ngati-Ruanui — take it away ! This 
 is for Nga-Rauru — take it away " — and so on until 
 the whole of the dead men had been portioned out 
 to the Hauhau clans to deal with as they deemed 
 fit — subject always, however, to Titokowaru's ap- 
 proval. 
 
 The Nga-Rauru, the wild tribe of the Waitotara 
 River, were the only men who actually took a body 
 from the line of dead.
 
 186 THK ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 Two "warriors jumped up and, laying their weapons 
 aside, seized a dead soldier by the ankles and dragged 
 the corpse away. One was Wairau, the other w'as 
 the celebrated scout Katene Tu-Whakaruru. This 
 Katene was a strange fellow. He had fought for 
 some time on the Government side against his own 
 countrymen, then he suddenly reverted to Hau- 
 hauism and barbarism, and led his warriors against 
 his old friends and commanding officers, McDonnell 
 and Gudgeon, with utter valour and ferocity. Now 
 he was to turn cannibal. 
 
 Katene and his companion dragged the body 
 along the ground across the marae to the cooking- 
 ovens in the rear of the dA\elling-huts, watched in 
 silence by the people. " I could not say whose 
 body it was," says Bent, " but it was a man in good 
 flesh ! " 
 
 When the two Hauhaus had hauled their body 
 away to the hangi for a terrible feast, the tribes sat 
 in silence for a few moments, gazing intently on 
 their dead enemies lying there before them. It was 
 a calm, \\indless day, and the midday sun beat hotly 
 down on that ghastly pile in the middle of the 
 crowded marae. 
 
 Titokowaru rose, taiaha in hand. In his great 
 croaking voice he cried : 
 
 " E koro ma, e kui ma, tena ra koiitou ! Tanumia 
 te hunga tapu, e takoto nei ; e tahu ki te ahi. Kaore 
 e pai kia takoto ki rnnga ki te kino. Te mea pat me
 
 THE CANNIBALS OF THE BUSH 187 
 
 tahu ki te aJii / " (" Oh, friends, men and women — 
 I salute you ! Bury the sacred bodies of the slain, 
 lying before us here. And burn them with fire ! It 
 is not well that they should be left to offend. They 
 must be consumed in fire ! ") 
 
 At this command the people dispersed to collect 
 fuel for a funeral pyre. They brought logs and 
 branches of dry knca timber frorji the surrounding 
 bush and from the firewood piles in the rear of 
 the whares, and a huge pile of wood was built in 
 the centre of the marae. Even the little naked 
 children came running up with their little hands 
 full of sticks to cast upon the heap. 
 
 All the mutilated bodies of the white soldiers — 
 except the one that had been dragged away — were 
 lifted up and placed on the roughly levelled top 
 of the pyre, which was about four feet high and 
 about fifteen feet long. 
 
 Titokowaru ordered his men to place von Temp- 
 sky's body on the fire-pile first, and then lay the 
 others on top of it. The chief suspected, perhaps, 
 that some of the Hauhaus wished to cook and eat 
 Manu-rau's body, and he so far respected his 
 gallant foeman even in death that he resolved to 
 spare it that last degradation. 
 
 So the major's body went on first, and then 
 around and above it were heaped the other soldiers. 
 On top of the bodies more wood was thrown. 
 
 Bent's hut door was now unfastened, and the
 
 188 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 natives called to him to come out. What he saw 
 he will tell in his own words : 
 
 " When I walked out on to the marae, I met two 
 Nga-Rauru men I knew from Hukatere village, on 
 the Patea River. They had come to Te Ngutu-o- 
 te-Manu with a gift of gunpowder to Titokowaru. 
 With them I presently went down to the cooking- 
 quarters to see what had become of the body that 
 had been dragged away. There we found a large 
 earth-oven full of red-hot stones, and there they 
 were engaged in roasting the white man's corpse. 
 They had prepared it for cooking in the usual way, 
 and were turning it over and over on the hot stones, 
 scraping otf the outer skin. 
 
 " The cannibal cooks looked round and asked me 
 savagely what I wanted there. They tlireatened 
 that if I did not leave instantly they woiUd throw 
 me into the oven too, and roast me alive. 
 
 " I returned to the marae, and was sitting amongst 
 the crowd there some time later, perhaps an hour, 
 when I saw a man's hands and ribs, cooked, carried 
 up. The human flesh was placed in front of the 
 two powder-carriers from Hukatere, who were 
 sitting close to me. The meat was in a flax basket, 
 and a basket of cooked potatoes was set down with 
 it. This present of food was out of compliment to 
 the visitors. 
 
 " The two Maoris refused to touch it, saying, ' No, 
 we will not eat man ! ' So the other natives ate it.
 
 THE CANNIBALS OF THE BUSH 189 
 
 The rest of the body was also served round, and the 
 people consumed the whole of it. 
 
 " Katene and Wairau were two of those who ate 
 the cooked soldier. I saw Katene squatting there, 
 with a basket of this man-meat and some potatoes 
 before him. He took up a cooked hand, and before 
 eating it sucked up the hinu, or fat, that was col- 
 lected in the palm just as if he were drinking 
 water. The hands when cooked curled up with the 
 fingers half -closed, and the hollowed palm was 
 filled with the melted hinu. 
 
 " Titokowaru did not eat human flesh himself. 
 His reason for abstaining was that if he ate it his 
 mana hipu, his personal sacredness, would thereby 
 be destroyed." 
 
 The younger people in the jm were rather awe- 
 stricken by the preparations for the cannibal feast, 
 and stood together some distance away from the 
 hangi. " I stood with them," says one Te Kahu- 
 pukoro, who was a boy at the time ; "I was afraid 
 to join in the eating, but the savour of the flesh 
 cooking in the ovens was delightful ! " 
 
 When the warriors, a little later on, were enjoy- 
 ing their meal of man-meat, some of the little 
 children were heard calling out to their fathers : 
 " Homai he 'poaka mou " ('' Give me some pork to 
 eat "). They had seen the meat carried up in flax 
 baskets, and thought it was pork. 
 
 Now the white soldiers' funeral pyre was set
 
 190 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 alight. An old man, Titokowaru's tohunga, or priest, 
 walked up to it with a long stick of green timber in 
 his hand, an unbarked sapling with a rough crook 
 at one end. He stood in front of the pile as the 
 flames shot up and chanted a song. Then, when 
 the logs with their terrible burdens were well alight, 
 he began a strange incantation. Using his long 
 stick with both hands he turned over the burning 
 logs, pushed them closer together to create a fiercer 
 heat, and forked the bodies into the midst of the 
 blaze. And as he did so he recited a pagan karakia, 
 the chant of the Iki, anciently repeated over the 
 bodies of warriors when they were being cremated 
 on the battle-field. These were the words of the 
 incantation (the mystic meaning underlying some 
 of the expressions would require many notes to 
 fully elucidate them) : 
 
 Trannlatwn, 
 
 Ka ivaere. Clear them awaj', 
 
 Ku waere. Clear them away ! 
 
 Ka ivaere i runga mn keretu. Sweep them into the earth, 
 
 Ka waere i raro via keretu. Into the stiff and useless elaj'. 
 
 Kei kai kutu ma keretu, There let them perish and 
 Kei kai rihu tna keretu, decay. 
 
 Whakatahia tc kukakuku, Sweep man's flesh to earth 
 
 WImkarere te k ukukuka , again. 
 
 Te roua alu. Fork them that way ! 
 
 Te kapea mat. Haul them this way ! 
 
 Roua ki Whiti, Fork them to Whiti, 
 
 Roua ki Tonga, Fork them to Tonga, 
 
 E tu te rou. To the ancient homes of man. 
 
 Rouroua ! Here I hold my fork erect,
 
 THE CANNIBAL8 OF THE BUSH 191 
 
 Takdtaka tc kape ; 
 
 Kapekapea ! 
 
 Ka eke i tua, 
 
 Ka eke i waho, 
 
 Ka eke i te Maru-ailu 
 
 Te ihi nei. 
 
 Te inana nei. 
 
 Nga toa nei. 
 
 Ko tai ko ki, 
 
 Ko tai ko rea, 
 
 Ko tai takoto ki raro. 
 
 Ma peruperu ! 
 
 Ma whiwhi ! 
 
 Ma rawea ! 
 
 Haere ake ra te ihi a nga toa, 
 
 Te mana o nga toa, 
 
 Te whatu te ate-a-Niiku 
 
 Te whatu te ate-a-Rangi. 
 
 Huri una te po, 
 Huri ana te ao. 
 He rangi ka mahea ; 
 He irhai ao. 
 He ao niarama ! 
 
 I liiiii thfin thii^ way, that way. 
 Quicklj' stir the funeral pile, 
 Now this way haul, now that ! 
 
 Their spirits far have gone ; 
 The flesh alone remains ; 
 They have gone the way of 
 
 Destiny. 
 Their courage no longer stirs 
 
 them ; 
 Their pride and power have 
 
 flown ; 
 Their valour's gone ! 
 In the fullness of life they fell — 
 Like the fullness of tlie tide ! 
 And now they lie naked before 
 
 me ! 
 They leaped in the war-dance ; 
 They were strenuous in battle ; 
 But they fell. 
 
 Farewell ! spirits of the brave ! 
 The pride and power of heroes ! 
 Heart of Earth, and heart of 
 
 Heaven — 
 For both joined to produce 
 
 you ! 
 Now turns the night — - 
 It turns to day again. 
 The clouds obscure the sky ; 
 We search for light. 
 The perfect light of day ! 
 
 The people sat there on the marae, silently watch- 
 ing the burning of the dead. Far above the trees 
 of the surrounding forest rose the thick black 
 column of smoke from the blazing pile. It went up 
 as straight as an arrow, unswayed by any breath 
 of air, to a great height. To the savage watchers it
 
 192 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 was verily the incense of the battle-field, rising to 
 the war-god's nostrils. " Now and then," says 
 Bent, " a body would burst, and the blaze of flame 
 and the smoke would leap straight up, high into 
 the air." 
 
 Long the Hauhaus gazed at the dreadful crema- 
 tory blaze on the palisaded marae, replenishing the 
 fire with dry logs as it burned down, until all the 
 dead were consumed, and nothing but a great heap 
 of charcoal and ashes remained. 
 
 The revival of the ancient practice of cannibalism 
 was the most hideously savage feature of Titoko- 
 waru's method of warfare. It was not meat-hunger 
 in this case ; it was a battle-field rite. In olden 
 Maoridom war was war to the death, and to the 
 oven ; it was no use beating your enemy unless you 
 killed him, and no use killing him unless you also 
 ate him. The eating of soldiers' bodies not onl}^ 
 glutted racial revenge ; but also — in Maori eyes — 
 destroyed the prestige of the whites ; it ruined their 
 mmia as men and as warriors. 
 
 The Taranaki Maoris tell a singular little story 
 in explanation of those man-eating rites in Tito- 
 kowaru's camps. In consuming bodies from the 
 battle-fields they were only putting into practice 
 the spirit of a speech made by old King Potatau te 
 Wherowhero a decade or so before. 
 
 Potatau — grandfather of the present " king " of
 
 THE CANNIBALS OF THE BUSH 193 
 
 Waikato, Mahuta Potatau te Wherowhero, M.L.C. 
 • — was a warrior of exceeding renown three-quarters 
 of a century ago, and a cannibal of cannibals. 
 
 Te Wherowhero Kai-tangata — " man-devourer " 
 — he was called. Many a time he raided Taranaki 
 with his war-parties of Waikato and Ngati-Mania- 
 poto and Tainui. At Pukerangiora, about 1830, 
 he slew hundreds of Ngati-Awa tribespeople, and 
 with his warriors cooked and ate them. Nearly 
 thirty years later he was set up as king over the 
 confederated Maori tribes in the centre of the island. 
 
 W^hen the Maori kingdom was first established, the 
 then governor of the colony visited old Potatau, 
 and discussed the Maori aspirations for independ- 
 ence. The governor, according to the Maori story, 
 endeavoured to show the king the folly of opposing 
 the sway of the white man ; if it did come to war- 
 fare — which was not then contemplated by either 
 side — the British soldiers would soon make a clean 
 sweep of the ill-armed and ill-provisioned Maori. 
 
 " You are wrong," said Potatau ; " it will take 
 you many a year to sweep away the Maoris — you 
 will never do it." 
 
 " But," said the governor, " suppose we fight 
 you, and drive you into the forest, far away from 
 your cultivations, what will you do for food ? " 
 
 " Why," replied the old king, " I have plenty of 
 food even in the bush — the berries of the tawa and 
 karaka trees, the heart of the mamaku tree-fern, 
 13
 
 194 THI^ ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 and the nikmi, and other foods of the forest. We 
 can live on those." 
 
 " And suppose I chase you with my soldiers, and 
 fight you in the forest, and pursue you so that you 
 cannot even get those things to eat, the berries and 
 the mamaku, what then will you do for food ? " 
 
 Said old Potatau, grinning, "Then I'll eat 
 you ! " * 
 
 This half-defiant, half-jocular speech of the vener- 
 able warrior of Waikato was repeated word for 
 word, as it is given here, in every Kingite village 
 and in the Hauhau ;:)as of after years ; but it was 
 left for Titoko's bushmen of Taranaki to put into 
 actual execution their old foeman's commissariat 
 methods. 
 
 "Titokowaru heard it," say the Maoris ; "and 
 when the war began, and he became a fighting chief, 
 he did as Potatau would have done — he fought his 
 enemy in the forest, and slew him there, and ate 
 his flesh for food. And, as Potatau had predicted, 
 it was many a year before the war was ended — 
 and even then Titokowaru was never caught." 
 
 * " Ku koc te kdl nuiit ! "
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 SKIRMISHING AND FORT-BUILDING 
 
 Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu abandoned — On the march again — 
 Skirmishing on the Patea — Pakcha in pickle — A new stockade 
 — Bent the ^Jo-huikler. 
 
 The famous " Bird's-Beak " pa, made so memor- 
 able by the terrible scenes enacted around and 
 within its stockade, was soon deserted. 
 
 Titokowaru, not long after the Hauhau victory 
 and the savage rites narrated in the last chapter, 
 issued an order that the village must be evacuated, 
 and a new position selected for a bush-fort in which 
 to withstand the attack that must inevitably be 
 delivered against him by the Government. So one 
 day the whole of the inhabitants of the Te Ngutu- 
 o-te-Manu — men, women, and children, and the 
 solitary white man — having gathered together their 
 belongings, marched out of their village and 
 tramped away through the bush eastwards. The 
 armed men of the T ekau-nui-rua preceded them, to 
 make sure that the way was clear of the pakeha 
 enemy. 
 
 At the village of Turangarere and at Taiporohenui 
 
 195
 
 196 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 they dwelt for a while, and the warriors scouted out 
 day after day in the vicinity of the European re- 
 doubts. A little skirmishing occurred ; some shots 
 were fired at the Turuturu-Mokai redoubt, now re- 
 garrisoned, and a sniping party amused themselves, 
 with the Manawapou Camp as a target. Before 
 very long Bent and his companions were once more 
 on the move, swagging through the bush to the 
 Patea Valley. The scene of war was now to be the 
 Lower Patea and the Waitotara, whence Tito- 
 kowaru, it was believed, intended to raid the town 
 of Wanganui. 
 
 For some weeks Titoko and his Hauhaus camped 
 in the Oruatihi 'pa. Then they shifted to Otoia, 
 near the banks of the Patea, where they built a 
 redoubt, from which they could fire into the Euro- 
 pean position at Manutahi. The fortification was 
 finished in a day and a night, all hands, men and 
 women, toiling at it, Bent amongst them. Some 
 dug the trenches with their spades, some carried 
 earth in flax baskets, and others piles of flax and 
 fern, with which they built up the parapets. 
 
 Early in the morning the day after the pa was 
 completed there was a brush with the Government 
 forces. A column of Armed Constabulary and 
 Wanganui Maoris made a reconnaissance up the 
 cliffy, forest-fringed banks of the Patea in the direc- 
 tion of the Hauhau redoubt. Titoko 's men attacked 
 them, lining both sides of the river. The troops
 
 SKIRMISHING AND FORT-BUILDING 197 
 
 retired to their tea after a pretty little skirmish ; 
 and the Hauhaus marched back to the pa in high 
 jubilation, singing war-songs, waving their guns, 
 and bounding about and grimacing like a company 
 of fiends. Then the steaming pork and potatoes, 
 and speech-making and howling hakas around the 
 great camp-fires. From the Maori point of view, 
 quite a pleasant day's sport. 
 
 During the two months following the bush fight 
 at Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu no serious engagement 
 occurred, but Titokowaru's war-parties scoured the 
 district for many miles, laid ambuscades on the 
 tracks between the European redoubts, burned 
 settlers' houses, and bagged a stray jxikelui or 
 two. 
 
 One incident of this period illustrates the peculiar 
 ghoulish humour of the Hauhau savage. Two 
 friendly Maoris — Nga-hina and another — who were 
 mail-carriers in the Government service, halted 
 awhile at Manawapou one day, while on their way 
 to Patea, and searched the settlement there for the 
 wherewithal for a dinner. A cask stood beside one 
 of the whares, and on taking the top off they found 
 it to be a barrel of brine, containing meat — appar- 
 entl}' pork. 
 
 Anticipating a good meal of salt pork, they fished 
 up some of the meat. They found to their disgust 
 that it was human flesh ! — " Long-pig ! " Not being 
 Hauhaus or cannibals, they dropped the man-
 
 198 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 meat — white man— back into the cask and stayed 
 their hunger on good honest potatoes. 
 
 The question was, who pickled the pakeha ? A 
 Hauhau prisoner some time later enlightened the 
 Government Maoris. A scouting party from Tito- 
 ko's camp had dodged down to Manawapou, and 
 discovered there, not far from the redoubt — which 
 had been temporarily vacated by the troops — a 
 new-made grave. Opening it, they disinterred a 
 white man's corpse. In sheer devilment they cut 
 it up, put it into a cask of brine that stood handy, 
 and then re-covered the cask and left it. 
 
 It would have been an exquisite joke, from the 
 cannibal Hauhau view-point, had the Government 
 soldiers unknowingly helped themselves to a joint 
 of white man ! 
 
 Titokowaru's entrenched position at Otoia was 
 not a strong one, and shortly he, after a council of 
 war with his principal men, decided to abandon it 
 and build a new bush 'pa, which should be as nearly 
 impregnable as a Maori fort could be. 
 
 So one morning a long line of Hauhaus of all 
 ages and both sexes — the armed men in front and 
 rear — bearing their simple belongings in flax- 
 basket pikaus on their backs, left the Otoia re- 
 doubt, and marched away through the bush to a 
 spot about twelve miles from the mouth of the 
 Patea River and a mile and a half from the old 
 Okotuku pa, which had been attacked by the
 
 SKIRMISHING AND FORT-BUILDING 199 
 
 troops two years previously. At this place, Moturoa 
 ■ — the " Song Bush," so called because of a long 
 strip of forest which covered the plain here — the 
 war-chief ordered that the new fort should be con- 
 structed. 
 
 The position was on partially cleared land, nearly 
 level, surrounded by the forest. The men, after 
 hastily constructing huts, roofed with the fronds of 
 tree-fern and nikau, set to work with their axes to 
 hew out a large clearing. Titoko marked out the 
 lines of the entrenchments and palisades. The 
 forest-trees quickly fell before the practised assault 
 of many bushmen, and the shrubby cover in front 
 of the pa was carefully burned. 
 
 Then came the setting up of the stockade. Tawa 
 and other trees of small size were cut into suitable 
 lengths for the palisade-posts. There were two rows 
 of palisades ; the outside one was the largest and 
 strongest. For the heavy outside row of stock- 
 ading, timbers from eight to twelve inches in dia- 
 meter were sunk solidly in the ground, forming a 
 wall some ten feet high. Saplings were cut to serve 
 as cross-ties or rails to lash across the posts, and 
 with supplejack and aka vines the whole were bound 
 strongly and closely together. 
 
 Kimble Bent worked with the Hauhaus — toiling 
 like a navvy, cutting timber, setting up the great 
 posts, lashing the palisading, and digging trenches. 
 He wore nothing but a rough flax mat round his
 
 200 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 waist — trouserless, bootless, hatless. In everything 
 but skin a Maori. 
 
 " It was exciting," says the white man, " but none 
 the less it was slavery. Many a night those times, 
 when I lay down on my flax ichariki, though I was 
 dog-tired, I could not sleep— thinking, thinking over 
 the past, and dreading what the future might l)ring 
 me. Many and many a time I wished myself dead 
 and out of it all." 
 
 What furious, what Homeric toil was that jm- 
 building ! Those wild brown men, spurred by the 
 reports of speedy attack, laboured with incredible 
 energy and swiftness. The Moturoa fortified hold 
 — which later became known as Papa-tihakehake, 
 because of the battle which befell here — was com- 
 pleted in three days — stockaded, trenched, para- 
 peted, and rifle-pitted — ready for the enemy ! 
 
 Behind the strong tree-trunk stockade there were 
 trenches and casemated rifle-pits from which the 
 defenders could fire between the lower interstices in 
 the great war-fence ; behind the trenches again 
 was a parapet from which a second line of Hauhaus 
 coiUd deliver their fire over the top of the palisade. 
 It was one of the strongest works yet constructed 
 by the Maoris, and one that was not likely to be 
 stormed except at the cost of many lives.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE FIGHT AT MOTUROA STOCKADE 
 
 Katene's vigil — Attack on the stockade — Major Hunter's 
 death — A Hanliau warrior's desperate feat — Over the paHsades 
 — Government forces repulsed — A rear-guard fight — An un- 
 answered prayer — Scenes of terror — Tihirua's burnt-offering — A 
 soldier's body eaten. 
 
 Just within the stockade of the Moturoa, or Papa- 
 tihakehake jm,^ there was a small, roughly built 
 kiumaihi, or look-out stage, ten or twelve feet above 
 the ground, high enough to allow a sentinel to see 
 well over the sharp-pointed palisades, and scan the 
 approaches to the fort. 
 
 In this bush watch-tower there stood, at misty 
 dawn on a grey November morning, the Hauhau 
 scout and warrior Katene Tu-Whakaruru. 
 
 Katene was cold, and he stamped his bare feet 
 upon the unbarked logs that floored the sentry- 
 box, and he chanted softly to himself a little waiata 
 to Kopu, the morning star, which he had looked 
 
 * Tliis name Papa-tihakehake was given to the place after 
 the fight, in commemoration of the defeat of the troops. Papa 
 means a battle-ground ; tihakehake refers to the dead bodies 
 of the wliites which strewed the ground. 
 
 201
 
 202 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 for in vain, for a heavy drizzling mist obscured 
 everything. The thin, persistent rain penetrated 
 the blanket that he held closely wrapped about him. 
 
 Presently a faint light began to steal over the 
 forest, and Katene could see the outlines of the 
 black charred stumps and burned trees in front of 
 the pa, then beyond the gloomy woods, through 
 which a narrow winding path led to the open fern- 
 lands of the Wairoa. 
 
 Suddenly Katene's murmured chant ceased, and 
 he strained his eyes into the mist. To a Maori 
 forester the slightest sound was enough to set 
 every faculty on the alert, asking suspiciously, " He 
 aha term I " He had heard a faint sound in the 
 direction of the track beyond the black tree-stumps, 
 a sound that he fancied resembled the striking of 
 steel against steel. 
 
 Katene hardly breathed. His eyes glared fixedly 
 through the mist. In a few minutes his vision con- 
 firmed the evidence of his keen ears. He saw, just 
 for a moment, a dark figure, then another, come 
 hazily out of the wet fog where the track from the 
 Wairoa emerged on the clearing, then disappear, as 
 if they had suddenly dropped to the ground or 
 vanished behind a tree. 
 
 That glimpse was enough for Katene. He 
 dropped from his sentry-perch, and ran from 
 whare to ivhare and tent to tent giving the alarm. 
 
 " The soldiers are coming ! " he said to those
 
 THE FIGHT AT MOTUROA STOCKADE 203 
 
 whom he awakened. " The soldiers are on us ! 
 They are by now entering the clearing. Get your 
 arms quickly ! Man the trenches ! But don't make 
 a sound ! " 
 
 The fighting-men poured out of their sleeping 
 huts, snatching up their weapons and accoutre- 
 ments, and ran to their places in the pits and ditches 
 behind the stockade. They hastily loaded their 
 tujxiras, their rifles, and their carbines, and, peering 
 eagerly through the defence-works, sought to pene- 
 trate the raw% damp morning mist that shrouded 
 their front. 
 
 The whole bush-castle was alive and ready. 
 Every man and boy who could shoulder a gun was in 
 the well-hidden firing lines. 
 
 The wet mist slightly lifting as the morning light 
 came, the musketeers presently saw dim figures 
 moving out from the dark forest on their front and 
 right and left flanks. Moving quickly, half running, 
 in a cautious, crouching gait, they flitted from tree 
 to tree, and burnt stump to stump, and nearer and 
 nearer to the stockade. 
 
 Not a sound came from the breathlessly waiting 
 warriors, nor from the ghost-like figures that now 
 sank to the ground, each behind a log or a great 
 blackened stump, or the butt of a standing tree. 
 
 Gun in hand, finger on the trigger, the Hauhaus 
 waited. 
 
 The apparitions were picked bush-fighters of the
 
 204 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 New Zealand forces, led by Colonel Whitmore, seek- 
 ing to surprise Titoko in his forest-den. 
 
 Advancing silently in skirmishing order through 
 the bush, they took cover, waiting for light enough 
 to fight by. There were detachments of four 
 divisions of the Armed Constabulary, many of them 
 veteran bush-fighters, and men of the Patea Rifles 
 and Patea Cavalry. There, too, came Kepa's 
 Whanganui Maoris, with rifle and tomahawk, old 
 hands on the war-trail, and eager for another brush 
 with their ancient enemies of Taranaki. 
 
 There were two hundred Government men front- 
 ing the fort, but the fighting men behind the 
 palisades did not, according to Maori accounts, 
 number many more than half the number. 
 
 Amongst Titokowaru's men, however, there were 
 some of the most renowned bush scouts and warriors 
 in Taranaki, including — besides Katene, the wide- 
 awake sentry — such men as the veteran Te Waka- 
 tapa-ruru, Paraone Tutere, one of the best Hauhau 
 shots, Timoti, the fiercest of the cannibals of 
 Nga-Rauru, and the active young warrior Tutange 
 Waionui, he who had despatched von Tempsky on 
 the battle-field of Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu, Tutange 
 says that he was asleep in a tent when Katene gave 
 the alarm that morning. He was with his tribe, 
 the Nga-Rauru, most ferocious of all Maori bush- 
 fighters, who occupied one end of the pa ; the other 
 tribes holding the fort were Ngati-Ruanui and
 
 THE FIGHT AT MOTUROA STOCKADE 205 
 
 Pakakohi. It was the side occupied by the Paka- 
 kohi men that was first attacked. 
 
 All at once, as the Hauhaus crouched behind 
 their palisades squinting for a sight of pakeha, with 
 impatient fingers on their gun-triggers, fifty or sixty 
 blue and grey figures sprang from cover and charged 
 for the stockade. Some of the assaulting party 
 ran past the corner of the war-fence, looking for 
 some opening or gateway by which they might 
 charge in. 
 
 The leading files were within a few paces of the 
 high, solidly set palisading, when suddenly the whole 
 face of the fence flashed fire, and volleys crashed 
 in terrifying reverberations that set flocks of sleepy 
 kaka parrots flying, screaming harsh screams of 
 fright, through the dark forest. 
 
 Nearly half the storming party of A.C.'s fell be- 
 fore that fearful fire. 
 
 The first man shot was their leader, a brave 
 officer, Major Hunter, whose brother. Captain 
 Hunter, had fallen at Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu two 
 months previously. Tutange says that it was 
 Paraone Tutere who shot the major ; he fired at 
 the leading figure, not knowing then who he was. 
 Colonel Whitmore came running in with the 
 stormers, but, with his usual luck, although in the 
 thickest fighting he was never hit. 
 
 Those of the attacking column who were not hit 
 instantly cropped to cover amongst the logs and
 
 206 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 stumps that surrounded the jm front. Then they 
 returned the fire as well as they could, but one man 
 after another was hit, without being able to see 
 one Hauhau of the scores that occupied the pa and 
 thrust the muzzles of their guns through the inter- 
 stices of the palisades. 
 
 It was a foolish thing, that blind frontal charge 
 on the strong stockade. Major Hunter was too good 
 a soldier to have done such an insane thing of his 
 own volition. He was obeying Whitmore's orders. 
 Hunter was shot in the femoral artery, when within 
 nine or ten yards of the stockade. He implored 
 those near him to try to stop the gushing blood, 
 and some of his comrades attempted to staunch it ; 
 but the wound was too close to the stomach to get 
 at, and he died in a few minutes. 
 
 Captain W. E. Gudgeon, with about forty Govern- 
 ment Maoris, tried to work round and take the im 
 in the rear. His line of charge was on Hunter's 
 right flank, and he had good cover, but in s})ite of 
 that he lost two killed and five wounded. 
 
 Now a brisk little fight went on on the Hanks of 
 the jKi between Kepa's men and a party of warriors 
 wlio had nuxde a sortie from the stockade. Kepa 
 was furiously assailed l)y the buslnuen, leaping from 
 tree to tree, yelling their frightful Hauhau cries ; 
 and it was as much as the plucky Whanganui men 
 could do to hold their own. Their attempt to take 
 the pa in the rear failed, and they at last slowly
 
 THE FIGHT AT MOTUROA STOCKADE 207 
 
 withdrew to support the shattered ranks of their 
 white comrades. 
 
 The A.C. supports came doubling up, and a heavy 
 fire was concentrated on the stockade, but to little 
 purpose. It was impregnable to rifle-fire, and in 
 their pitted works the defenders were able to pick 
 off the white skirmishers in perfect safety. 
 
 Bullets swept the clearing in every direction, and 
 through the infernal music of the forest-battle the 
 white soldiers heard the loudly yelled war-cries of 
 the chiefs and the shrill voices of the Maori women 
 as they encouraged their warriors, husbands, and 
 brothers, and screamed them on to slaughter with 
 all the fury of brown tattooed Hecates. 
 
 The women were gathered in the marae and in 
 the trenches, some armed, all filled with the fire of 
 savage war. 
 
 '' Ka horo, ka horo / '' they shouted. '' Kia^naia, 
 kia maia ! Patita, kainga I Patua, kainga ! " 
 ("They fall, they fall ! Be brave, oh, be brave ! 
 Kill them, eat them ! Kill them, eat them ! ") 
 
 All this time Kimble Bent was walking to and 
 fro on the parepare, the inner breastwork, the 
 bullets screaming zssh ! zssh ! over his head and 
 all about him. The air seemed filled with flying 
 lead, yet very few Maoris were hit. One woman 
 he saw shot dead through the head as she rose to 
 wave her shawl and yell a fighting cry to the men 
 at the palisades.
 
 208 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 And here Bent was an eye-witness of the most 
 desperately daring deed he had ever seen. 
 
 A fiery old tattooed warrior, by name Te Waka- 
 tapa-ruru — the Hauhau mentioned in an earlier 
 chapter as the man who had killed Charles Brough- 
 ton, Government Native Agent, on the Patea River, 
 in 1865 — was in a quiver of excitement while the 
 garrison awaited the assault, and could hardly be 
 silenced until the attack was delivered. 
 
 When the pakeha storming party rushed up at 
 the double, the old man was one of the first to open 
 fire on them with his tupara. And then, when the 
 order " Kokiritia ! "" (" Charge ! ") was given, and the 
 Hauhaus rushed out to engage the Government 
 men who were trying to work round to the rear of 
 the pa, he led the wild charge. 
 
 Perfectly naked, except for the broad flax waist- 
 girdle, which held his short-handled tomaluiwk, and 
 gripping his double-barrelled gun, the tall old 
 savage took a great running junij) at the stockade 
 from the inner parapet, and leaped clean over it ! 
 
 Yelling a Pai-marire battle-cry as he rose from 
 the ground after his extraordinary leap, he snatched 
 the tomahawk from his belt, and cliaigcd straight 
 for the advancing whites. 
 
 It was a fit of icliakamomori — sheer blind despera- 
 tion, utter recklessness of death. 
 
 Possibly tlic furious old fanatic imagined that his 
 Hauhau angel and his mesmeric password, " Ha pa !
 
 THE FIGHT AT MOTUROA STOCKADE 209 
 
 Pai-marire ! Hon ! " would avert the bullets of 
 the pakeha. But he was killed in the very charge 
 — the only Maori fighting-man killed that day. 
 
 Two white soldiers met him. He was in the act of 
 striking a desperate blow when a pakeha ball took 
 him square in the forehead, and with a huge con- 
 vulsive bound and a half-choked barking " Hau ! " 
 on his lips, the old tattooed brave fell dead amongst 
 the foremost of his enemies. 
 
 It was just the death that he desired — face to the 
 foe, with his war-axe in his hand — the death of a 
 true Maori toa ! 
 
 This savage hero's son, Ratoia — ^now living in the 
 village of Taiporohenui — a young boy at the time 
 of the fight, saw his father's great leap over the 
 palisade, and saw him killed. 
 
 Bent tells of a curious matakite, or prophetic dream , 
 which Te Waka-tapa-ruru had on the night before 
 the battle. The old man was a close friend of the 
 white runaway, and they were accustomed to sleep 
 side by side on the ?t'Aaf*H-spread floor of ore of 
 the huts. He dreamed that he saw his face re- 
 flected in a pakeha looking-glass, and that he was 
 combing his hair. This vision disturbed the old 
 man, and deeming it a warning from the unseen 
 world, he asked Titokowaru — just when the ap- 
 proach of the troops was first announced — what it 
 might portend. The war-chief interpreted the 
 dream as an omen of death, and warned Te Waka 
 14
 
 210 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 not to leave the shelter of the stockade during the 
 impending engagement or he would be killed. But 
 he disregarded this in his fit of ichakamomori, and 
 ran amok, and so he fell. 
 
 Finding it impossible to take such a strong and 
 well-defended position by storm, the white colonel 
 withdrew his forces. There were dead and wounded 
 lying all over the place. The iKikehas succeeded in 
 carrying off the wounded and some of the dead, 
 including the gallant Major Hunter. A number of 
 dead, however, had to be left where they were lying, 
 for it was death to attempt their removal from 
 under the very muzzles of the Hauhau guns. 
 
 The rescue of Hunter's body from the Hauhau 
 tomahawks, under a heavy fire, was a gallant piece 
 of work. Captain Gudgeon was one of those who 
 brought the dead officer out ; one of his comrades 
 was Captain Edward McDonnell, and troopers 
 Foote and Kelly were amongst the others. Two 
 or three men were shot in the attempt. Kepa 
 (Major Kemp) was there, too, but he was pretty 
 well engaged in looking after his own men and 
 extricating them from that ])lace of death. 
 
 The Colonial soldiers retired, fighting a hard rear- 
 guard action, out to the edge of the bush. Each 
 division of Armed Constabulary in turn halted, knelt 
 down facing the enemy, and covered the retreat of 
 the other divisions, thus giving time for those of 
 the dead and wounded who had been recovered to
 
 MAJOR KEMP (kEPA TE RANGIHIWINUI. ) 
 
 211
 
 THE FIGHT AT MOTUROA STOCKADE 2i:{ 
 
 be carried off the field. Out to the fern-lands the 
 Hauhaus followed the troops, sometimes engaging 
 them so closely that the fighting was hand-to- 
 hand, and it was carbine and revolver against long- 
 handled tomahawk. The skirmishing lasted until 
 the whites were well clear of the bush ; the Maoris 
 would have followed them out even to their camp, 
 the Wairoa Redoubt, had not they been recalled by 
 orders from Titokowaru. The battle of Papa- 
 tihakehake was over. It was a more severe repulse 
 for the Government men than even the engagement 
 at Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu a bare two months before. 
 One man out of every four in the force actually 
 engaged was on the casualty list — more than 
 twenty killed and quite thirty wounded.* 
 
 A grim story of that hard-fought retreat through 
 the bush is told by Kimble Bent. 
 
 After the kokiri, the rush out in pursuit, had been 
 ordered by the Maori war-chief, one of the Nga- 
 Rauru men came across a white soldier lying on 
 the ground, with his head pillowed against a fallen 
 pukatea-tree. He had been cut off from his division 
 
 * Colonel W. E. Gudgeon writes me : " For the number 
 engaged Moturoa was the most desperate engagement fought 
 in the Maori War. Whitmore's return did not give nearly our 
 losses. I made it at the time fifty-two out of less than two 
 hundred actually engaged. At Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu all did 
 not behave well, but at Moturoa any one might have been proud 
 of the men. No force in the world could have behaved better."
 
 214 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENl^ 
 
 by the foremost of the pursuing Hauhaus, and was 
 lying there feigning death, hoping that the rest of 
 the Maoris would pass on and not notice him. 
 
 The Nga-Rauru man, liowevcr, stopped and 
 looked closely at the prostrate pakeha. He said to 
 one of his comrades, " I don't think that man is 
 dead." Going up to the Constabulary man, he 
 put his hand on his shoulder, and said in English, 
 " Wake up ! " 
 
 The white man opened his eyes. He exclaimed, 
 " Save my life ! Let me go, and I'll never forget 
 you — I'll repay you for it." 
 
 The Nga-Rauru man, who must have been a 
 humorous kind of barbarian, said to his victim, 
 again in English, " Go on your knees and pray to 
 your God to save your life ! " 
 
 The soldier knelt as he was told, and ejaculated 
 some sort of a prayer. 
 
 Playing with his prey, the savage asked, " Well, 
 are you saved now ? " 
 
 The kneeling soldier looked up, but could make 
 no answer. He stared at his terrible-looking captor, 
 with horror in his eyes. 
 
 " Poroporoaki ki to Atua .' " (" Say farewell to 
 your God ! ") cried the Maori, and swinging his gun 
 round in both hands, he brought it butt down with 
 a frightful smashing blow on the soldier's head. 
 
 The man fell backwards dead. His slayer stripped 
 him of his imiform and accoutrements, and a little
 
 THP: fight at MOTUROA stockade 215 
 
 later could have been seen dancing a furious haka 
 in front of the stockade, his face blackened with 
 charcoal from the charred tree-stumps, the soldier's 
 cap on his head, and the captured carbine in his 
 hand. 
 
 Young Tutange Waionui was in the thick of the 
 skirmishing. "My weapons that day," he says, 
 "were a tupara (double-barrelled gun) and a re- 
 volver. The gun was a muzzle-loader ; I preferred 
 it to the breech-loaders used by the pakeha, because 
 something was always going wrong with them. I 
 could load (puru-pu) very quickly ; but a quicker 
 man was old Te Waka-tapa-ruru — he who was killed ; 
 there was no one so expert as he at loading a 
 muzzle-loader." 
 
 What scenes of horror followed that battle in 
 the bush ! 
 
 The Hauhaus were in a delirium of triumphant 
 savagery. Like frenzied things they came dancing 
 and yelling back to the pa. They had blackened 
 their ferocious faces with charcoal from the burnt 
 tree-stumps in front of the pa. Singing war-songs, 
 shouting Pai-marire cries, dancing their weapons 
 in the air, projecting their long snaky tongues and 
 rolling their eyes till only the whites were visible, 
 set in a petrifying glare — the grimace of the pukana 
 — it was a sight that brought fear to the heart of 
 the lone white man, accustomed though he was by 
 this time to spectacles of barbaric ferocity.
 
 210 THE ADVKNTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 The women were as wild and savage-looking as 
 the men — their dark eyes blazing with excitement, 
 their faces })]ack-painted like the warriors, their 
 loosened hair flying behind them, many of them 
 nude from the waist up — waving shawls, mats, 
 tomahawks, in welcome to the returning heroes, 
 shoutirg. singing, screaming. 
 
 Outside the front fence of the }hi, just us they 
 fell, among the logs and stumps and on the blood- 
 stained ground, lay the dead men whom the re- 
 treating A.C.'s had been compelled to leave on the 
 battle-field. There were seven of them. 
 
 Upon these fallen soldiers rushed the Hauhaus. 
 They stripped them of their uniforms. They tied 
 flax-leaf ropes round the necks of the dead pakelias, 
 and hauled them away to the gateway of the im. 
 
 As they dragged the corpses off, leaping from 
 side to side as they hauled in a fury of blood-mad- 
 ness, they shouted out such sentences as these : 
 
 " Taku kai ! Taku kai ! E hara ka kite noho koe 
 taku kai, taku tika, taku he ! Nau te kino, naku 
 whakahoki tou kino. Taea hokitia — te mahi o te 
 atua a Titokowaru ! '' ("My food! My food! 
 Behold my food ; behold the right and the wrong 
 of it all. 'Twas you " — addressing the slain — " that 
 wrought the evil work. And I have returned your 
 evil. Behold the work of the god of Titokowaru ! ") 
 
 A young Hauhau, huge-limbed and naked but
 
 THE FIGHT AT MOTUROA STOCKADE 217 
 
 for a very brief waist-mat of dangling flax, leaps 
 to the side of one of the white men's bodies, just 
 as it is harnessed in so revolting a fashion to be 
 dragged into the pa. 
 
 His tomahawk flashes in the air above him as he 
 steps over the fallen soldier — once, twice, thrice ! 
 
 He thrusts in a hand into a huge gaping wound 
 in the dead man's breast ; he is searching for some- 
 thing. He rises with some object, all bloody, in his 
 horrible red hand. He sticks his tomahawk back 
 into his girdle, he comes bounding from the corpse, 
 waving his dripping trophy in his hand, swinging 
 it round his head. His fiendish yells ring echoing 
 over the forest clearing. 
 
 What is it he flourishes so exultingly ? 
 
 It is the white man's heart ! 
 
 This is the young warrior Tihirua, the priest of 
 the burnt sacrifice. He has torn out the manawa 
 of the soldier, as a maive — an offering to the God 
 of War ! 
 
 At his waist, buckled to his flax girdle, is a 
 leather pouch, such as was generally used for 
 carrying percussion-caps. Out of this he takes 
 matches — pakeha matches ! Striking match after 
 match, he holds them underneath the bleeding 
 heart until it is singed, and dark smoke goes up 
 from it — incense to Uenuku, the war-god, who 
 appears to his savage worshippers in the arch of 
 the rainbow.
 
 218 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 The heathen rite — the ceremony of the Whangai- 
 hau — performed, Tihirua flings down his terrible 
 trophy, and then directs the hauling of the bodies 
 into the palisaded inferno. 
 
 Bent, standing just outside the pa gateway, 
 watched the in-bringing of the bodies of his fellow- 
 
 THE FIGHT AT MOTUROA, 1869. 
 
 This sketch, with the one opposite, drawn by an eye-witness shortly after the eiig ige- 
 ment, depicts the defeat of t'.ie (Tovernment A. C. Force by the Maoris. 
 
 whites — prelude, he too well knew, to a cannibal 
 feast. 
 
 He turned to enter the village, when an old 
 Maori, tugging away madly at a flax line which he 
 had made fast to the neck of a dead man, caught 
 sight of him, and shouted : 
 
 " You, pakeha ! Come and give me a hand. Help 
 me to drag in my food ! " 
 
 " What do you want ? " Bent heard a rough
 
 THE FIGHT AT MOTUROA STOCKADE 219 
 
 voice ask. He turned and saw the war-chief 
 Titokowaru standing at his side. " What do you 
 want of this pakeha ? " 
 
 The Maori replied that he wished the white man 
 to help him haul the soldier's body into the inarae. 
 
 " No ! " cried the chief in his great hoarse voice. 
 " No ! you must not call upon my jxikeha to help 
 
 THE FIGHT At"mOTUEOA, 1869. 
 
 you. He shall not touch the bodies of his country- 
 men." 
 
 So the war-captain and his cartridge-maker stood 
 by watching the frightful procession of Hauhaus 
 and their prizes. The seven naked bodies were 
 dragged into the pa and laid out in the centre of 
 the rrvarae. 
 
 The excited people all gathered in a great circle 
 around the bodies. One after another the orators
 
 220 THE ADVENTURES OF KLMIiLE BENT 
 
 leaped out from the squatting ranks, their eyes 
 flashing wildly in the pukana glare ; they bounded 
 to and fro, and cut the air with their tomahawks 
 as they told the thrilling episodes of the fight. 
 
 All the clothes, arms, and accoutrements taken 
 from the dead and wounded were laid before Tito- 
 kowaru. 
 
 " Whose was this ? " the war-chief would ask, 
 picking up a carbine, or an ammunition-pouch, or 
 a soldier's tunic from the heap. 
 
 " Mine," replied the man who had taken it on 
 the battle-field. 
 
 " Take it away, then," said Titokowaru. " Whose 
 is this ? " picking up another trophy. 
 
 " It is mine," a young man would reply ; " it is 
 my first spoils of war, a tanga-ika.'''' 
 
 " Burn it," was the chief's order. 
 
 Then the human bodies lying on the marae were 
 apportioned one by one, to each tribe, as piles 
 of food are served out at a ceremonial Maori 
 gathering. 
 
 " Nga-Rauru, this is yours ! Tangahoe, this is 
 yours ! " and so on, till the seven bodies were all 
 disposed of. 
 
 A woman sat weeping on the marae. She was 
 Te Hau-karewa, wife to one Te Rangi-whakairi- 
 papa and a sister of Te Waka-tapa-ruru, the old 
 warrior who had fallen in his desperate rush upon 
 the white enemy that morning. Though old, she
 
 THE FIGHT AT MOTUROA STOCKADE 221 
 
 was a tall, fine-looking woman, with a mass of black 
 curly hair. 
 
 Ceasing her tangi for the dead, when the bodies 
 of the soldiers were laid out on the ground, she 
 rose, and, taking a stick in her hand, she walked 
 along the row of the dead men and struck each a 
 blow on the head. 
 
 " Upoko-kohua ! " she cried vehemently, with 
 hate flashing in her eyes ; " U]X)ko-kohua ! Ka 
 taona koe ki te umn, he utu mo taku tungane kua 
 mate, ko Te Wahi-tnpa-ruru ! Mehemea ko au i 
 taki i taku tungane i te takiwa i mate at, ka kainga 
 au i te karu o te tcmgata 7iana i whakamatea Te 
 Waka ! " (" Boiled heads ! Cursed heads ! Soon 
 ye'll be cooked in the oven, as payment for the 
 death of my brother, Te Waka-tapa-ruru. Had I 
 but been near my brother when he fell, I would 
 have swallowed the eyes of the man who slew him ! ") 
 
 Then, throwing away her stick, she sat down 
 again, and fell to weeping in the very abandonment 
 of woe, for the savage woman of the woods loved 
 her grim warrior-brother greatly. 
 
 Some of the Maoris proposed that the bodies of 
 the slain whites, the " Fish of Whiro," should all be 
 burned or buried. 
 
 But up leaped Timoti, wildest of all the wild 
 Waitotara tribe, the cannibal Nga-Rauru, a thin, 
 savage-faced fellow, very dark of complexion, as
 
 222 THK ADVENTURES O'F KiMBLE BENT 
 
 active and agile as a wild cat. He ran up and down 
 in front of his slain enemies, turning from one side 
 to the other, pukmm-mg — only the whites of his 
 eyes showing — and his tongue protruded in derision 
 and defiance. He flashed his tomahawk in the air ; 
 he yelled, " We must have one body — one body to 
 cook in the hcmgi ! " 
 
 " Yes," said another ot the clan, " the customs 
 of our fathers must be observed. What is the use 
 of killing so many pakeJuis if we cannot have one 
 to eat ? " 
 
 No man making objection, several Hauhaus 
 jumped up and ran to the heap of slain Constabulary 
 men. They selected a body, and dragged it off to 
 the cooking-place at the rear of the itmrae. " He is 
 the fattest of the pakehas,^^ said the saturnine 
 Timoti. 
 
 All eyes watched them, l)ut no man said a word. 
 
 Bent, after a while, rose with some of his Hauhau 
 companions, and walked over to the cooking-Jut ng is, 
 and watched the cooks at their horrible work. 
 
 They were roasting the white man's body on the 
 great fire of hot stones, in a hollowed-out earth- 
 oven. " It was being cooked," says Bent, " much 
 as you would roast a piece of mutton ; they turned 
 it over and over until it was thoroiiglily done, and 
 then they cut it up for the feast." 
 
 When the cannibal meal was ready, it was brought 
 on to the marae with much ceremony in flax
 
 THE FIGHT AT MOTUROA STOCKADE 223 
 
 baskets. Potatoes had been steam-boiled in other 
 Jiangis at the same time, and these were carried to 
 the assembly-gromid, to be eaten with the man- 
 meat. Bent saw the flesh of the soldier eaten. 
 The man-eaters, he says, all belonged to the Waito- 
 tara tribe. Ten of them consumed the pakeha, or 
 as much of him as was borne to the marae ; the 
 rest of the people did not share in the feast. Tito- 
 kowaru himself would not eat human flesh, because 
 of his tapii. 
 
 " I noticed," says the pakeha-Maor'i, " Timoti and 
 Big Kereopa, each with a basket before them, 
 enjoying the meal of human flesh. Timoti 
 grabbed up his portion of meat from his basket, 
 and ate it just as if he were eating a piece of 
 bread." 
 
 Then Titokowaru rose and, crying in a loud voice, 
 ordered the people to burn the rest of the corpses, 
 so that they should not defile the rnarae. 
 
 The bundles of clothing from the dead lay on 
 the marae. The Maoris gave Bent three paiis of 
 soldiers' trousers, four shirts, and some boots. " I 
 tell you I was pleased," says the old pakeha- 
 Maori, who had no inconvenient scruples on the 
 subject of dead men's clothes ; " for a long time 
 I had been wearing only Maori-made garments 
 of flax." 
 
 A great pile of wood was collected, heaped up 
 six or seven feet high, and in the evening, as dark-
 
 224 THE ADVENTUEES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 ness fell, the bodies of the pakehas were placed on 
 this funeral pyre and cremated. 
 
 The people squatted round- — as they had sat at 
 a similar ceremony in the " Bird's Beak " pa — and 
 watched the flames devour their fallen foemen. 
 And by the light of the great fire roaring away there 
 on the marae, Titokowaru takVd up and down, 
 addressing his followers, and bounding and parad- 
 ing to and fro, his sacred feather-plumed taiaha in 
 his hand. He recited incantations, and chanted 
 songs, and exhorted the Hauhaus, bidding them be 
 of good heart and fight to the bitter end. 
 
 Then Titokowaru turned to the body of the slain 
 warrior Te Waka-tapa-ruru, lying on a blanket on 
 the marae, with gun and tomahawk by his side. 
 Gazing upon the silent, tattooed features of the 
 dead toa, his comrade in many a wild foray and 
 forest battle, he cried the old farewells to those 
 whose spirits have passed to the Reinga, and he 
 chanted this lament : 
 
 " Ki konei ra, e Wakci e ! 
 Ka wehe koe i an. 
 Ka riro i a koe 
 I nuku-muH iapoto, 
 K wiak'nujd uutte. 
 Auc, I- W(ik(t (' ! " 
 
 ("Theiv thnu liest, O Waka ! 
 Parted troin me for ever. 
 Thou'rt borne away to the fields of iiiglit, 
 In revenge for otlier deaths. 
 Alas, O Waka ! ")
 
 THE FIGHT AT MOTUROA STOCKADE 225 
 
 And tlie wild korero went on. Tartgi songs were 
 chanted, and there were speeclies of savage, boast- 
 ful jubilation made — " great swelling words." But 
 from a lone little thatched hut on one side of the. 
 crowded parade ground came a long-sustained 
 crying sound, a sobbing heart-breaking dirge, rising 
 and falling like a Highland coronach — a keening for 
 the dead. Te Hau-karewa made lamentation for 
 her slain warrior. 
 
 15
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE TAURANGA-IKA STOCKADE 
 
 Another fighting pa built — Scouting and skirmishing — The 
 watcher on the tower — McDonnell and Titokowaru — How 
 Trooper Lingard won the New Zealand Cross — Hairbreadth 
 escapes — Pairama and the white man's leg. 
 
 On the edge of the great forest, some miles to the 
 south of the Waitotara River, was the site of the 
 olden Maori village, Tauranga-ika. In front fern 
 and grass lands stretched away to the sand-dmies 
 of the sea-coast, with here and there a small shallow 
 lake ; in the rear was the dense and roadless bush, 
 a perfect and safe retreat for the Haiihaus in the 
 event of defeat. The country hereabouts w as dotted 
 with the white man's farmsteads ; but the whites 
 had been driven oft" before Titokowaru's victorious 
 army, leaving their homes, the labour of many 
 years, to go up in smoke, and their sheep and cattle 
 to feed the Hauhau bands. Wanganui town was 
 only a day's march away, and Titokowaru's council 
 of chiefs, eager to follow up their victory at Moturoa, 
 proposed to assault the town and massacre every 
 soul in it. 
 
 226
 
 THE TAURANGA-IKA STOCKADE 227 
 
 This old-time village was fixed on by the Hau- 
 hau war-chief as the site of his new fighting jki, for 
 he abandoned Papa-tihakehake soon after the re- 
 pulse of the white forces at that strong stockade. 
 With the wariness of the Maori strategist, he avoided 
 a second attack in any one entrenchment, and 
 sooner than risk another, and possibly disastrous, 
 engagement at Papa-tihakehake, he took the trouble 
 to construct an even stronger fortification, a splendid 
 example of native military engineering genius. 
 
 In the building of this new fa, Kimble Bent and 
 his Hauhau comrades toiled early and late until it 
 was completed. It was of large size, fully defended 
 with palisading, trenches, parapet, and rifle-pits. 
 It was between two and three chains in extreme 
 length at the rear, with a somewhat narrower front. 
 The ground in front was bare of forest, but carried 
 high fern cover ; on the flanks were burned clear- 
 ings, dotted with blackened tree-stumps and cum- 
 bered with logs ; then the forest, with some beautiful 
 groves of 7nahoe on its outskirts. Two rows of 
 palisades, high and strong, were erected around 
 the position ; the posts, solid tree-trunks, were 
 from six to twelve inches thick and ten to fifteen 
 feet high ; the rows were four feet apart. The 
 spaces between the larger stockade-posts were filled 
 in with saplings set upright close together, and 
 fastened by cross-rails and supplejack ties ; these 
 saplings did not rest in the ground, but hung a few
 
 228 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 inches above it, so that between them and the 
 ground a space was left for the fire of the defending 
 musketeers, who were enabled to pour volleys from 
 their trenches inside the war-fence on any approach- 
 ing enemy with perfect safety to themselves. 
 Behind the inner stockading was a parapet about 
 six feet high and four feet wide, formed of the earth 
 thrown out of the trenches. The interior of the 
 pa was pitted everywhere with trenches and covered 
 ways, so that in the event of attack the defenders 
 could literally take to the earth like rabbits, and 
 live underground secure from rifle-fire, and even 
 from artillery. The place was a network of trenches 
 with coimecting passages, roofed over with timber, 
 raupo, and toeioe reeds and earth. To any assault 
 that could be delivered by the Government forces 
 then available, the fort was practically impregnable. 
 At one angle of the j)a the Hauhau garrison erected 
 a rouglily timbered watch-tower, about thirty-five 
 feet in height. This tower, or taumaihi, was a 
 feature of the ancient pas of Maoridom ; on its upper 
 platform a sentinel was jjosted, day and night, to 
 give warning of the approach of the enemy. In 
 front of the 2^a, outside the palisades, a tall flag- 
 staff was set up, and on this staff the Hauhau war- 
 flags were hoisted. There were two gateways in 
 the rear stockading, giving access to the bush. In 
 one end of the pa near the rear was a small tent 
 occupied by Titokowaru. Bent, the cartridge-maker,
 
 THE TAURANGA-IKA STOCKADE 229 
 
 lived in a little riiHli-built whare towards the other 
 end, near one of the gateways. 
 
 When the stockade was finished the Haiihaus 
 constructed a tekoteko, a great marionette-like figure 
 of 9j man, cut out of a piika tea-tree. It was so 
 placed that its head stood about fifteen feet above 
 the ground, well above the front stockade, and it 
 had loose- jointed arms, to which flax ropes were 
 fastened, leading down to the trench below. By 
 manipulating these ropes the arms of the wooden 
 warrior were made to move in the actions of the 
 haJca, just as if some painted Hauhau were dancing 
 a dance of defiance on the fortress walls. 
 
 When the fort was finished the garrison gathered 
 in their food supplies, saw to their arms, and for 
 many weeks waited for the pake ha. Hauhau 
 scouts and small war-parties daily sallied out from 
 the fort, seeking game in the shape of stray pakehas. 
 
 One of these savage man-hunters was a Ngati- 
 Maniapoto man from the King Country, whose name 
 was Pairama, and who had married a Nga-Rauru 
 woman. He used to go out by himself, looking for 
 some one or something to kill. Te Pairama returned 
 to the stockade in huge jubilation one day, bearing 
 as a trophy of his prowess on the trail a white man's 
 leg ! He had, says Bent, scouted down until he 
 was close to Kai-iwi. There he spied a white 
 settler in a grass paddock, carrying a rifle. 
 
 Down he crouched at once, and stealthily stalked
 
 230 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 the pakeha. Just as the unsuspecting settler came 
 to the paddock gate, the Maori leaped out from 
 behind the fence, with a furious snatch tore the 
 rifle from the man's grasp, and shot him dead with 
 it. He cut off one of the pakeha' s legs with his 
 tomahawk, and brought it home as proof of his 
 success on the war-path as proudly as any Indian 
 ever flourished his take of scalps. Up and down 
 the marae of the jm he bounded, exhibiting the 
 captured rifle and severed limb, yelling his Mar- 
 song, and loudly boasting that he would that night 
 cook the pakehd's leg and eat it all himself. 
 
 But the warrior's braggadocio received a sharp 
 check from Titokowaru. The war-chief disap- 
 proved of this sort of thing on the part of irrespon- 
 sible young free-lances. " No man must bring 
 white man's flesh into this pa''' he said, " unless 
 he is one of the Tekau-ma-rua, the war-party sent 
 out by me. Take that pakeha, leg back again at 
 once and place it alongside the body.'' And soon 
 thereafter the disgusted scout, his ardour for " long- 
 pig " so unexpectedly damped by Titoko's code of 
 cannibal etiquette, was to be seen trudging back 
 along the track to the pakeha farm, with sulky 
 visage and reluctant gait, and a white foot and leg 
 — raw — protruding from a flax basket strapped to his 
 shoulders. 
 
 By day the scouting parties of the Hauhau 
 " Twelve Apostles " scoured the country ; by night
 
 THE TAURANGA-IKA STOCKADE 231 
 
 the people gathered round the fires on the ynarae or 
 in the big sleeping ivhares, cand talked and sang and 
 danced the hakas of which they never wearied. 
 Wild night-scenes those on the stockaded marae, 
 with the crowds of blanketed or flax-cloaked men 
 and women, their wild faces illumined by the leap- 
 ing flames, squatting in great circles round the camp 
 fires, while more than half nude figures leaped and 
 stamped and slapped their limbs and chests with 
 resounding slaps, and expelled the air from their 
 lungs in wolfish " Ooli's ! " and " Hau's ! " as they 
 trod the assembly ground in all the fury of the war- 
 dance. A warrior orator would rise, weapon in 
 hand, and throwing off his blanket for freedom of 
 action, go bounding along the marae in front of 
 the assemblage, shouting short, sharp sentences as 
 he taki'd to and fro, his athletic figure untrammelled 
 except for a waist-shawl or short dangling mat, fire 
 in his movements, and ferocity in every gesture 
 and in every cry — the embodiment of belligerent 
 Maoridom in its savage prime. 
 
 Like defiant replying shouts from some hidden 
 foe in the blackness of the forest that rose in a solid 
 wall above the rear stockade came the clear echoes 
 of the roaring haka choruses. 
 
 And so the wild night passed, until the camp fires 
 died down, and the tribespeople sought sleep in 
 their packed wharepunis and their rush-strewn 
 burrows ; and the melancholy " Kou-kou ! " of the
 
 232 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 " hundred-eyed " r^iru, the bush-owl, was heard, as 
 the bird-sentry of the night hours cried his watch- 
 word from the forest or a perch on some tall palisade- 
 post. Yet not all eyes were closed in the pa, for 
 the Hauhaus, grown wise by much hard experience, 
 did not neglect the posting of sentries, and a sen- 
 tinel watched from the platform in the angle-tower. 
 At intervals he cried his watch-cry, or raised liis 
 voice in a night-song that rose and fell in measured 
 cadences like a tmigi wail. 
 
 The most dreaded hour in Maori warfare was the 
 dark, dank hour just before the daAvn, and then it 
 was well to be on the qui vive, for Kepa's dusky 
 forest-rangers and their white comrades the A.C.'s 
 had a truly unpleasant fashion of attacking their 
 enemies at most unholy, shivery times, when man 
 slept soundest. So the watchmen in the tower 
 were enjoined to extra vigilance in the early morn- 
 ing hours. And, as in the olden Maori days, out 
 rang the voice of the high sentinel, chanting his 
 ancient " Whahiara-jKi,'" his " AlTs well " song, to 
 Tarioa and Kopu, the first and morning stars. 
 
 This is one of the songs he cried, an old watch- 
 chant of the Ngati-Toa tribe of Kawhia : 
 
 Translation. 
 Kia hiwa e ! Now watcliful be, 
 
 Kia hiwa I O watchful be, 
 
 Kia hiwa e tenei tuku. On tliis side and on that ! 
 
 Kia hiwa e tera tuku ; Bend ears to every sound. 
 
 Kia, whakarongo koe High up, high up
 
 THE TAURANGA-IKA STOCKADE 233 
 
 Translation. 
 
 Ki luja kupii. Tho surf rolls in 
 
 Whakapunc tonu. On Harihari's cliffs, 
 
 Whakapuru tonu And loudly soinids the restless 
 Tc tai ki Harihari, sea 
 
 Ka tangi tere On Mokau's coast. 
 
 Te tai ki Mokuu. Now yonder, lo ! the svni— 
 
 Ka ao atu te ra, 'J'hc sun leaps uj) 
 
 Ka ao mai te ra Aljo\e the mountain-tops. 
 Ki tim o nga puo ra. 
 E — c .' / — a — v)e ! 
 
 Late one night, as tlie Hauhaiis lay behind their 
 palisades, Colonel Thomas McDonnell^ — a man who 
 spoke Maori like a native — rode boldly up to the 
 pa wall with his escort, and asked for Titokowaru. 
 He called out in the native tongue, " Titoko — 
 where are you ? " 
 
 Titoko, summoned from his tent, went down to 
 the stockade. " I am here ! " he shouted. 
 
 The white officer cried : " Titoko, I have been 
 trying to discover your atua, the god which guides 
 you in your battles. Now I have found it — I know 
 the source of your mana. When the wind blows 
 hard from the ichakarua (the north-east), I know 
 it is the breath of your god, the wind of Uenuku ! 
 But your atua is only a tutua — a low fellow ! " 
 
 Spoke Titoko angrily, and said : " McDonnell, 
 go ! Depart at once ! If you do not ride away 
 directly, there will be a blazing oven ready for you ! " 
 
 McDonnell rode away, and the angry chief re- 
 turned to his tent. Why McDonnell should have 
 paid this daring night visit to the stockade is not
 
 234 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 quite clear, but the incident is given just as Bent 
 narrates it. He and his companions on the marae 
 heard the dialogue, and Bent says the old fear 
 struck to his heart when he heard Titokowaru 
 menacing the white officer with the oven. The 
 Taranakis seem to have been particularly addicted 
 to the " ordeal by fire." 
 
 " The oven is gaping open for you ! " Mas their 
 customary threat. Their tribal history abounds, 
 too, in tales of how some obnoxious neighbours or 
 others, Ngati-so-and-so, had been effectively dis- 
 posed of by the simple process of surrounding their 
 huts while they slept, fastening the doors, and 
 then setting fire to the icliares. The only objection 
 from the Maori point of view to this sunnnary 
 method of obtaining utu was that it " spoiled the 
 meat ! " 
 
 Colonel McDonnell was so conversant with Maori 
 tikanga — customs, rules of life, and ways of thought^ — • 
 that he was by way of being a tohunga-Mdi,ov\ him- 
 self, and his dramatic twitting of Titokowaru with 
 the fact that the reputed source of his fighting mana 
 was within his (McDonnell's) knowledge was a cir- 
 cumstance that hugely annoyed the old war-chief. 
 
 It Avas just as if so much of his mana-tapu had 
 passed to his white foeman — to the rival maker of 
 strong " war-medicine." 
 
 Occasional skirmishes with the white cavalry 
 patrol-parties enlivened the three months' sojourn
 
 A HAI7HAU SCOUT, TUTANQE WAIONUI, OF PATEA. 
 
 235
 
 THE TAURANGA-IKA STOCKADE 237 
 
 in Tauranga-ika. In one of these rencontres a young 
 Wangamii trooper — now a resident of Wellington 
 — won his New Zealand Cross. This was William 
 Lingard, a member of Captain John Bryce's troop 
 of Kai-iwi Cavalry, 
 
 Out scouting one day, Bryce took a party of his 
 men boldly up to the front of the stockade on a 
 reconnaissance. The place was unusually quiet, 
 and a white flag was flying on the flag-staff in front 
 of the 'pa. One of the cavalrymen, Sergeant Max- 
 well, leaping a ditch and hedge that intervened 
 between the farm lands and the ^^a, raced right up 
 close to the stockade, and fired at it. Trooper 
 Lingard, also leaping the obstacles, with the rest 
 of the detachment, rode up past the pa. Lingard, 
 though he could see nothing of the Maoris, raised 
 his carbine and fired a shot. The next instant the 
 whole palisade front — just above the ground, where 
 the interstices were left for musketry — was a blaze 
 of fii'e, and a storm of lead sang over the little trooj). 
 The Hauhaus, hidden in their trenches, and pre- 
 serving complete silence, had waited till the patrol 
 was within murderously close range. Maxwell was 
 mortally wounded ; but he sat his horse till it 
 carried him out of range. Several horses were shot, 
 and fell. One trooper, H. Wright, was pinned to the 
 ground by his horse falling on his leg, and was un- 
 able to extricate himself, but, nevertheless, drew his 
 revolver, and kept popping away at the palisades.
 
 238 THE ADVENTURES OP KIMBLE BENT 
 
 The ^^llole pa was now in a roar of battle-excite- 
 ment. The Maoris, as they fii-ed, raised their 
 fearful yells and war-shouts, an infernal din that 
 almost drowned the cracks of the fire-arms. Kimble 
 Bent was there, sitting on the parapet inside the 
 stockade, and watching the encounter. A burly 
 framed Hauhaii, a herculean savage known as Big 
 Kereopa — one of those who had shared in the 
 cannibal feast at Papa-tiliakehake — dashed out from 
 the rear of the stockade, armed with a long-handled 
 tomahawk, and rushed at the helpless pakelia. 
 Trooper Lingard instantly put his plunging horse 
 at the Hauhau, and cut at him with his sword. 
 Another trooper, Tom D. Cummins (now of Wan- 
 ganui) took a hand in the combat, and with a shot 
 from his carbine stopped -the charging Hauhau. 
 He put a bullet into Kereopa, and the big felloM' 
 clapping a hand to his wound — which was in his 
 posterior parts — bolted back into the pa nearly as 
 quickly as he had come, yelling "I'm shot ! Fm 
 shot ! " Lingai'd, leaning over, got Wright by the 
 hand, and, though almost dismounted himself, suc- 
 ceeded in (h'aggiiig his conH.uh' Iroin iiiKUvr the 
 fallen horse. Then, noticing a wiiitc horse — which 
 was usually ridden by one of tiie Maori scouts — 
 tethered to a lutu-h\\A\ a short distance from the 
 palisades, Lingard galloped at it, cut the tether-line 
 with his sword, and soon luid Wiight mounted 
 again antl riding down the hill out t)f range, ^ith
 
 THE TAURANGA-IKA STOCKADE 239 
 
 the Hauliau bullets whistling close around theu" 
 heads. Lingard's rescue of his comrade was a 
 remarkably plucky bit of work. 
 
 An incident of Hauhau life at this period, illus- 
 trative of the pitilessly savage character of the 
 olden Maori, is told thus by Kimble Bent : 
 
 " While we were living in the ;pa at Tauranga- 
 ika, a Hauhau fighting-man named Taketake 
 quarrelled with his sister. She threatened that 
 she would run away to the 2J«^e^«s, and tell them 
 of the cannibal practices of the rebels. He warned 
 her that if she did he would shoot her. That even- 
 ing she left the 'pa, and started for the white soldiers' 
 camp. Taketake loaded his gun and followed her. 
 Overtaking her on the road, he shot her through 
 the back and killed her. He returned to the pa 
 and reported what he had done. A party of men 
 went out and brought back the murdered woman's 
 body, and that was all there was about it. No one 
 interfered with Taketake, or considered what he 
 had done was a crime. All they said was ' Kaitoa ! ' 
 (' Serve her right ')." 
 
 While the pakeha attack was awaited, Bent and his 
 companions spent much of their time in the forest 
 at the rear of the fort, catching eels in the creeks, 
 hunting wild pigs, and gathering wild honey for 
 the garrison food-supplies.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 A SCOUTING ADVENTURE 
 
 The passage of the Okchu — A niglit's vigil — Mackenzie the 
 scout — " Maoris in the bush ! " — The watchers in the fern — A 
 race for hfe. 
 
 A CLEAR, bright, moonlight night of summer ; a 
 moon that silvered the sharp hill-tops of the broken 
 Maori country, but left black mysterious shadows 
 in the gorges and river valleys that every few miles 
 cut deeply into the rolling fern lands ; valleys full 
 of danger and death, for in their depths crept the 
 war-parties of the savage, laying ambushes, plan- 
 ning murder and mutilation. On a gently sloping 
 rise on the open fern lands a hundred M'hite tents, 
 the camp of the pakeha troops, glittered in the full 
 moonlight. The sweet bugle-calls of " Lights out " 
 and the " Last post " rang out for miles across the 
 wilderness, and except for the piquets and sentries 
 the camp was soon asleep. But away on the forest 
 edge, a mile from the safely entrenched camp, a 
 little band of men, half a dozen scouts, crouched 
 hiding in the fern, carbines in their hands, watching, 
 listening. They were the eyes of the army. Their 
 
 240
 
 A SCOUTING ADVENTURE 241 
 
 wits, tlieii- keenness of vision and hearing, were 
 pitted this night against the savage men of the 
 forest, born bushmen, with the cunning of the 
 Indian. 
 
 It was the 17th of January, 1869, nearly three 
 months after the repulse of the Colonial troops at 
 the Moturoa stockade. All this time Titokowaru and 
 his victorious Tekau-ma-rua had everything their 
 own way on the West Coast, scouring the country- 
 side, burning settlers' houses, killing cattle, and 
 strengthening their palisaded position at Tauranga- 
 ika. The East Coast campaign following on the 
 Poverty Bay massacre had necessitated the diver- 
 sion of nearly all the Constabulary from the West 
 Coast, until the storming and capture of Te Kooti's 
 hill-fort Ngatapa and the flight of the rebel chief 
 to the forests of the Urewera Country enabled 
 attention to be again given to the Taranaki and 
 Waitotara Hauhaus. Now, well on in the month 
 of January, 1869, Colonel Whitmore, with Colonel 
 Lyon — a brave one-armed soldier, veteran of the 
 Crimea — as his second in command, advanced from 
 Wanganui with a strong force of Armed Constabu- 
 lary, about eight hundred in number, l)esides a large 
 body of K'upa'pas, or friendly Maoris, mostly, of the 
 Whanganui tribe, under Kepa te Rangihiwinui. 
 The force encamped at the end of the first day's 
 march near the right bank of the Kai-iwi stream, 
 about ten miles from Wanganui, and prepared to 
 16
 
 242 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 march the next day through the Okehii Gorge and 
 on to Nukumaru and Tauranga-ika. 
 
 This country around the Kai-iwi was mostly open 
 fern land, but some of the river gullies were filled 
 with a dense growth of forest. A short distance to 
 the north of the camp there was a deep gorge, the 
 valley of the Okehu stream. Through this gorge 
 a road had been cut some years before, and the 
 river had been bridged, giving access to Nukumaru 
 and the Waitotara, and this was the route by 
 which Colonel Whitmore intended to approach the 
 Hauhau stronghold. It was, however, plainly a 
 dangerous place, where the Maoris might easily 
 lay an ambush. The little colonel was too old a 
 soldier to run risks of this sort, and he determined 
 to have the gorge carefully scouted before he took 
 his column into it. 
 
 That afternoon he selected half a dozen of his 
 most active men, some of them Constabulary, some 
 volunteers, and as soon as night fell despatched 
 them to the Okehu, with orders to spend the night 
 on the fern-covered right bank of the gorge, and find 
 out if the Maoris were laying an ambuscade in the 
 bush below. Trooper William Lingard, of Bryce's 
 Kai-iwi Cavalry — the young trooper who liad dis- 
 tinguished himself at the Tauranga-ika skirmish 
 described in the last chapter — was placed in charge 
 of the scouts. With him were Chris. Maling, a 
 young surveyor — his father had been killed by the
 
 A SCOUTING ADVENTURE 243 
 
 Maoris years before, and he often declared that he 
 would never rest until he had killed a Maori with 
 his own hands in revenge ; a Frenchman called 
 Peter the Guide ; three men named Herri, Powell, 
 and Williamson ; and an old Indian soldier named 
 Mackenzie. It is with this Mackenzie that this 
 story of a night's scouting expedition is chiefly 
 concerned. 
 
 It was the calmest of nights, a still night when 
 sounds travelled far, and in silence the little squad 
 of armed scouts set out from the tented camp in 
 single file towards the dark gorge of the Okehu. 
 They marched as silently as Indians, for they were 
 shod exactly like Indians, in moccasins that felt 
 the ground as soundlessly as a wild cat's pad. 
 
 The making and wearing of those moccasins was 
 Mackenzie's idea. This veteran soldier was a man 
 who had been brought out from India by Sir Henry 
 Cracroft Wilson, when that gentleman settled in 
 Canterbury, He was, as one of his scouting com- 
 rades says, a fine-looking, resolute man, something 
 over forty years of age, with hair beginning to turn 
 grizzly, and a bold, fearless eye. He was partly of 
 Gurkha blood, and his senses were wonderfully 
 keen. He had marvellous escapes from death, and 
 had even been partly scalped. Once when he was 
 overpowered and felled in a melee, a savage had 
 passed his knife around his head and underneath 
 the scalp, and was about to " lift his hair " when a
 
 244 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 timely bullet from one of Mackenzie's comrades 
 knocked his assailant over, and the soldier was 
 rescued. His companion ran to his aid, pressed 
 down the torn scalp into its place, and bound it 
 firmly with bandages. Mackenzie saved his hair, 
 but to his last day bore the scar of the scalping- 
 kiiife running round his head. He carried besides 
 his carbine a remarkable weapon, a two-ended 
 steel knife, or dagger, of Afghan make, which he wore 
 in a sheath at his back with a flap of skin over tlie 
 top. Ojie end of the dagger was a stiletto and the 
 other was a double-edged cutting and thrusting 
 blade, ground as sharp as a razor. It had the 
 handle in the middle. With this knife he would per- 
 form some wonderfully dexterous feats. He A\ould 
 throw it up into the air thirty or forty feet and 
 catch it by the middle as cleverly as a juggler as it 
 came whizzing down. He would stick a piece of 
 paper on a post and, retiring twenty or tlmty yards, 
 hurl the shining weapon at it and transfix the 
 target in the exact centre, the knife quivering several 
 inches deep in the jjost. 
 
 The moccasins the scouts wore were made by 
 Mackenzie from the skin of a horse. Immediately 
 the party had been organised the old soldier went 
 out with his carbine and shot one of the numerous 
 ownerless horses tluit roamed tlie liills. Cutting 
 out suitable pieces of the skin, lie litted them while 
 still warm to his connades' feet, with the hair in-
 
 A SCOUTING ADVENTURE 245 
 
 side ; then cut thongs and laced the horse-skin shoe 
 firmly to the foot. In a few hours these moccasins 
 took perfect shape, and made the most suitable 
 foot-gear for bush-work that could have been de- 
 vised. " If we wear ordinary boots out scouting 
 we're sure to lose our lives," said Mackenzie ; "we 
 can't scout noiselessly in them, or run fast enough 
 when it comes to running." 
 
 An old Maori war-track wound through the high 
 fern above the Okehu Gorge. Along this the scouts 
 marched to take up their night's vigil. Two were 
 posted at the end of the gorge nearest the camp, 
 two more about two hundred yards away, and the 
 third couple about the same distance farther on, 
 above the middle of the gorge. The men made 
 themselves nests in the fern alongside the track, and 
 close to the edge of the slope that fell to the im- 
 penetrable blackness of the bush below. The leader, 
 as he posted the men, told them to keep a sharp 
 watch and listen for any sounds, and to give a signal 
 if any of them heard Maoris in the gorge. The 
 signal was to be the thrice-repeated sharp cry of the 
 iveha, the night-roving wingless bird that haunted 
 these forests and gulches. 
 
 After posting his comrades in their several posi- 
 tions, young Lingard rejoined his companion Maling 
 in a little nook in the thick fern just on the gorge 
 side of the narrow foot-track, and stayed a Miiile 
 with him conversing in whispers. In half an
 
 246 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 hour's time ho cautiously patrolled the track again 
 to visit the others. When he came to Mackenzie, 
 the old soldier was sitting up reading a pocket Bible 
 by the bright moonlight. 
 
 " What are you reading ? " asked Lingard, as 
 he squatted down quietly in the fern by Mackenzie's 
 side. 
 
 " Look and see," said the soldier, and Lingard 
 saw, and wondered, for not many a rough old 
 soldier like Mackenzie was seen with such a book. 
 And he wondered still more when Mackenzie, clos- 
 ing the book, asked him to look at it again. There 
 was a clean-cut hole in it, right through one of the 
 covers and penetrating many of the leaves. 
 
 " That book saved my life," said the veteran. 
 And he told the story. It was the comrade who 
 had bowled over the Indian who was about to scalp 
 him that gave Mackenzie the little Bible. " ' You 
 say you will always be grateful to mc for saving 
 your life,' he said. 'Well, I want you to do just 
 one tiling for me ; it's a little thing. I w on't ask 
 much.' 
 
 " He was so insistent," said Mackenzie, " that 
 I gave him the promise he asked. 'Well,' said 
 my friend, ' just take this little book of mine and 
 read something in it every night ; or, if you won't 
 read it, take it out and look at it and open it. And 
 always carry it with you. It will save your life.' 
 
 " I did so, and I read it, more to please my old
 
 A SCOUTING ADVENTURE 247 
 
 friend than anything else. I carried it in my 
 jumper pocket, for it was small and light. And in 
 those dangerous days I carried something else night 
 and day — this dagger that I wear at my belt. 
 About midnight one night I was lying alone in my 
 tent, half-asleep, when I heard something — no, 
 smelt it ! It was pitch dark, but I knew there was 
 something or some one close to me. As quietly as I 
 knew how, I loosened my dagger and gripped it 
 firmly. The next moment I felt a terrible thud on 
 the chest, and a figure hurled itself on me. I brought 
 round the knife with a swift sweep, and nearly 
 ripped the side out of the fellow — killed him dead. 
 It was a native who wanted to kill and rob me. 
 He had jumped at me with a knife, but the point 
 of his blade struck the Bible in my breast pocket 
 as I lay on my back, and that saved my life. See ! 
 It's the sort of thing you used to read about in little 
 Sunday-school books, isn't it ? I wonder how 
 many people would believe it ? But it's absolutely 
 true. That old comrade of mine saved my life 
 twice. And it's these two I put my trust in, my 
 Bible and my dagger. That knife's the best weapon 
 I've ever had. It's more to me than carbine or 
 revolver." 
 
 Then Mackenzie put his hand on his fellow- 
 scout's arm, and spoke in an earnest whisper of a 
 presentiment that filled his mind. 
 
 " I feel," he said, looking straight into his friend's
 
 248 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 eyes, " that this is my last night on earth. I have 
 a conviction that I won't see another sun rise." 
 
 " Nonsense ! " said young Lingard, beginning to 
 feel creepy. " Don't talk like that, old man ; 
 you'll unnerve me. You're not going to die." 
 
 " Why should I unnerve you, my boy ? " asked 
 Mackenzie very quietly and gently. " There's no- 
 thing to be afraid of in dying. I can face death 
 with perfect calmness ; and I know I'm to die very 
 soon." 
 
 There was silence for some moments. Suddenly 
 Mackenzie started, turned in a listening attitude, and 
 put up a hand in warning. 
 
 " Don't you hear them ? " he whispered. " Don't 
 you hear them ? There are Maoris moving in the 
 bush below. I heard the pat of a naked foot just 
 now and the breaking of a twig." 
 
 The young leader of the scouts listened with 
 utmost intentness for the next few minutes. The 
 two comrades could hear each other's hearts thump- 
 ing, so still they crouched. But not another sound 
 came except the occasional call of the melancholy 
 morepork. 
 
 After a little while Lingard bade Mackenzie 
 good-bye for the time, and, with his carbine at the 
 " ready," crept back along the track and visited 
 the other men. Joining Maling, he told him of his 
 strange conversation Mith Mackenzie. 
 
 " He's a real good fellow," said Maling, " a good
 
 A SCOUTING ADVENTURE 249 
 
 comrade. I hope that presentiment of his is all 
 bunkum. But if he says there are Maoris moving 
 in the bush, we'll have work before morning." 
 
 In half an hour's time Lingard went the rounds 
 again, stopping every now and then to listen for 
 sounds of the enemy. He found Mackenzie still 
 reading, bare-headed, by the clear moonlight in his 
 little nook in the fern. Mackenzie's mate was 
 sound asleep. 
 
 The old soldier's senses Mere wonderfully acute. 
 Quietly as Lingard stole up on his moccasined feet, 
 he had heard him. He was listening while he read. 
 
 " Lingard," he said, " I've been reading for the 
 lar.t time. I know it's my last night of life. To- 
 day I was so sure of this that I settled my account 
 at the canteen, and paid my last instalment on a 
 horse I bought from John Handley, and I've written 
 to my wife. I won't see to-morrow's sun rise. 
 This came to me yesterday morning. 
 
 " Lingard," he went on again, in a whisper, 
 " there are Maoris about ! Can't you smell them ? 
 They're in the bush below, waiting. But you'll 
 stay, I suppose, till daylight, unless something 
 happens before then." 
 
 In a few minutes Lingard, after vainly listening 
 for sounds in the bush, cautiously rose and walked 
 back along the track. He left Mackenzie sitting 
 there, with the moonlight streaming down on his 
 earnest face, still reading his little book. Returning
 
 250 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 to Maling, Lingard sat with his companion listening, 
 until it was within perhaps half an hour of full day- 
 light. 
 
 Then, all at once, they heard a fearful sound. A 
 rifle shot, followed instantly by a terrific yell, the 
 war-yell of the Maoris from the bush behind them. 
 The bush flashed fire, the flashes of many guns, 
 accompanied by reverberating bangs ; then the 
 pattering and thudding of many naked feet along 
 the track. 
 
 The ambuscade had been unmasked. One of the 
 scouts — so it was learned afterwards — had cau- 
 tiously worked his way down the valley, far enough 
 down to see that the bridge over the Okehu had 
 been set on fire, and by its light he saw a large 
 party of armed Hauhaus. He hurried back to give 
 his comrades warning, but before he could reach 
 them some of the prowling natives discovered 
 Mackenzie and Williamson and fired on them, 
 wounding Williamson in the back when he started 
 to run. 
 
 The scouts had done their work, but would they 
 ever reach the camp alive ? 
 
 The whole of the war-party were on the white 
 men's heels, racing through the fern and along the 
 narrow track and firing as they ran. The moon 
 had gone down, and it was too dim to see very far, 
 but the dawn was spreading over the eastern sky. 
 
 " They're on us ! — they're on us ! " exclaimed
 
 A SCOUTING ADVENTURE 251 
 
 Maling. " It's no use to run now ; we wouldn't 
 have a show. Let's hide here in the fern." 
 
 The scouts were crouching in the fern within a 
 yard or so of the Maori track. The fern was very 
 high here, over a tall man's head in height, and was 
 very thick and matted, and lying in a slanting 
 direction. The two men, knowing that it was certain 
 death to venture out, for the Maoris were rushing 
 along the track in force, crept underneath the thick 
 masses of ferns, and pushed it up over them so that 
 they had room to move and were perfectly screened 
 from the enemy's eyes in that early morning light. 
 They made ready their Terry carbines, bit their 
 cartridges ready for reloading, and put their per- 
 cussion-caps in their mouths for instant use. Just 
 before they did so, Maling turned to his companion 
 and said : 
 
 " Lingard, old man, promise me if it comes to 
 the worst you won't leave me, and I'll do the same 
 by you. Don't let us leave each other," and he 
 put out his hand. 
 
 The young leader of the scouts gripped Maiing's 
 hand. " We'll stick by each other," he said. 
 
 The next moment there was a thundering rush 
 of feet past the very muzzles of their carbines. A 
 mob of Hauhaus, yelling and shouting, raced past 
 them, following up the leaders who had been fixed 
 on by the scout, and who had come dashing after 
 the white men.
 
 252 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 The two hidden scouts could hear nothing of 
 their comrades, but they well knew the odds were 
 greatly against any of them reaching the camp. 
 
 Presently they heard firing from the direction of 
 the camp. The troops had turned out on hearing 
 the shots at the bush edge, and were covering the 
 retreat of the scouts. 
 
 Then another thing happened. Maling and his 
 companion heard and felt something now and then 
 swishing and cutting through the fern just above 
 their heads. They were under the fire of their own 
 comrades. 
 
 " Maling," said Lingard, " this is getting too 
 warm ! It's not good enough to stay here and be 
 shot by our own men. Let's make a run for it." 
 
 Creeping out from their place of concealment, and 
 giving a quick look backwards to make sure that no 
 more Hauhaus were coming, the two scouts ran 
 along the track in the direction of the camp. Close 
 by on their left they could hear the enemy yelling 
 and firing. 
 
 Just as they turned a })end in the path they came 
 u])on a terrible sight. Mackenzie lay on the 
 ground, face downwards ; his head smashed in 
 and his brains spattering the ground. His carbine 
 and ammunition and Afghan sheath-dagger were 
 gone. 
 
 This they saw at one horrified glance, then they 
 dashed on, taking a shoi't cut across the fern to the
 
 A SCOUTING ADVENTURE 253 
 
 camp. They could see the white tents now in the 
 morning light. They ran towards the troops shout- 
 ing, " Don't fire ! — don't fire ! " 
 
 The two scouts reached camp safely, and Lingard 
 immediately reported the result of the night's work 
 to the colonel. All the others excepting poor 
 Mackenzie turned up. One of them had fallen shot, 
 wounded in the back, close to the camp, but was 
 rescued by the surgeon. Dr. Walker, who pluckily 
 ran out and carried him in. 
 
 Mackenzie, one of the survivors said, was running 
 well, and would have escaped, but he suddenly fell 
 prone on his face without any apparent cause. A 
 Hauhau came running along next moment, and, 
 putting his gun close to Mackenzie's head, blew his 
 brains out. 
 
 Then came another strange development of the 
 morning's adventure. Surgeon Walker, on examin- 
 ing Mackenzie's body, said he believed the scout 
 had died suddenly of heart disease, and that he ^^■as 
 quite dead before even the Hauhau shot him. 
 
 The brave old Gurkha soldier's present iment of 
 speedy death was only too true a foreword fiom the 
 Unknown. 
 
 It was fortunate that tliis Hauhau ambuscade 
 had been unmasked. The camp was already astir, 
 and the troops were having their early morning 
 coffee, and in another half -hour would have begun 
 the march by the Okehu Gorge route, when the first
 
 254 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 shots were fired. Once down in the narrow' gorge 
 and the presence of the enemy undetected, they 
 would have been practically at the mercy of their 
 active and well-concealed foes in the thick bush 
 above and on either side of them. 
 
 After this little morning skirmish the Hauhaus, 
 numbering probably a hundred and hfty, quickly 
 retired through the bush to the Tauranga-ika pa, 
 taking with them as trophies the dead soldier's arms. 
 The white troops were soon on the move. Four 
 divisions of Armed Constabulary, the Volunteer 
 Cavalry, and the Kujmjm Maoris marched through 
 the Gorge unmolested, and took uj) a ])osition near 
 the great Hauliau pa., which Whitmore now pre- 
 pared to storm. First he tried artillery in an en- 
 deavour to breach the stockade, and Kimble Bent 
 and his Maori comrades in the crowded fort now 
 stood target for cannon-fu'c.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 THE FALL OF TAURANGA-IKA 
 
 Shot and shell — Tlie fort abandoned — Fliglit of the Hauhans 
 — The chase — The fight at Karaka Flat— Mutilation of the dead 
 — The ambuscade at the peach-grove — The sergeant's leg — 
 Rewards for Hauhau heads. 
 
 Skirmishing up over the fern slopes of Tauranga- 
 ika came Whitmore's Armed Constabulary and 
 Kepa's kilted guerillas from the Wanganui. Some 
 of the A.C.'s advanced to within about two hundred 
 yards of the stockade, and took cover in a ditch 
 which ran parallel with the front palisading ; here 
 they opened fire. The main body had pitched 
 camp about half a mile from the 'pa front. At the 
 same time Armstrong guns were brought up and 
 posted on the left front of the stockade, and shell- 
 fire was opened on the rebel position at a range of 
 five hundred yards. 
 
 But most of the Hauhaus were safe in their 
 trenches and their covered ways, and the shells and 
 bullets passed harmlessly over them. A few of the 
 young bloods danced and yelled defiance from above- 
 ground. On the stockade was the Hauhau tekoteko, 
 the dummy figure which they worked in marionette- 
 
 255
 
 256 THE ADVENTURES OP KIMBLE BENT 
 
 fashion by means of ropes that led into the trench 
 below. This dummy was intended to draw the 
 'pakeha fire, but it had hardly deceived the veteran 
 A.C.'s and Kepa's Kupa'pas, versed in all Hauhau 
 ways that were dark and tricks that were vain. 
 Bent was underground, listening to the bang of 
 the Armstrongs and the whistle of tlie shells, and 
 now and again squinting through the palisades at 
 his adversaries. 
 
 One Maori, who was standing in an angle of the 
 pa, was wounded in the head by a splinter knocked 
 off one of the palisade-posts by a shot from an 
 Armstrong gun. The same shell, whizzing through 
 the 'pa, ripped a hole in Titokowaru's tent. 
 
 When night fell, no appreciable breach had been 
 made by the sheU-fire. It was now decided to 
 storm the pa at daybreak. Some of the A.C.'s 
 crept up with tliek entrencliing tools to witliin 
 fifty yards of the stockade, and dug out slielter- 
 trenches. 
 
 Tlie fort was remarkably quiot during the night. 
 It was reconnoitred \\hcn daybicak came, and 
 found — empty. The Hauhaus had for some mys- 
 terious reason deserted it under cover of (hirkness, 
 and taken to the l)ush. So fell lo llic pakeha the 
 very strong Tauranga-ilui pa. 
 
 Bent explains this unexpected abandonment of 
 Titokowaru's most formidable entrencliment. 
 
 The eternal feminine was at the bottom t)f it all.
 
 THE FALL OF TAURANGA-IKA 257 
 
 The chief of blood and fire, with all his mana- 
 tapu, was vulnerable to the artillery of a dark 
 wahine's eyes and soft wahine blandishments. He 
 was detected in a liaison with another man's wife. 
 This misdemeanour was, in Maori eyes, fatal to his 
 prestige as an ariki and a war-leader. He had 
 trampled on his tapu, and his Hauhau angel, who 
 had so long successfully guided his fortunes, now 
 deserted him. His run of luck had turned. 
 
 A council of the people was held to discuss the 
 cause celebre, and many an angry speech was made. 
 Some of the chiefs went so far as to threaten 
 Titokowaru with death. At length a chieftainess 
 of considerable influence rose and quelled the storm 
 of violent words. She appealed to the aggrieved 
 husband's people not to attempt Titoko's life ; but 
 urged that the garrison should leave the jxi — it 
 would be disastrous to make a stand there after 
 their tohunga, their spiritual head and their war- 
 leader, had lost his 7nana-tapu. This met with 
 general approval, and on the night of the attack 
 the people packed their few belongings on their 
 backs and struck quietly into the forest for the 
 Waitotara. Titokowaru, with forty warriors, 
 covered the retreat. " Afterwards," says Bent, 
 " when we had taken safe shelter in the Upper 
 Waitara, Titokowaru regained his tapu by means of 
 incantations and ceremonies performed by another 
 tohunga. But by that time the war was over." 
 17
 
 258 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 So to the forest fled Titokowaru and all his people, 
 and hard on their trail, when the qia A\as found 
 deserted, came the A.C. scouts and Kepa's Maoris, 
 in lightest marching order for the chase. 
 
 The Government troops overtook the Hauhau 
 rear-guard at Te Karaka flat, on the descent to the 
 Waitotara River. At Te Karaka Major Kepa, 
 the fighting chief of the Whanganuis, was leading the 
 advance-guard of the pursuing force, A\hen he A\as 
 hotly attacked by the Hauhaus who had planted 
 an ambush in the bush. Kepa was closely pressed. 
 Captain T. Porter, who commanded No. 8 Division 
 of Armed Constabulary — consisting of Arawa and 
 Ngapuhi Maoris, Avith a few good European bush- 
 men — was close up when Kepa was fired en, ajid he 
 promptly extended the supports across the flat. 
 Kepa, after a sharp hand-to-hand fight with the 
 enemy, bui'st through them and fell back on Cap- 
 tain Port(n\ The Kupapas and their white com- 
 rades fought the Hauhaus till dark, and had to 
 leave them dead and wounded on the field. Next 
 morning they found the mutilated bodies minus 
 hearts and livers, \\hich the cannibal enemy had 
 cut cut and taken away. The Hauhaus had also 
 beheaded one of the slain, a Whanganui soldier 
 named Hori Raukawa. 
 
 The grief of the friendly Maoris at this mutila- 
 tion of their dead was intense, and was given vent 
 to in A\ceping and furi(.iis llircats. Ke])a was
 
 THE FALL OF TAURANGA-IKA 259 
 
 in a terrible rage, and determined on retaliation in 
 kind. 
 
 This feeling was intensified a few days later, 
 when a strong force of Hauhaus ambuscaded and 
 slaughtered seven out of a party of ten white Con- 
 stabulary men at the Papatupu peach-grove on the 
 banks of the Waitotara River. The Constabulary 
 detachment was in charge of Sergeant Menzies of 
 No. 2 Division. The men, who belonged to Colonel 
 McDonnell's force at Te Karaka, had obtained leave 
 to forage for peaches in a grove at Papatupu, on the 
 opposite (north) bank of the Waitotara, and crossed 
 the river in a canoe. They were gathering the 
 fruit when a volley was suddenly poured into them 
 by a large body of Hauhaus, who were lying close 
 by waiting for pakeJia game. They at once seized 
 their arms and rushed for their canoe, pursued by 
 two or three score of Maoris, led by Big Kereopa. 
 The rest of the story was told the author lately 
 by Tutange Waionui, of Patea, he who had dis- 
 tinguished himself in the repulse of the white troops 
 at Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu the previous year. This is 
 Tutange's account : 
 
 " I was one of the Hauhaus who ambushed the 
 Constabulary men, under Sergeant Menzies, at the 
 peach-grove at Papatupu. Some of them had got 
 into their canoe, and would have escaped, but the 
 others held on to it in an attempt to board it, 
 and so we caught and killed seven of them. The
 
 260 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 sergeant was a big, tall man, and stout. I killed 
 him. He was stooping down at the time. I slew 
 him with no other weapon tlum a canoe paddle of 
 7»ia?wka wood. I snatched up a paddle from the 
 canoe and struck him a slanting blow on the side 
 of the temple with it, the fatal blow called tipi, as 
 delivered in sideways fashion with the edge of a 
 stone mere. The white sergeant fell, and a Maori 
 named Toawairere slashed off one of his legs with 
 a tomahawk. This was done for the sake of getting 
 the boot on the pakeha's foot for one of our men, 
 a one-legged fellow named Paramena, who A\anted 
 the boot. The leg was taken away into the 
 bush." 
 
 Next day Colonel Whitmore sent the Ktipapas — 
 the Maoris of No. 8 Division under Captain Porter 
 and the Whanganui under Kepa — across the river 
 in pursuit of the enemy, and Colonel McDonnelFs 
 division of Constabulary followed them in ,su})port. 
 Porter and his men, during the skirmisli which 
 followed, came across the fire in which Sergeant 
 Menzies' leg had been roasted. The remains of the 
 bone of the leg were there, and it was evident that 
 ]5ig Kereopa * and his fellow-savages had once more 
 feasted on the flesh of the qxikeha. 
 
 It was now that Colonel Whitmore agreed to a 
 request made by Kepa and offered rewards for 
 
 * ]v(*ivi)|)a, in the days bctoi'c the war, liud been a jjiipil at tho 
 Kui-iwi iiiissioii school.
 
 THE FALL OF TAURANGA-IKA 261 
 
 Hauhau heads. He said he would give £5 a head 
 for ordinary men and £10 for chiefs killed. This 
 gave a fillip to the bush-whacking chase, into which 
 the Government Maoris entered with ferocious zest.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 THE FOREST FORAGERS 
 
 Fugitive Hauhaus — Hard times in the bush — The eaters 
 of mamaku — Bent's adventure — Lost in the woods— Rupe to 
 the rescue — The tapu'd eels. 
 
 "After we deserted Tauranga-ika," says my old 
 pakeha-Ma,o\:\, " v>'e led a miserably rough life in 
 the bush. We A\'ere as near starvation sometimes 
 as we could well be. Kepa's Ku papas and the a\ hite 
 scouts were hunting for us, stalking us like wild 
 beasts, and we were hiding in the forest and living 
 on what we could pick u]). We scattered in parties. 
 I and some of the Hauhaus selected a safe spot in 
 the deep bush, built ivhares to shelter ourselves, 
 and then went out to the edge of the forest digging 
 up fern-root for food. We scoured the bush for the 
 mamaku fern-tree,* and cut out the A\hite pith of 
 
 * Tlie Taranaki Maoris used to rMilti\ate the mamaku fern- 
 tree for tlie sake of the edible pitli. The natives point out 
 one of the olden mamak^i gi'ounds just to the north of Kete- 
 onctea (near the ])resent township of Norinanby), where the old 
 Whakaahurangi track went in towards Mount Egmont. Here there 
 were two or three miles of maynaku forest. The Maoris used to 
 cut off the uppcM- parts of tlie trees and j)lant them in tlie ground, 
 thus making two mamaku grow where only one grew before. 
 The old tree so decapitated always sent out a new head. 
 
 262
 
 THE FOREST FORAGERS 263 
 
 the tree ; it was one of our principal foods at that 
 time. It has a peculiar effect on any one who eats 
 much of it — it makes him strangely drowsy and 
 sleepy. Sometimes, too, we had to eat ichara- 
 whara and similar mosses, and the mushroom-like 
 harore that grew on the to?t'a-trees, and hakeke, or 
 wood-fungus. We became very weak and feeble 
 for want of food. We did not dare to ligkt a fire in 
 the daytime, for fear the smoke rising above the 
 forest trees would betray us. At night we would 
 kindle a small fire, just enough to keep the pipes 
 going as we sat round and smoked and talked in low 
 voices." 
 
 Titokowaru's warriors, too, ran short of ammuni- 
 tion. For his cartridges. Bent sometimes had to 
 use small pieces of hard wood cut to the proper 
 size instead of lead bullets. The natives were also 
 often short of percussion-caps ; they used to save 
 the exploded ones, and cut off match-heads and 
 insert them. A box of caps was a great prize to a 
 Hauhau in those days. This ingenious use of match- 
 heads was a common practice in the later days of 
 the war, and many a box of pakeha matches found 
 its way through supposedly " friendly " Maori 
 hands into the rebel camps. 
 
 For three or four weeks the Hauhaus concealed 
 themselves in the forests between the Waitotara and 
 the Patea Rivers, their warriors making occasional 
 sorties and laying ambuscades for straggling whites.
 
 264 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 Not only was Bent in daily and nightly danger of 
 death at the hands of his enemies, the Government 
 men, during this period of hiding and starving in 
 the bush, but in one of his adventures he narrowly 
 escaped the tomahawks of his oAvn companions, the 
 Hauhaus. 
 
 Bent and a l)arty of about twenty Maoris set out 
 one day from their camp at Oteka, away inland of 
 the Weraroa, on a food-hunting expedition into the 
 great trackless forests in the rear of their hiding- 
 place. They travelled half a day's journey into the 
 rugged bush-country, a lone region where no booted 
 foot had ever trod. They fished for eels in the 
 creeks, and climbed for wild honey wherever they 
 saw the bees buzzing round their hives in the hollow 
 trees. They carried with them taha (calabashes 
 made from the hue, or vegetable gourd) ; these they 
 filled with the honey. When they had collected 
 as nuich as they could carry, they started on their 
 return tramp to the kainga. Bent's pikau, or back- 
 load, consisted of about thirty pounds weight of 
 honey in taha and two large eels, all in a flax 
 basket. 
 
 When the party left their camping-place the 
 white man went on ahead, and was soon out of 
 sight of his companions. After a while he found 
 that he had missed the route by which he had come 
 the previous day. 
 
 He pushed on and on, hoping every moment to
 
 THE FOREST FORAGERS 265 
 
 catch sight of a broken branch or a footprint or a 
 tomahawk blaze on a tree that would indicate the 
 trail. He wandered about, up and down hill, 
 crossing creeks, and tearing what little clothes he 
 wore in the tangled bush, until he had not the least 
 idea where he was. 
 
 He was lost in the forest. 
 
 Night came on while the lonely white man was 
 still toiling bewildered through the dense woods. 
 He spent the hours of darkness crouched up under 
 a tree, sleeping little, and shivering with the cold, 
 for he was thinly clothed and had no blanket, and 
 no matches or flint and steel with which to light a 
 fire for warmth and cooking. 
 
 Early next morning Bent climbed a tall rata-tree 
 near his bivouac and scanned the wild country 
 round. Nothing but forest, forest everywhere — 
 vast waves of deep verdure sweeping away and 
 away as far as the eye could see. No sign of human 
 life — no guiding landmark. Somewhere beneath 
 that impenetrable pall of green that clothed every- 
 thing were his people. But where ? 
 
 Ah ! What is that blue, thin coil rising slowly out 
 of the forest far ahead, westward ? 
 
 A curl of smoke ! A Hauhau camp ; perhaps 
 some hunting-party cooking their morning meal. 
 
 The white man joyfully descended from his tree- 
 perch, and quickly getting into his pikau straps 
 again, set out at as fast a pace as his load
 
 266 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 would allow him, steering in the direction of the 
 smoke. 
 
 He toiled on and on, breaking through jungles 
 of undergrowth and clinging vines, over logs and 
 through watercourses, until suddenly he found him- 
 self at the foot of a rocky wall which rose perpen- 
 dicularly above him for about thirty feet. 
 
 He endeavoured to clamber up the precipice, 
 assisting himself by the forest roots and creepers 
 which hung in trailing coils down its face, but they 
 gave way under his weight when he had ascended 
 but a few feet, and he found himself at the base of 
 the cliff again, debating whether to try the climb 
 again, or make a long detour, and perhaps lose the 
 run of the point for which he was heading. 
 
 Suddenly, high above him, a voice cried, " Who's 
 there ? " 
 
 The startled wliitc man, ])eering (lirough the 
 tangle of foliage and creepers, saw a man standing 
 on the cliff -top — a Maori girt with a flax mat, a 
 gun in his hand. It was Rupe, his chief and 
 owner. 
 
 The Maori was gazing intently down the elift". 
 With him was a woman, the old chief's daughter 
 Hi hi, who was Bent's wife. He had heard the noise 
 made by Bent in his attempt to scale tlie cliff, and 
 he noticed the shaking of llic bush-vines and 
 leaves that screened the lower part of the wall, but 
 the white man was so far liidden from his vision,
 
 THE FOREST FORAGERS 267 
 
 Bent called to him : " Don't fire, Rupe ! It is 
 I, your pakeha — Tu-nui-a-moa ! " 
 
 " E tama ! " cried the old chief. " I am glad 
 indeed ! I came out searching for you, for your 
 life is in great danger." 
 
 The pakeha, changing his position so that Rupe 
 could see him, explained his predicament. 
 
 " Remain where you are," said Rupe, " and I 
 will lower a rope to you." 
 
 In a few minutes a line, made of split leaves of 
 the harakeke flax, knotted together, and strengthened 
 with aka, or bush-vines, was thrown down the cliff 
 to Bent. The upper end of the hastily made bush 
 rope the old man had made fast to a tree on the 
 cliff -top. 
 
 " Send your jnkau up first, and you can follow," 
 ordered Rupe. 
 
 Bent tied his flax basket of eels and honey to the 
 line, Rupe hauled it up, lowered the line again, 
 and Bent tied it round his body below the arms. 
 Then the chief and his stalwart daughter hauled 
 the light-weight pakeha safely to the summit of 
 the wall. 
 
 Rihi and her father both wept as they took Bent's 
 hands, so great was their relief at finding their 
 pakeha safe and sound. Rupe told the white man 
 that he had feared he was dead. 
 
 " Why ? " asked Bent. 
 
 " Why ? There are a score of armed Hauhaus
 
 268 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 searching the forest for you, and had they found 
 you before I did they would have killed you." 
 
 The old chief explained, further, that when Bent 
 did not return to the bush-village the pre^^ous 
 night, his fellow-eelers had come to the conclusion 
 that he had given them the slip on the joiu'ney 
 home, and had made off to the white men's camp. 
 So at daylight a party set out to scour the forest 
 round the kainga, fully intending, if they found the 
 deserter in hiding, to summarily execute him. Old 
 Rupe, too, had taken to the forest with his daughter 
 — before daylight — but for a different reason : he 
 did not believe his pakeha would desert him, and as 
 he concluded Bent had lost himself in the bush, he 
 had kindled a fire on the most prominent hill-side 
 in the forest, in the hope that the wanderer would 
 see it and make his way towards it. His bush- 
 craft was successful, and no doubt it saved Bent's 
 life, for had he gone wandering on he would 
 most probably have run into the arms of his 
 hunters. 
 
 So the three of them — the rangatira and his 
 " tame white man " and the Maori girl — travelled 
 homeward as quickly and as quietly as they could, 
 seldom speaking to one another foi" fear some 
 prowling Hauhau should hear them. " Even now, 
 if they find you out in the forest," said Rupe, " I 
 may not be able to save you. Be cautious, for this 
 may be your last day ! "
 
 THE FOREST FORAGERS 269 
 
 Late in the afternoon the camp of the fugitive 
 rebels was reached, and Bent was safe. 
 
 Titokowaru, just back from a scouting expedi- 
 tion to the forest-edge, was in the village. The 
 grim war-chief was genuinely pleased to see the 
 white man back again, and safe. 
 
 '"'' E tu ! ''"' said he ; "it was fortunate indeed that 
 Rupe met you in the forest. Had any of the others 
 found you — my young men of the Tekau-7na-rua — 
 then you had been a dead man ! " 
 
 Now came an illustration of that many-sided law, 
 the tapu. Titokowaru took the two eels which Bent 
 had carried home on his back and hung them up 
 as an offering to the atua, the heathen gods. They 
 were under the ban because they had been borne 
 on the white man's back, which was temporarily 
 tapu ; therefore they could not be eaten. 
 
 The honey, however, was not wasted. Titoko- 
 waru, having no doubt a sweet tooth, sagely de- 
 cided that it would be sufficient to hang up the eels 
 for the gods ; he whaka7ioa''d the honey, that is, he 
 repeated karakia, or incantations, over it, by which 
 the maleficent powers of the tapu were nullified or 
 averted and the food made fit for consumption.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 A BATTLE IN THE FOG 
 
 The surprise of Otautu — An early morning attack — Kimble 
 Bent's dream — " Kia tupatof" — A gallant defence — Brave old 
 Hakopa — Fliglit of the Hauhaiis. 
 
 A MISTY morning in the forest. A little Maori 
 hamlet, just a collection of thatched huts, in a 
 small clearing enclosed on all sides by the dense 
 woods. In the rear a deep ravine, jungly with 
 thick undergrowth, then tlie winding snag-strewn 
 Patea River. This was Otautu, Titokowaru's re- 
 fuge-camp. It stood on a plateau — now a richly 
 grassed farm ; scattered over the clearing were 
 potato-gardens. There was a frail stockade of 
 stakes, but there were no trenches or rifle pits ; it 
 was an ordinary residential kairiga ; the fugitive 
 Hauhaus trusted to the tangled forest as theu' best 
 defence. 
 
 Grey dawn. The raw morning fog hung low on 
 the sleeping village — a mist so thick that it shrouded 
 from the view objects even a few yards distant. 
 It lay like the winding bank of smoky mist that 
 marks the course of a forest stream early on a 
 
 270
 
 A BATTLE IN THE FOG 271 
 
 summer morning ; the black tree-tops stood out 
 clear above the white pall of damp, cold vapour. 
 
 Not a sound from the slumbering kainga, where 
 some three or four hundred Hauhaus — Kimble Bent 
 amongst them — lay packed in their nikau-iooied. 
 huts. 
 
 At the edge of the clearing a solitary Maori 
 sentry, a man armed with a revolver, sat, keeping 
 a semi-somnolent guard. 
 
 Suddenly, out of the dark forest, appeared a 
 body of armed men. They came in Indian file ; 
 they broke into a stealthy run as they left the 
 shadow of the trees ; their bodies were bent eagerly 
 forward ; they carried their rifles at the trail ; they 
 uttered not a sound. 
 
 They were the Maori advance-guard of Colonel 
 Whitmore's expeditionary force of four hundred 
 A.C.'s and Kupapas. After weeks of bush-scouting 
 a Government column had at last happened on the 
 Hauhau hiding-place. 
 
 The Maori sentinel — he was a man of the Puke- 
 tapu tribe named Te Wareo — was all in an instant 
 wideawake. The moment he jumped up he was 
 fired on by the advance-guard. Leaping into cover 
 he raced for the village, firing his revolver as he ran. 
 
 The discharge of the rifles rolled crashing through 
 the forest. Startled kaka parrots flew from their 
 tree-perches, screaming discordantly at their rude 
 awakening. The clear notes of a bugle rang out
 
 272 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 —it was the " Advance " and " Double ! " The 
 active little colonel rushed his men up at top speed, 
 extended them, and advanced on the hidden camp, 
 and a strange combat began. 
 
 At the first crack of the firearms the kainga was 
 awake ; and what a scurry there was ! The Maoris 
 poured out of their whares just as they leaped from 
 their sleeping-mats — some wearing only a shawl or 
 ragged mat ; others entirely naked. Some of the 
 women rushed out of their huts without a shred 
 of clothing on, screaming and shouting, and running 
 for their lives. The men snatched up their guns and 
 tomahawks, and their cartouche-belts ; and quickly 
 took post to defend their position, and give time 
 for their women and children to retreat in safety. 
 
 According to Kimble Bent the attack was not 
 entirely unexpected. At any rate, it had been fore- 
 shadowed in Maori fashion by one of the Hauhau 
 " medicine-men." 
 
 "The day before this attack," says Bent, "I 
 had a strange dream, which Titokowaru's priest and 
 reader of dreams interpreted as an omen of mis- 
 fortune. I dreamt that I saw a strange Maori 
 village in wliich each house was cut in two length- 
 ways, leaving only half the dwelling standing, in 
 the shape of a shed or lean-to, such as we called 
 tihere. I described this vision to the Hauhau seer. 
 He gathered the people in the meeting-house that 
 night, and after speaking of the dream I had had,
 
 A BATTLE IN THE FOG 273 
 
 he cried in a loud voice to them these words of 
 caution and warning: 
 
 " Kia twpato! He po kino te po; he ra kino te ra ! " 
 (" Be on your guard ! This is a night of evil and 
 danger, and the morrow also will be a day of evil ! ") 
 
 " The prophet then said to me : ' Be ready for 
 flight in the morning ! Get your belongings ready 
 packed in your kit, and, if you hear a suspicious 
 sound, fly from the pa at once.' 
 
 " So, when the first shots were heard in the early 
 morning, I was ready to make a bolt for it. The 
 moment the alarm was given I jumped up from 
 my sleeping-place in one of the huts, grabbed my 
 kit, and barefooted and with nothing on but my 
 shirt and an old piece of a tent-fly girt round my 
 middle, I ran to the bank at our rear, and jumped 
 down the cliff. I went tumbling and scrambling 
 down to the river, and then travelled up along the 
 banks for a considerable distance as fast as I could 
 go. All I had saved from Otautu was what I had 
 in my kit — some papers, a little money, needles and 
 thread, and so forth. As I ran up along the river 
 banks I fell in with some of our people. We went 
 on until we found a canoe tied up on the bank, and 
 we crossed the Patea in her, ferrying four across at 
 a time until all were safely over. Those who were 
 with me were non-combatants, like myself, mostly 
 women." 
 
 While the unarmed people of the camp were mak- 
 18
 
 274 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 iiig good their escape, the Otaiitii clearing was the 
 scene of severe fighting. The Haiiliaii Avarriors 
 took post just at the edge of the Httle plateau 
 where the thickly timbered ground suddenly fell 
 away to the ravine at the rear. Sheltered by the 
 fall of the ground, they swept the clearing with 
 their rifles and smooth-bores. Some of them 
 climbed into the branches of the mto-trees and 
 delivered their fire ; some extended in bush-skir- 
 mishing order on either flank ; and both sides — 
 paTceha and Maori — peppered away briskly at each 
 other for half an hour or more. 
 
 It was a singular skirmish, for the dense fog still 
 shrouded the hill-top ; and the Government men, 
 who were being piniished severely by the Haidiau 
 fire, could for a long time see nothing of their 
 enemies. Many A.C.'s dropped, some shot dead. 
 
 The Government Maoris, the Kupapas, under the 
 celebrated Kepa, advancing from tree to tree round 
 the edge of the clearing, came to close quarters 
 with the Hauhaus. One of Titokowaru's veteran 
 warriors performed a deed here which is still told 
 and retold with loving admiration by the old 
 Taranaki Hauhaus. 
 
 He was the old man Hakopa (Jacob) te Matauawa, 
 the Maori who had taken a friendly interest in 
 Kimble Bent at Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu, and saved the 
 white man from the two savages who stalked him 
 there, as narrated in a previous chapter. Hakopa
 
 A BATTLE IN THE EOG 275 
 
 N\as a tall, athletic man, of spare frame, and well 
 tattooed. He was about seventy years of age, a 
 true type of the olden Maori toa — the hero of the 
 war-trail, the brave. He was a curious figure, in 
 his military cap, tunic, and trousers — stripped from 
 a dead Constabulary man after the fight at Papa- 
 tihakehake. 
 
 Hakopa dodged from tree to tree out on the 
 flanks of the clearing, making good use of a recently 
 captured carbine. In the uncertain light it was 
 difficult for the Government men to tell friend from 
 foe, and Hakopa's pakeha uniform seems to have 
 completely deceived some of the Kupapas. As he 
 leaped from tree to tree and stump to stump, he 
 shouted " Raunatia ! Rau7uitia .' " (" Surround 
 it ! ") to induce the belief that he was one of the 
 Government force. 
 
 At last all Hakopa's cartridges but two were gone. 
 A prudent warrior would have retired at this stage 
 — but not Hakopa. He did not like the idea of 
 retreat while he had a shot in his locker, and he 
 determined to bag something in the way of a 
 Kupapa or a pakeha with his last charges. He waited 
 until the leading men of Kepa's party were within 
 close " potting " distance, and, as one of them unsus- 
 pectingly approached him, he quickly threw up his 
 gun and put a bullet into his enemy, then turned and 
 bounded into cover, and rejoined his comrades in 
 the defile, unhurt, hugely delighted with his exploit.
 
 276 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 " You young men waste your cartridges," he 
 i;aid reprovingly, after the fight, to some of the 
 youthful braves of Ngati-Ruanui. " Look at me ! 
 I know the worth of good powder and lead too 
 well to fire them away for nothing. For every 
 cartridge I used I hit a man ! '" 
 
 It was a determined, plucky stand, that defence 
 of the Otautu clearing by Titokowaru's warriors. 
 Every minute they held out, they knew, was giving 
 their women and children and old people a better 
 chance of safety. 
 
 At last the fog lifted, swept away from the clear- 
 ing by the morning breeze, and the sun shone out. 
 
 Now for the first time the Government soldiers 
 saw the village. The bugle sounded the " Ad- 
 vance " again, and at the double the A.C.'s swarmed 
 into the empty kainga, to find, to their astonish- 
 ment, that it was neither rifle-pitted nor parapeted. 
 
 The Hauhaus, their resistance broken, took to 
 the forest, racing down the steep gully in rear of 
 the village and up along the banks of the Patea. 
 Kepa's Maoris went in hot pursuit, and shot two 
 or three of the fugitives. The main body crossed 
 the Patea safely, and rejoined their womenfolk and 
 children, camping, hungry, weaiy, and with limbs 
 and body torn and bruised in their flight, in a well- 
 hidden nook dee}) in the forest on the north bank 
 of the river.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 THE HEAD-HUNTERS 
 
 Tlie skirmish at Whakamara — Hauhaus on the run — Govern- 
 ment head-hunters — Major Kemp's white scout — Sharp work 
 in the bush — Barbarism of the Whanganui — Kupapas — Smoke- 
 drying the heads — A present for Whitmore — The heads on 
 the tent floor — End of the war. 
 
 The deep and roadless forest was now the scene of 
 sharp, barbaric war. The Hauhaus, after the aban- 
 donment of Tauranga-ika, built no stockades, but 
 trusted to their most ancient of refuges, the 
 nehenche-nui, the great woody wilderness. From 
 one hiding-place to another they fled, with the 
 Government bush-fighters on their heels. 
 
 " After our surprise and defeat at Otautu," to 
 continue Kimble Bent's narrative, " we were safe 
 neither night nor day. Even when far in the depths 
 of the bush we were always on the look-out for 
 danger, for we never knew when we might have a 
 sudden volley poured into our midst. Kepa and 
 his friendlies were continually scouring the country 
 for us. We retreated north and west through the 
 forest till we reached a settlement called Whaka- 
 mara. Two nights we were on the track ; all we 
 
 277
 
 278 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 had to eat was a couple of ])otatoes each. At 
 Whakamara we found many pigs, and were able 
 to fill our stomachs once more. 
 
 " But early one morning the soldiers were on us 
 again. Two of our men, young Tutange and the 
 warrior KateneTu-Whakaruru, who were out scout- 
 ing on horseback, discovered the troops lying in 
 ambush just outside, waiting to attack the village. 
 They turned and galloped back to us, Tutange 
 waving his sword and whacking his horse along 
 with the flat of the blade. 
 
 " So off we went again, running for our lives, 
 with Whitmore's troops close behind us, firing as 
 they ran. Titokowaru and all his men fled, after 
 a very short fight. We took to the bush just like 
 wild pigs racing before the hunters. I and a few 
 others kept together, running for all we were worth, 
 half -naked, foodless, tumbling over logs, scrambling 
 in and out of creeks, and made no halt until we 
 found ourselves once more at Rimatoto, my old 
 home of 1866." 
 
 From Whakamara village the Maoris fell back on 
 a little fortified jm in the rear of the camp. This 
 position they abandoned after a brief skirmish, and 
 then the forest chase began. Whitmore ordered an 
 immediate pursuit, and a flying column of sixty 
 white Armed Constabulary, under Captains North- 
 croft and Watt, and about one hundred and forty 
 Maori Kupapas, under Major Kepa and Captain
 
 A CONSTABULARY OFFICER IN BUSH- 
 
 FIGHTING COSTUME. 
 
 iFTom a vholo of Colonel T. PorUr's taken in 18G9. 
 
 279
 
 THE HEAD-HUNTERS 281 
 
 Thomas Porter, all in light marching order, took 
 to the bush after the retreating enemy. 
 
 The advance-guard of the pursuing force num- 
 bered twenty-five Maoris, about equally divided 
 between the Whanganui and Arawa tribes. Cap- 
 tain Porter was the only European officer with 
 them, but one or two white scouts and bushmen 
 accompanied the Maoris. As the column's march 
 was necessarily in single file through thick and 
 tangled bush, it was difficult to bring a large number 
 of men into action when any skirmish or ambuscade 
 occurred, and the consequence was that practically 
 all the fighting was done by the advance-guard. 
 
 It was a picturesquely savage chapter of the war, 
 that chase of Titokowaru and his scattered Hau- 
 haus. There was more than a touch of the barbaric 
 in it, for some of the Government forces reverted 
 to the primitive war-methods of the Maori himself. 
 
 Between the moccasined hero of the war-trail 
 in Fenimore Cooper's and Captain Mayne Reid's 
 romances of Red Indian days, and Kepa's Maori 
 guerilla and some of his white comrades, there was, 
 after all, only this difference : one took the trail 
 hunting for scalps, the other for heads ! 
 
 As mentioned in a previous chapter. Colonel 
 Whitmore had agreed to a request made by Major 
 Kepa after the. fighting on the Waitotara, and had 
 offered rewards of £10 a head for Hauhau chiefs 
 killed and £5 for ordinary men. Kepa's Kujxijm
 
 282 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 Maoris, recruited from the Whaiiganui, Ngati-Ajia, 
 Ngati-Raukawa, and other " friendly " tribes — only 
 friendly to the pakeha by reason of their deadly 
 animosity to the Taranaki tribes — were little less 
 savage than the Hauhaiis themselves, and this man- 
 hunt under the inana of the Government was just 
 the work that delighted them. They were " stripped 
 to a gantlin' " for the bush chase — simply a waist- 
 mat or shawl and cartridge-belts and a pouch for 
 their percussion-caps. And some of the white 
 bushmen-scouts were just as eager on the head- 
 hunting trail, and added to their ser\nce arms a 
 tomahawk. 
 
 With the Whanganui men marched a European 
 scout and bushman about whom some remarkable 
 stories are told. This was Tom Adamson, Kepa's 
 pa keh a -^^ 0.01'}, a big, powerful fellow who surpassed 
 the ^Maoris themselves in bushcraft and endurance. 
 He marched barefooted, like his Maori comrades. 
 Another of the white scouts and Hauhau-hunters 
 was a man who, in after years, became celebrated 
 for his pioneer exploration work in the vast wilder- 
 ness of Milford Sound, an old John-o'-Groat's sailor 
 and soldier named Donald Sutherland, whose name 
 has been given to the immense waterfall that is one 
 of New Zealand's natural wonders. 
 
 It was a wild, picturesquely unkempt column, 
 that little armed force of pakehas and Maoris, as it 
 filed off under its active and daring young officers
 
 THE HEAD-HUNTERS 283 
 
 into the gloomy, (laiiger-haunted woods, the un- 
 known and trackless forest through which the Patea 
 and its tributaries flowed. The bush-fighting cos- 
 tume of many of the whites as well as Maoris was 
 simple, not to say brigand-like. Officers and men 
 of the Constabulary and other corps who had to 
 do much bush-marching discarded the trousers of 
 civilisation and took to the " garb of old Gaul," 
 worn alike by the Scottish Highlander and the 
 Maori ; this kilt was usually a coloured shawl, 
 strapped round the waist and falling to the knee. 
 
 Through the huge and tangled woods they 
 scrambled — hunters and hunted. Now along some 
 narrow trail, hardly discernible to the untrained 
 eye ; now crawling through networks of supple- 
 jacks and brambly shrubs and great snaky lianes 
 that looped tree to tree in bewildering coiled in- 
 tricacies. Down into steep and narrow water- 
 courses, swinging down one after another by the 
 hanging vines and tough tree-creepers ; up rocky 
 gorges and jungle-clad cliffs. For endless miles 
 upon miles the great solemn woods covered the 
 face of the rugged land ; beneath the shadows of 
 the thick, dark foliage loped the blood-avengers. 
 
 In the afternoon of the first day of the chase 
 the column descended into a deep, thickly wooded 
 gorge. Suddenly from both sides a fire was opened 
 upon the centre of the force, the main body of the 
 A.C.'s. " Clear the bush ! " was the order. The
 
 284 THb: ADVENTURERS OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 advance-guard and A.C.'s quickly circled round and 
 enfiladed the enemy, who bolted like lied Indians 
 through the thickets ; and the chase went on. 
 
 Three Hauhaus were shot and decapitated on the 
 first day of the chase. Every man killed, in fact, on 
 this and the succeeding days of the ])ursuit had his 
 head cut off. 
 
 The first Maori decapitated was a young chief, 
 who was shot while in the act of climbing a steep 
 cliff in the bush. Being a rangatira, his was a 
 £10 head. This man was a prominent Hauliau 
 named Matangi-o-Rupe. He belonged to Titoko- 
 waru's own immediate clan, or hapu, Ngati-Manu- 
 hiakai — " The Tribe of the Hungry Bird." It was 
 a Ngati-Raukawa soldier in Kepa's contingent who 
 took off the Hauhau's head \\\\\\ his tomahawk ; 
 later he duly delivered it at the pakeha camp. 
 Matangi's son, Kuku — now living at the village of 
 Taiporohenui — on learning of his father's fate, swore 
 to have 2itu — revenge — and vowed to Bent that if 
 he ever encountered the man who beheaded his 
 parent, he would " slice him to pieces like a piece 
 of beef." 
 
 Some years after the war. Bent, while on a visit 
 to a Maori settlement at Oroua, in the Manawatu 
 district, met this Ngati-Raukawa head-hunter — " an 
 ugly, tattooed old villain," as he describes him. 
 The pakeha, by way of imparting an interesting bit 
 of news, informed the old warrior of Kuku's threat,
 
 THE HEAD-HUNTERS 285 
 
 but the tattooed veteran only smiled. The days 
 of the lex kdionis were over. That idii account has 
 not been squared ; but only because of the incon- 
 veniently peaceful rule of the ]mkeha. Kuku has 
 by no means forgotten or forgiven the man who 
 sold his father's head to the white man. 
 
 Later on in the bush chase the advance-guard, 
 hurrying along at the double, came upon a Hauhau 
 family^ — a grey-haired, middle-aged man, his wife, 
 and two or three children. They had not been able 
 to travel so fast as their friends, on account of the 
 tired children, and so had been left behind. The 
 old warrior was fired on by one of the Arawa Maoris, 
 and was severely wounded. He fell, but struggled 
 to a squatting position, with his empty gun across 
 his knees. The Arawa rushed at him, with toma- 
 hawk raised, to finish him off. The old Hauhau 
 sprang up with a great effort, gripping his toma- 
 hawk. He was too badly wounded, however, to 
 strike a blow, and the Arawa seized him and his 
 tomahawk. Just at that moment a white man, 
 dressed like a Maori in a waist-shawl, and bare- 
 footed, rushed up, tomahawk in hand. He seized 
 the Hauhau by the hair, and, with a couple of 
 furious strokes, chopped off his dead, and dropped 
 it, all bloody as it was, into the flax kit he carried 
 slung at his back, and in which there were already 
 other heads. 
 
 The Arawa by no means liked being done out
 
 286 THE ADVENTURES OF KIIMBLE BENT 
 
 of what he considered A\as liis liead, seeing that 
 he had captured the Hauhau, and lliere was a 
 savage squabble between the two as to its owner- 
 ship. The white man " bhiffed " the Maori out of 
 it, however, and prepared to add the heads of the 
 rest of the family to his collection. He rushed at 
 the weeping unhine and her children, and their 
 heads would have come off also had not Captain 
 Porter, fortunately for them, just come up. The 
 poor, terrified woman clung to his knees, beseeching 
 him to save her and her children. He told them 
 they would be safe, and ordered the white scout 
 forward. The Arawas took charge of the widow 
 and her children, and she was sent to Rotorua when 
 the campaign was over. 
 
 The Whanganui Kupapas were fully as savage as 
 any wild rebel. No quarter was given to any 
 Hauhau warrior, and no Hauhau thought of asking 
 for any mercy. Of one frightful scene Porter was 
 an eye-witness. After killing and beheading two 
 or three men in a little valley in the forest, the 
 Whanganui Maoris tied flax ropes to their ankles 
 and hung them up to the branches of the trees, 
 eviscerated them and thrust sticks into them to 
 keep them open, just like animals in a slaughter- 
 yard. Then they danced round the bodies like 
 fiends, flourishing the tattooed heads of the dead 
 by their long hair and shouting and yelling war- 
 songs, and making the hideous grimaces of the
 
 THE HEAD-HUNTERS 287 
 
 'pukana. They were quite beyond control, mad 
 with the hist of killing. 
 
 Porter at last managed to put a stop to this 
 mutilation, but he was powerless to prevent the 
 head-taking, except so far as his own men were 
 concerned. He did not allow any Arawas to de- 
 capitate an enemy, much as some of the warriors 
 from the Hot Lakes Country would have liked to. 
 He asked the Whanganui natives to bury the heads, 
 and, if necessary, take only the ears with them if 
 they wished to claim Whitmore's reward. But the 
 warriors answered, " No, Witimoa said 'heads,' 
 and if he doesn't get the heads he may not pay us." 
 
 The pursuit of the Hauhaus continued for several 
 days, until Titokowaru's warriors finally scattered 
 in the dense forest, and the pursuers had exhausted 
 their food. It was then determined to make for 
 the coast again, but owing to the density of the 
 bush the Government men lost their bearings. 
 They were far in the tangled, jungly forest, without 
 a guide, for they had killed their prisoners. The 
 column accordingly divided, each division march- 
 ing independently for the open country, food, and 
 tented camps. 
 
 The night before the divisions of the pursuing 
 column separated, Major Kepa ordered one of his 
 tohungas, a wild-looking, tattooed old warrior, 
 learned in all the savage arts of Maoridom, to 
 whakapakoko nga upoko, that is, to dry or preserve
 
 288 THE ADVENTURES OF KTMBLE BENT 
 
 the heads of the skiiii Hauhaus. Porter and the 
 other Europeans in the Maori contingents now for 
 the first time witnessed the ancient process of smoke- 
 drying human heads. The heads had up to this 
 time been carried in flax kits on men's shoulders 
 through the bush, and it was necessary, if they were 
 to be taken out to the camp, that they should be 
 preserved from decay. 
 
 The old medicine-man went into the bush and 
 returned with armfuls of branches of the mahoe-trco, 
 and made a fire, which he kept burning until all the 
 wood was reduced to glowing embers. The earth 
 was heaped up around this fire, and the head, neck 
 downwards, was placed over it, and all openings at 
 the sides were closed, so that the fumes from the 
 charcoal oven would pass up into the head. The 
 brains had previously been removed and the eyes 
 stuffed u]). As the smoking went on, the old man 
 smoothed down the skin of the face ^^ith his 
 hands to prevent it wrinkling and wi])od off the 
 moisture, until the head was thoroiiglily smoke- 
 dried and quite mummified. For several hours the 
 head-smoking went on, and in the morning the 
 trophies of the chase were packed for the final 
 march. 
 
 Half-starved, ragged and weary, the Constabulaiy 
 and their Maori allies at last reached the open 
 country ; from the top of the range of wooded hills 
 they had seen the white tents of Colonel AMiilmore's
 
 THE HEAD-HUNTERS 289 
 
 head-quarters at Taiporohenui. That evening they 
 were in camp, and there they enjoyed the first 
 square meal they had had for days. Kepa and 
 Porter and their contingents had been nine days in 
 the bush. 
 
 Captain Porter went to Colonel Whitmore's 
 quarters as soon as he arrived, and reported the 
 result of his expedition. While he was giving the 
 commanding officer an account of the forest chase, 
 the Whanganui men who had taken the Hauhau 
 heads came up in a body and opened the tent door, 
 and poured in head after head upon the ground, 
 exclaiming as they did so, " Na, Witimoa, to iipoko ! " 
 ("There, Whitmore, your heads ! ") 
 
 The little colonel was thunderstruck. He stared 
 with consternation in his eyes on the ghastly heads, 
 most of them tattooed, with grinning teeth and 
 long blood-stained hair, strewn about the floor 
 where they had rolled. There were eleven of them, 
 some at the colonel's feet, some beneath the table ; 
 some had rolled under the camp bedstead. 
 
 He had forgotten all about his promise of a re- 
 ward for heads. Anyhow, he now told the Maoris, 
 he did not mean that the heads should actually bo 
 brought in to him in camp, but that a reward would 
 be paid for each Hauhau killed in the pursuit. But 
 he kept his word to Kepa, and each head was paid 
 for. 
 
 The white scouts, too, brought in their kits of 
 19
 
 290 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 heads, and received their blood-money. These and 
 certain other Taranaki heads broiiglit in were not 
 personally delivered, but were all ])aid for, mostly 
 in orders for clothes, boots, and other necessaries. 
 
 " No more heads," was the colonel's order. He 
 realised that this barbarous fashion of squaring 
 affairs with the enemy would arouse a how 1 of con- 
 demnation from those who did not understand the 
 sharp and savage necessities of frontier-fighting. 
 
 These facts may not please the mild or gentle 
 variety of reader. The idea of a New Zealand 
 Government force decapitating its enemies and 
 smoke-drying those heads for purposes of reward is 
 too, too savage for the refined humanitarian to 
 contemplate without a shudder. Nevertheless, these 
 are facts. Many an ugly incident happened in the 
 bush-fighting of those days. It was no kid-glove 
 warfare. In this case the Government Maoris were 
 inflamed by anger and revenge, and indeed some 
 of them were little better than the cannibals they 
 were chasing. And they were wild with a desire 
 to Tigaki mate, that is, to seek vengeance, payment, 
 for their dead — blood for blood. 
 
 But while it was barbarous, it was thoroughly in 
 accord with the spirit of guerilla warfare that was 
 forced upon the troops, and it served its purpose, 
 for it struck terror into the hearts of Titokowaru's 
 warriors, and they never fought again.
 
 THE HEAD-HUm^ERS 291 
 
 The Hauhau war-chief's mana-tapuwsis gone, and 
 there was nothing for it but to fly to the depths of 
 the wilderness. He and his men gathered in a few 
 days at Rimatoto, but made a very short stay there. 
 They marched through the forest to the island- 
 fastness in the Ngaere swamp, where they were very 
 nearly caught by Whit more and his Constabulary, 
 who made a rough tete-de-pont over the quaking 
 morass with hurdles of supplejack and bush-vines. 
 Then they made off for the Ngatimaru Country, on 
 the upper waters of the Waitara, thirty or forty 
 miles away, over terribly rough country and through 
 an almost trackless forest. 
 
 " A party of forty or fifty of us," says Bent, 
 " remained in our little settlement at Rimatoto, 
 always on the alert against surprise by the troops, 
 until the anxiety of our position became too much 
 for us. We packed up our belongings, and s wagged 
 them inland to Rukumoana, on the Patea River. 
 In this lonely spot, far in the bush, we camped, and 
 made a little clearing in order to plant food. When 
 we had felled the bush with our axes, twenty men 
 travelled across to the Upper Waitara to procure 
 seed potatoes from their friends, and we planted 
 our crops and waited." 
 
 In this remote valley of refuge, far in the forest, 
 the white runaway and his Hauhau companions — 
 he was still with his chief Rupe — remained for many 
 weeks, living the loneliest life conceivable, hearing
 
 292 THE ADVENTURES OF K'MBLE BENT 
 
 nothing of the outside world, and existing pre- 
 cariously on the foods of the forest. 
 
 Titokowaru was safe in his bush retreat in the 
 Ngatimaru Country, his last battle fought, his once 
 godlike mami in the dust.
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 THE LAND OF REFUGE 
 
 The fliglit from Rukumoana — Retreat to the VVaitara — The 
 Kawau pa — Life in the Ngatimaru Country — Rupe and his 
 white man — A Maori Donnybrook fair — A tale of a Taniwha. 
 
 One day two Hauhaus, exhausted and half-starved, 
 entered the little bush-camp at Rukumoana. One 
 of them was Bent's old rcmgaiira, Tito te Hanataua. 
 They ha^d passed through many perils and hair- 
 breadth escapes, and they warned the white man 
 and his Maori comrades that Kepa te Rangihiwinui 
 and his Whanganui Maori scouts were still hunting 
 for them, and would have their heads to a certainty 
 should they happen on the trail to the refuge place. 
 The old feeling of terror came over Bent and his 
 companions at the mention of Kepa's name. That 
 night Hauhau piquets kept watch on the edge of 
 the clearing, and more than once they imagined 
 they heard stealthy footfalls, the breaking of 
 branches, and the whispers of enemies in the woods. 
 These dangers, however, were things of the imagina- 
 tion. Nevertheless, it was an anxious night in the 
 lonely kainga, and when morning came the people 
 
 293
 
 294 THE ADVENTURES OE KEMBLE BENT 
 
 decided to abandon their camp and bury themselves 
 still deeper in the wilderness. 
 
 In a very short time the men and women of the 
 settlement were on the march, laden with their 
 flax pihius, containing such belongings as they 
 thought worth removing. They took to the forest 
 in a due northerly direction ; bound for that 
 Alsatia of rebels and Hauhaus, the remote and 
 rugged Ngati-Maru Country, up on the head-waters 
 of the Waitara — Titokowaru's hiding-place. 
 
 The utmost caution was observed on the march. 
 No fires were lighted. 80 that there should be no 
 clue to the direction of the flight, care was taken 
 to leave no broken branches or other bushmen's 
 signs ; not a leaf was tiu'ned or a twig displaced if 
 the refugees could help it mitil they were well into 
 the ranges. Wherever possible they took to the 
 creek-beds and walked in the running water, so 
 that no trail should betray them. They could have 
 spared themselves that anxiety and trouble, however, 
 for the Government troo])s liad at hist abandoned 
 the chase. 
 
 Two days Bent and liis friends s})ent on that 
 tenible trail — the roughest, wildest part of the 
 Taranaki hinterland. Fording rivers, pushing 
 througli matted jungles, climbing wooded precipices, 
 lowering their swags down ])cr])cn(licuhir clilTs, and 
 swinging themselves <h)\vn l)y forest vines and 
 creepers — they emerged at last, a weary little band,
 
 THE LAND OF REFUGE 295 
 
 on the banks of the Waitara, about thirty miles 
 from the mouth of that river. All around towered 
 the densely forested blue ranges ; the high banks of 
 the winding Waitara fell precipitously to its rapid- 
 whitened waters. 
 
 On the cliff-top where they left the forest there 
 was a little Maori camp. Here the fugitives were 
 ordered to the main Hauhau camp, the Kawau pa, 
 where Titokowaru and his followers had established 
 themselves, weary of war, but nevertheless resolute 
 to die " fighting like the shark," as the Maori has 
 it, if attacked in their last hiding-place. 
 
 The Kawau 'pa stood in an admirable position for 
 defence, in a great bend of the Waitara River. The 
 winding rapid river here swept round a long tongue 
 of steep-banked level land, protecting it on three 
 sides ; in the rear was the dense forest. The banks 
 of the river were from twenty to thirty feet high, 
 and could be climbed only in a few places. On 
 this high tongue of land, about a quarter of a mile 
 long, there stood a large village of well-built raupo 
 and nikau thatched houses ; between the village 
 and the forest were the cultivations of potatoes, 
 kumara, and taro. On the opposite side of the river, 
 in the direction of the Taramouku Range, wild 
 horses and cattle abounded in the bush. A short 
 distance below the village there was a large pa-tuna, 
 or eel-weir, consisting of two rows of stout ma^iuka 
 stakes set closely together and sunk into the river-
 
 296 THK ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 bed and converging in a V, at the lower end of 
 which hinaki, or eel-baskets, were set for the pur- 
 pose of catching the piharau, or lamprey, which 
 abounded in the Waitara, and an hich were a great 
 Maori delicacy. 
 
 As Rupe and his pakelia Bent and their com- 
 panions marched slowly into the 7narae of the war- 
 chief's camp, their eyes on the ground, they were 
 welcomed with the ancient ceremony of the powhiri. 
 The village women and girls waved green branches 
 and shawls as they retired before them, singing all 
 together the famous old greeting song, " Toia Mai 
 te Waka ! " (" Oh, haul up the canoe ! ") likening the 
 guests to a canoe-party of visitors arriving from a 
 distant shore. 
 
 Then as the women fell back the A\hole force of 
 Titoko's warriors leaped to their feet, and swinging 
 their firearms this way and that, threw themselves 
 with martial fury into all the thrilling action of the 
 war-dance. The ground shook undei- llie mighty 
 tread of many scores of brown feet, and the forest 
 rang with the chorus of the war-song and the re- 
 verberating volleys of many guns. And then, when 
 the dance wa;; ended, the hotKji of long-sev^ered 
 friends, the pressing of nose to nose, and the pitiful 
 weeping for the dead. For quite two hours the 
 great tanfji lasted. When it ceased one of the head- 
 men of the rivcr-triljes sent the new aiiivals to his 
 own camp, close by the Kawau ; the village women
 
 THE LAND OF REFUGE 297 
 
 came in procession, to the lilt of the tuku-kai song, 
 bearing their baskets of food, steaming hot from 
 the liangi, and the half-starved white man and 
 his friends were soon enjoying a bountiful feast 
 after their long-enforced existence upon the meagre 
 rations of the bush. 
 
 Kimble Bent lived in this securely hidden place 
 of refuge, and at Paihau village, near by, from the 
 end of 1869 until about 1876. He was now a 
 Maori in all his ways ; he planted food-crops and 
 harvested them, snared birds, fished for eels, cut 
 out canoes, and paddled his canoe on the river, 
 joined the Hauhaus in their songs and their 
 sacred chants, and danced with them in their 
 hakas ; he wore as little clothing as any native in 
 the camp. 
 
 Life did not go too easily with the white man 
 during those days on the Waitara. He was still 
 Rupe's bond-servant ; and his master and owner 
 sometimes took fits of ungovernable passion. In 
 one of these paroxysms of anger Bent had a 
 narrow escape. 
 
 Rupe one day ordered his white man to go down 
 to a creek, which ran into the Waitara near the 
 Paihau pa, and clear out the little dam in which the 
 household were accustomed to steep their Indian 
 corn, their kaanga-pirau. Bent was working away 
 cleaning out the steeping-pool when his chief came
 
 298 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 up and found fault with him because he was not 
 working hard enough. " I made him some answer 
 wliich didn't please him," says Bent, "whereupon 
 he flew into a terrible rage and rushed at me like a 
 tiger. I stooped and caught him by the leg, and he 
 fell into the muddy pool. Up he jumped in a 
 foaming passion, and ran to the ixi, got out his gun, 
 and loaded it to shoot me. But his wife rushed at 
 him, took the gun out of his hands, and told me to 
 hurry down to the other village, where I would be 
 safe. 80 I ran to the river-bank, loosed a small 
 canoe, and paddled down the river to the lower 
 IKi, where I was kindly received and taken into my 
 old friend Hakopa's house, and I lived and worked 
 there for some months." 
 
 Another incident of those wild old days on the 
 Waitara, narrated by Bent, is worth the telling, as 
 an illustration of the whimsically variable temper 
 of the Maori and of his truly Hibernian love of a 
 "free fight." 
 
 The war had long been over, and some hapus of 
 the tribes on the upper river talked of selling their 
 lands to the whites. Certain of the chiefs had 
 been down at Waitara townshi}) and in New Ply- 
 mouth, and there they had been a})])r()ache(l by the 
 agents of the Government. In the end they sold 
 their lands for eighteenpence an acre. But the 
 more conservative of the Hauhaus stoutly held out 
 against land-selling, and against any dealings with
 
 THE LAND OF REFUGE 299 
 
 the hated pakeha ; and the difference of opinion 
 led to frequent quarrels. 
 
 One day a council of the people was held on the 
 marae of the Paihau village for the purpose of dis- 
 cussing the land-selling proposals. Long and bitter 
 were the speeches ; speaker after speaker taki'd up 
 and down the tmirae, and worked himself up into a 
 fury of excitement. 
 
 Two old chiefs, tattooed veterans of the war, 
 their long hair adorned with feathers, weapons of 
 wood and stone in their hands, angrily assailed 
 each other. One was Rupe, the other was Horo- 
 papera Matangi. One advocated the sale of sur- 
 plus lands, the other vigorously opposed it, and 
 insisted on the principle of " Maori land for Maori 
 men." Then there arose a dispute about the owner- 
 ship of a tangiivai (greenstone pendant). From 
 argument they came to hurling abusive threats at 
 each other. 
 
 At last Rupe furiously hurled his weapon — a 
 sharp wooden spear — at Horopapera, who dodged 
 it, and cleverly caught it near the butt end as it 
 whistled past him. He instantly smartly returned 
 it to its owner, spearing him through the leg. 
 
 Next two women went at it. Women of rank 
 these, who considered themselves entitled to equal 
 debating voice with the men -folk. Their powers of 
 rhetoric and invective exhausted, they fell on each 
 other very literally "tooth and nail," biting, hair-
 
 300 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 pulling, scratching, screaming. In their struggle 
 they tore each other's clothes off, and two nude 
 Amazons raged round the marae. 
 
 One of the wild women, a young chieftainess, her 
 long hair streaming behind her, her pendant breasts 
 quivering, her shoulders bleeding, seized a canoe 
 paddle and struck her antagonist a blow across the 
 naked back with it. The other grabbed a tokotoko, 
 or walking-staff, and, thrusting it between her op- 
 ponent's legs, neatly up-ended her, in the " alto- 
 gether," on the green marae. 
 
 By this time the whole tribe were into the battle, 
 with sticks, paddles, spears, and any weapon they 
 could lay their hands on — men and women alike. 
 It was a real faction fight. Fortunately, the people 
 had left their guns in their whares, and were too 
 intent upon their hand-to-hand encounter to run 
 for their firearms. 
 
 Kimble Bent stood on one side watching the 
 squabble. He was close to the riv^er-bank, where 
 the canoes were tied u]). Pi'esently, one of the 
 Maoris ran down to the water-side with an axe, and 
 began furiously cutting away at his antagonists' 
 canoes. Others ran to the cooking Junigis, and with 
 burning sticks from the ovens set fire to some of the 
 thatched houses in the kainga. Soon there was a 
 pretty blaze, and half the village was burned down 
 in a few minutes. 
 
 In half an hour's time the people had cooled down,
 
 THE LAND OF REFUGE 301 
 
 and the trouble was over. Then — a Hibernian 
 people the Maoris, surely ! — they began to weep 
 over their quarrel, and fell on each other's necks — 
 or, rather, pressed each other's noses — to make up 
 for the hard words and blows they had just ex- 
 changed, and set to work to rebuild the dwellings 
 they had destroyed in their hasty anger. 
 
 Meanwhile, Titokowaru wearied for the trail 
 again, unable to rest in this secluded wilderness of 
 the Waitara. His tapu status had been restored 
 by a Waitara priest, with the appropriate karakias 
 and invocations. Gathering together a band of his 
 warriors — the remnant of the once ever- victorious 
 Tekau-ma-rua — he paraded them in the marae of 
 the Kawau pa, and farewelling his people, took his 
 old place at the head of the taua and led them off 
 in a grand war-dance, A truly savage figure, that 
 stern old chief, as he leaped to the van of his war- 
 party and danced, his sacred taiaha in the air ; his 
 waist girt with a coloured shawl, a rich feather cape 
 of native make fastened over the left shoulder and 
 under the right ; his grizzled head decked with 
 white plumes. And with loud cries of " Haere, ra ! 
 Haere ra ! " the villagers farewelled the great war- 
 chief as he marched his armed men out of the pa 
 and struck into the forest of the Taramouku, bound 
 for the open lands of South Taranaki and his an- 
 cestral home. But it was no longer the war-trail,
 
 302 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 for Titoko and his henchmen fought no more, but 
 betook themselves to the great camp of Te Wliiti 
 the Prophet, who preached peace, and prophesied 
 sundry supernatural ways by which the Maori would 
 come into his own again. 
 
 The minds of these isolated forest-dwellers were 
 saturated with superstition, with strange beliefs that 
 were a reflex of the vast untrimmed places of 
 nature in which they lived. Tlie white man, too, 
 almost came to believe in the tales of saurian-like 
 tannvhas and water-demons, in the p(itu]xiiarehe 
 and maero, the forest-fairies and forest-giants, in 
 the occult malevolence of the tajm and makutu 
 spells. 
 
 A story related by Bent is illustrative of the 
 Maori belief, up to quite modern days, in malignant 
 beings which made their homes in lonely waters and 
 in caves — the dreaded taniwha. 
 
 The tale of the " Taniirha " oj the Kopna : 
 
 One day — this was in the early " seventies " — an 
 old man named Te Maire left the Kawau landing 
 in his canoe, and paddled down the Waitara to a 
 place called Te Kopua, the site of an ancient village. 
 The object of his expedition was to procure dry 
 resinous strips of the rmw-pine for the purpose of 
 making torches to be used in catching piharau
 
 THE LAND OF REFUGE 303 
 
 (lampreys) in the river at night. After getting the 
 wood he required he started on the return paddle 
 to his home. On the way to the Kawau he disap- 
 peared, and was never seen again alive ; no doubt 
 he overbalanced and fell into the river while poling 
 his canoe up one of the small rapids near the 
 Kopua. 
 
 That afternoon five men from the Kawau, includ- 
 ing Kimble Bent, were paddling their canoe down 
 the river to a settlement a few miles distant, when 
 they caught sight of the old man's empty canoe 
 drifting down with the swift current. As they ap- 
 proached it it sped away rapidly before them, and 
 at last stranded on a shingle-bank in a bend of the 
 river. In it they found Te Maire's gun and a young 
 pig, which the vanished man had evidently caught 
 in the bush while on his torch-making expedition. 
 
 Bent's Maori companions immediately explained 
 in their own way the mystery of their tribesman's 
 disappearance. 
 
 " There is a tcmkvha there," they said, " a fearful 
 water-monster that dwells in a deep, still pool 
 under Te Kopua's banks. He has stretched forth 
 his long claws and dragged the old fellow down to 
 his den." 
 
 The Maori canoeists made haste to quit the dead 
 man's craft, and plied their paddles with unusual 
 energy until they reached their destination on the 
 shore below. They told their story, and that even-
 
 304 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 ing a meeting of the village people was held in the 
 wharepuni to discuss the mystery. 
 
 For hours the wiseacres of the bush-hamlet 
 solemnly debated the circumstances, and each 
 canoeist in turn had to give his account of the affair 
 and advance his theory. At last it was decided 
 that there was no possible doubt that the taniwha 
 of the river had seized Te Maire and drowned him. 
 There must, of course, be a reason, for no taniwha 
 of any repute would take such an extreme step 
 without some good cause. 
 
 The verdict was that Te Maire had violated the 
 tapv, of the deserted village ; he had in all probability 
 taken some dry rimu from an old house that stood 
 there, and which was sacred because a chief had 
 died in it- — goodness knows how long ago. The 
 river-god had very properly punished him with 
 death — it was the penalty of infringing the law of 
 tapu. 
 
 The next day and for some days thereafter canoe 
 crews hunted the river for the old man's body, but 
 found it not. At last a woman at the lower settle- 
 ment, on going down to the river one morning to 
 get a calabash of water, spied the body of the miss- 
 ing man hanging in the branches of a prostrate 
 kahikatea-iroe on the opposite side of the river, 
 about four feet above the water. 
 
 The question was, how did the bod)^ get there, 
 entangled in the branches that height above the
 
 THE LAND OF REFUGE 305 
 
 liver, for there had been no flood, no noticeable rise 
 or fall in the level of the river. 
 
 The answer was plain to the mind of the Maori. 
 He summed it all up in two words : 
 
 " Te taniivha ! " 
 
 The river-monster, after grabbing Te Maire from 
 his canoe and detaining him a while in his watery 
 grave, had dragged the body away down-stream 
 and hung it up in the tree-branches opposite the 
 village, so that the dead man's people should have 
 no difficulty in recovering it, and in giving it decent 
 burial. 
 
 A truly thoughtful and considerate taniwTui ! 
 
 20
 
 CKAl'TKR XXVI 
 
 BUSH LIFE ON THE TATEA 
 
 The return to Riikunioana — The forest-village — Bird-snaring 
 and bird-spearing — BtMit the canoe-bviilder — His third wife. 
 
 At last — about the year 1876 — the Upper Waitara 
 was Kold to the Government. T}ie wliite man and 
 his Maori people cried their farewells to Ngati-Maru 
 and journeyed back over the ranges and through 
 the forests to their old lands in the valley of the 
 Patea. Bent was still Rupe's servant. The old 
 chief and his household and some Hauhau relatives, 
 armed, and carrying their belongings on their backs, 
 trudged through the wilderness until they reached 
 l^ukumoana, their old-time shelter-camp on the 
 banks of the Patea, about thirty miles from tlie 
 sea. Here they halted and built their hamlet of 
 saplings and thatch, and an old overgrown clearing 
 was burnt oft' and planted with potatoes and maize. 
 The party was but a small one. Besides Bent, 
 there were Rupe, his wife, and their two sons ; old 
 Hakopa and his wife ; and their niece, a gii'l named 
 Te Hau-rutu-wai ("The Breeze that shakes the 
 Raindrops down"). 
 
 30G
 
 BUSH LIFE ON THE PATEA :^07 
 
 It was an even lonelier w])()t than the refuge- 
 camp in the Ngati-Maru country ; life here was 
 simple and primitive in the extreme. The people 
 tended their little plots of food-crops, shadowed by 
 the dark forest ; they snared and speared the forest 
 birds, they hunted the wild pig, and climbed the 
 hollow trees for wild honey. For nearly two years 
 the fakeha-MsiOvi lived with his little tribe in Ruka- 
 moana. 
 
 The ancient customs of the Maori fowler's cidt 
 were observed by these bush-dwellers, brown and 
 white. For instance, the first kaka parrot or tui 
 or other forest creature snared or speared in a day's 
 birding was not eaten, but was left, as an offering 
 to the gods of the forest, beside an old tapu canoe 
 which was lying in the bush close to the river-bank. 
 It was a hoary relic, this ancient waka-kipu, a 
 carved dug-out covered with long grey moss. It 
 was a small canoe, eight or ten feet long, and had 
 lain there for years and years filled with water. 
 Somewhat similar canoe-shaped troughs, filled with 
 water, stood in various places in the forest ; these 
 were filled with water, and were generally placed 
 in spots remote from streams or pools. Above 
 them slip-knot snares were arranged, so that the 
 pigeons and tui and other birds, flying down to 
 quench their thirst after feeding on the miro or 
 hinau or iawa berries, were caught in the nooses, 
 and hung there, flapping and helpless, until the
 
 308 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 fowlers went round to collect the day's bag. This 
 canoe was called a iraka-whangai, or wai-tuhi. 
 
 When spearing birds with the long barbed spear 
 of taiva-wood, the hunter would take great care to 
 avoid getting any blood on his hands in withdraw- 
 ing the weapon from the bird's body. .Should 
 blood stain the hands — " kaore e mana te tao " — the 
 spear would lose its bird-killing powers ; it would be 
 an unlucky affair altogether, and the forest-man 
 might as well throw it away. Such were the beliefs 
 of the dwellers in those dim forest-places. 
 
 At the end of the first harvest season Rupe led 
 his white man ovit into the forest one day, and, 
 halting before a tall, straight totom-pine that grew 
 near the steep bank of the Patea, he said : 
 
 " This is my canoe ! Hew it down and carve it 
 out ! In it we will paddle down the river to Huka- 
 tere, and you shall look upon the faces of your 
 ieWow-qxikehas again." 
 
 So now behold Bent the canoe-builder. There 
 above him towered the tree — Tane the Forest-god 
 personified. In his hand was his broad-axe ; with 
 it he must make his rungatini' s river-boat. 
 
 He felled the tree, and, lopping off the upper part, 
 began the laborious work of dubbing out the waka. 
 The upper side of the trunk he levelled off with his 
 axe, and then he gradually cut it into hollowed 
 shape, an art he had learned on the Waitara. For 
 this portion of the work an adze was chiefly used,
 
 BUSH LIFE ON TUK PATE A 3(>9 
 
 a steel blade lashed to a wooden handle in the old 
 Maori fashion. He trimmed and shaped the ends 
 into bow and stern, and day by day the canoe 
 assumed more shapely proportions, until at last it 
 lay complete — a craft of about twenty-five feet in 
 length and three feet in beam, rough and undecor- 
 ated, it is true, but still a ship of the Maori, fit to 
 carry cargo and paddlers, and run the rapids of the 
 swift and broken Patea. Ropes were made of stout 
 supplejack vines, and with Rupe and his family 
 the white man lowered the canoe down the high 
 bank to the water-edge. Te Riu-o-Tane lay ready 
 for its crew — -the Hollow Trunk of Tane. 
 
 Then paddles were shaped out, and Bent and his 
 companions set to work catching and drying eels 
 and gathering wild honey, in preparation for the 
 voyage down the river to Hukatere village, where 
 the main body of Rupe's tribe resided. 
 
 About this time the white man entered upon his 
 third matrimonial experience. His chief's grand- 
 daughter, a good-looking girl of about eighteen, 
 came to the little village with a visiting party of 
 Ngati-Ruanui. She had already a husband, but 
 he had quarrelled with her, and attempted to kill 
 her ; she, therefore, returned to her old tupuna, 
 Rupe, who now gave her to Bent ; and the white 
 man and his young Maori wife lived happily there 
 in well-hidden Rukumoana.* 
 
 * This name Rukumoana originated thus, according to the
 
 310 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 Maoris : About the year 1830 a war-party from tlic Waikato 
 attacked and slauglitered a number of Taranaki people here. 
 One of the Taranakis savod his own life and that of his brother 
 in a remarkable manner. Tliesc two men were cousins of 
 Hakopa, the old warrior who befriended Kimble Bent in Te 
 Ngutu-o-te-Manu pa in 18G8, and later on the Waitara. One 
 of the men was wounded, and in another moment his head 
 would have been slashed off by a Waikato savage, but his 
 brother seized him in his arms, and leaped over the steep bank 
 of the Patea into the river below. He dived to the bottom, and 
 still holding his brother, crawled along the bottom until he 
 reached a place imder the banks where the overhanging shrubs 
 concealed them from view. The pursuers failed to find the 
 brothers, who presently escaped to the forest. The Taranaki 
 people commemorated this heroic deed by naming the spot 
 where Hakopa's cousin took his daring leap " Ruku-moana " 
 (" Deep-Sea Diving ").
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 HIROKI : THE STORY OF A FUGITIVE 
 
 Hiroki, tlie slayer of IMcLean — Strange faces at Rukumoana 
 — A forest chase — A meeting and a warning — Hiroki's wild 
 bush life and his end. 
 
 More than one outlaw from the white country out- 
 side took refuge in the Taranaki bush even in those 
 'post-bellum days. One of these was Hiroki, the 
 Maori who killed McLean. Hiroki ("The Lean One" ) 
 had quarrelled with a survey-party who had camped 
 on his land away out near the coast in the year 
 1878 ; the cause of the trouble, as he said, was 
 the killing of his pigs by McLean, who was the sur- 
 veyor's cook. Hiroki remonstrated with the 
 pakehas, but they jeered at him ; and when his last 
 pig had disappeared he sat down and wept, then 
 loaded his gun, went to the survey camp, and shot 
 McLean dead. Wherefore he was a hunted man, 
 with a price on his head. 
 
 One day, as the jjakeha-Maori (Kimble Bent) and 
 his Maori companions were sitting smoking in their 
 lonely little bush-village at Rukumoana, far up the 
 Patea River, they heard a loud hail across the river. 
 
 311
 
 312 THE ADVENT UK E8 OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 They looked at each other in astonishment and a 
 little alarm, for they imagined that no one knew 
 their hiding-place. Bent went to his hut, and load- 
 ing a revolver, put it in his belt, tlicn walked over 
 to the river-bank. On the other side of the stream 
 there were six natives standing. They called to 
 Bent to bring a canoe over and ferry them across. 
 Bent, always on the qui vive for danger, was 
 dubious about the wisdom of trusting himself alone 
 with a party of strangers, who, for all he knew, 
 might be after his head, for he was still an outlaw. 
 But he dropped into his canoe, and with a few strong 
 strokes sent the dugout across the river. He knelt 
 in his canoe, holding her nose into the bank, and 
 interrogated the strange Maoris. The leader was 
 a tall young half-caste. They Mere all armed with 
 revolvers, and one or two had tomahawks stuck in 
 their belts. 
 
 " Where do you come from, and what do you 
 want here ? " asked the white man. 
 
 " We have come seeking a man who has com- 
 mitted a crime," replied the half-caste, speaking, as 
 Bent had done, in Maori. 
 
 Bent shoved the canoe a stroke off from the bank 
 and said determinedly, with a hand on his revolver : 
 
 " If you have come to capture me I will not be 
 taken ; I will spill the blood of the first man who 
 attempts it. I will kill my enemy first and then 
 kill myself." (" Ka maringi i ahau te toto a te tangata
 
 HIROKI: THE STORY OF A FUGITIVE 313 
 
 tvxitahi. Ka mate taku hoariri nei, maku e whakamate 
 toku tinana.'") 
 
 " It's all right, friend, we don't want you," said 
 the half-caste ; " we are looking for a Maori called 
 Hiroki, who has murdered a surveyor's cook, named 
 McLean, out yonder on the plains. We have traced 
 him up here, and we want to know where he is, 
 because there is a price on his head, and we are 
 Government Maoris." 
 
 " Come along, then ; I'll take you across," said 
 Bent. The strangers stepped into the canoe, and 
 the white man paddled them over the Patea ; then 
 took them up to the village and into Hakopa's 
 house. 
 
 To the old chief and his Maori companions the 
 half-caste explained the mission that had brought 
 his party to lonely Rukumoana. 
 
 " We have not seen your man Hiroki," said 
 Hakopa. ' ' He may have swum the river and passed 
 through here by night. Who knows ? If he has 
 passed this way he has no doubt gone to Te Ngaere, 
 which is a very difficult place to reach and a good 
 refuge-place for men like Hiroki." 
 
 " We do not know the trail to Te Ngaere," 
 said the half-caste. " Will any of you guide us 
 there ? " 
 
 Bent offered to go as guide, saying he knew the 
 track to Ngaere very well and had frequently been 
 there in the war-days. "But," he asked, "will
 
 314 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 you guarantee my safety if I trust myself with 
 you ? How do I know that you will not cut my 
 head off when you get me out alone in the bush, 
 and take it out to get the Government reward ? " 
 
 The half-caste laughed. " You're quite safe, 
 pakeha. Not a man of us will touch you. I tell 
 you we only want Hiroki." 
 
 A young man named Pakanga, of the Ngati- 
 Maniapoto tribe from the King Country, happened 
 to be in the village on a visit to the forest-dwellers. 
 He was sitting alongside Bent, " Friend," he said 
 quietly, " I will go with you, and see that they don't 
 attack you treacherously." 
 
 So Bent agreed to go as guide, and, after a meal 
 of pork and potatoes, set before them by the women 
 of the kainga, the armed party of man-hunters set 
 out along the lush-track leading in the direction 
 of the swamp-defended Ngaere, the place where 
 Colonel Whitmore and his force of Colonial soldiers 
 just failed in surprising and capturing Titokowaru 
 in the last days of the war in 1869. 
 
 Bent leading, the party filed along the narrow 
 overgrown trail until they were close to the banks 
 of a small stream, the Mangamingi. A little dis- 
 tance back from the creek the white man asked his 
 companions to halt, saying that he and Pakanga 
 would go on to reconnoitre. 
 
 The half-caste and his five men sat down and lit 
 their pipes, and Bent and the King Ccuntry Maori
 
 HIROKI: THE STORY OF A FUGITIVE 315 
 
 went off cautiously, saying one of them would 
 come back at once if they caught sight of the fugi- 
 tive. 
 
 The wliite man and liis friend liad gone only a 
 short distance when they came upon a fire burning 
 just alongside the track, in an old camping-place 
 beneath the shade of a giant totara-tree, whose great 
 branches overhung the little dark river that flowed 
 close by. A few roasted potatoes, still warm, lay 
 alongside the fii'e. Evidently it had been deserted 
 only a few minutes. 
 
 "Now," said Bent to his companion, "let us 
 settle quickly how we shall act. Hiroki — for it can 
 be no one else — must be close by ; he must have 
 only just left this spot. Shall we betray him to 
 the Government, or shall we let him escape ? He 
 had a just grievance against the man whom he shot. 
 We have heard all about it, and we know that he 
 was a peaceable man, who was provoked into a fit 
 of passion. He is a lonely and a hunted man, and 
 for me my sympathies are with him, for is he not 
 a fugitive like myself ? " 
 
 " E tika ana," said the young King Country 
 Maori. " That's right. We won't give him up to 
 the Government head-hunters." 
 
 " Let me tell you now, friend," said Bent, " that 
 I have had suspicions for some days that Hiroki 
 has been in hiding near our village. One morning 
 lately, when I went to look in my pataka (store-
 
 ;}16 THE ADVENTURES ()E KLMJiJJ-: BENT 
 
 house) across the river, where I keep my seed- 
 potatoes for the new season's planting, I found that 
 some of them had been taken. Then half a mile 
 up the river the next day I saw a ])Iac(' where some 
 stranger had been fishing for eels, for there were 
 heads of the eels lying there where he had cut 
 them off. There was a fire there, and some of my 
 seed -potatoes had been roasted in it. I told old 
 Hakopa and no one else about it." 
 
 The two men descended the bank to the river. 
 Just where the track entered the slow-moving, 
 muddy stream they saw the fresh prints of naked 
 feet. Wading across, they quickly mounted the 
 opposite bank and set out at a noiseless, easy lope, 
 their bare feet making hardly a sound, along the 
 trail that wound into the glooms of the bush. 
 
 Suddenly, at a turn in the track, they came upon 
 Hiroki. 
 
 The fugitive was standing there, waiting, for the 
 low growling of his dog, a white, savage-looking 
 animal, had given him warning of pursuit. The 
 hunted man menacingly presented a short-barrelled 
 gun at the pakeha and his companion. He was a 
 fellow of middle stature, lean, as his name implied, 
 but strong and hard-limbed, with a dark deter- 
 mined face and a short black beard. 
 
 '' Where are you going ? " cried Hiroki. 
 
 "Oh, nowhere in particular," Bent replied ; 
 "just strolling along " (" ki te haereere ").
 
 HIROKI : THE STORY OF A FUGITIVE 317 
 
 The Maori looked puzzled and suspicious, and 
 kept his gun at the ready. 
 
 " Listen to me, friend," said Bent quickly ; " you 
 are in danger. There are six Government Maoris 
 close behind you, and they want you dead or alive. 
 Now, go on, and go quickly. And don't venture 
 hack, lest you die ! " 
 
 "' Ka pai koe ! " ("You are good!") was all 
 Hiroki said. Turning, he went quickly at a half- 
 trot along the path, with his gun at the trail, and 
 his wild-looking, mongrel dog close on his bare heels, 
 and in a few moments both disappeared in the 
 dark forest. 
 
 Bent and Pakanga returned to the pursuing 
 party, who were becoming impatient at the long 
 absence of their guide and were hot with questions. 
 
 The white man and his companions managed to 
 quiet the suspicions of the man-hunters. They de- 
 clared that there were no signs of any one having 
 passed that way, and that it would not be much 
 use going on to the Ngaere, which was a long and 
 very toilsome journey. Fortunately for them, the 
 half-caste and his men had not troubled to go on 
 as far as the big totara on the river-bank, where the 
 tell-tale fire was not yet cold. 
 
 After some debate the whole party returned to 
 Rukumoana, and the hunters, giving up the chase 
 in that direction, made out to the open country, 
 and that was the last Bent heard of them.
 
 318 THE advp:ntures of ktmble bent 
 
 Three j^cars later Bent met Hiroki in Parihaka, 
 the village of the prophet Te Whiti. The slayer 
 of McLean had had a wild and anxious life of it 
 after his escape from Ruknmoana. He told Bent 
 of his lonely existence in the great forests of the 
 back-country, living on eels, wild honey, the young 
 , shoots of fern-trees, and such-like rough fare of the 
 bush. After he came out into the open country 
 and was making his way across the Waimate Plains 
 in the direction of Parihaka he was chased by several 
 Government men (one of whom was Mr. William 
 Williams, a Plains settler), and was fired at and 
 wounded, but escaped. Te Whiti sheltered him 
 and condoned his crime, which, being a semi-agrarian 
 one, was counted a patriotic deed by the people 
 of Parihaka. He spoke gratefully of what Bent 
 had done for him, in giving him timely warning 
 that day in the Mangamingi bush, and offered him 
 a money gift as some measure of utu. This Bent 
 promptly refused, saying, "Keep your money, and 
 thank the Atua for your escape, not me." 
 
 Hiroki was a wild figure in Parihaka those lawless 
 days of 1S78-81. On meeting-days and feast-days, 
 when the faithful of the Maori tribes gathered to 
 hear the prophet expound the Scriptures after his 
 fashion and prophesy many strange happenings, 
 the Lean One used to head the procession of the 
 tuku-kai, the bringing of the food for ceremonious 
 presentation to the visitors. A double line of gaily
 
 HIROKI: THE STORY OF A FUGITIVE 31 d 
 
 dressed girls, bearing baskets of potatoes and pork 
 and fish hot from the haugi, marched in time to a 
 lively song into the marae, and in front of them 
 paraded Hiroki, stripped to a loin-mat, a loaded 
 and cocked double-barrelled gun in his hands, white 
 feathers stuck in his hair, red war-paint on his 
 cheeks and forehead, leaping from side to side, eyes 
 rolling, tongue defiantly protruded, the embodi- 
 ment of Maori savagery and ferocity. But when 
 John Bryce, as native minister, invaded Parihaka 
 in 1881 with his force of 1,700 Armed Constabulary 
 and Volunteers, and arrested the two prophets To 
 Whiti and Tohu, Hiroki was also captured, and 
 shortly thereafter he was tried for McLean's murder 
 and was hanged. 
 
 To this day the Maoris of the Patea tell stories of 
 Hiroki 's solitary and savage life in the bush. One 
 place in particular — at Orangimura, between three 
 and four miles above Rukumoana — is pointed out 
 as a hiding-place of the refugee. Here a large, 
 hollow rata-tree grew near the top of a high bank ; 
 the Patea River flowed below. Hiroki had camped 
 here in order to get wild honey from a hive in the 
 hollow tree, and after he had filled a couple of cala- 
 bashes with the honey he lit his nightly fire and went 
 to sleep close to the cliff-top, first tying his dog up 
 to a bush with a flax rope. In the night the dog 
 bit through the flax that held him, and jumping on 
 his master so startled him that he forgot he was so
 
 320 THE ADVENTURES OF KBIBLE BENT 
 
 near the verge of tlie cliff, over whicli lie promptly 
 rolled in the darkness ; he fell with a mighty splash 
 in the river below, together with his astonished dog. 
 The spot where this night adventure occurred is 
 called by the Maoris Te Pari-o-Hiroki. which means 
 " Hiroki's F^recipice."
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 OUT OF EXILE 
 
 Canoeing on the Patea — The voyage to Hukatere — The 
 white man's world again — Bent the medicine-man — Makutu, 
 or the Black Art — Bent's later days — The end. 
 
 All was ready for the voyage, and the pakeha- 
 Maori and his companions loaded their canoe and 
 embarked for Hukatere — thirty miles down-stream, 
 not far from the sea-coast. The Patea was a very 
 winding stream, flowing between high forest- 
 covered banks ; its course was impeded by frequent 
 rocky shoals and accumulations of sunken logs, 
 which formed rapids. Aboard the canoe, besides 
 Bent, were Rupe, Hakopa and his niece, and a 
 man named Te Rii, who was an unikehu, or " fair 
 hair." 
 
 The white man and his Maori companions paddled 
 along merrily for seven or eight miles, lightening 
 their labours with canoe-songs. Then, in shooting 
 a rapid, the canoe struck a rock, swung broadside on 
 to the swift current, and immediately capsized. 
 
 The crew reached the shore safely, and hauled 
 the canoe up on to a shingly bank. Fortunately 
 21 321
 
 322 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 all the cargo — the baskets of dried eels and the 
 calabashes filled with honey — had been made fast 
 to the thwarts, as a precaution against such an 
 accident, and so was saved ; but old Hakopa lost 
 a little kit — his bush savings-bank — containing a 
 sum of money which he had acquired at the Waitara. 
 On the bank a fire was kindled by means of flint 
 and steel — commonly used amongst the Maoris in 
 those days, and still occasionally seen in use in 
 remote forest districts, such as the Urewera Country. 
 By the blaze of the great fire the wrecked canoeists 
 dried themselves and their garments, and they 
 camped there that night. 
 
 At daylight next morning they embarked again, 
 and another day and a half at the paddles took 
 them down to the Hukatere kainga, a large settle- 
 ment of r«i///9o-thatched houses, standing on the 
 left bank of the Patea, in a beautiful bend, with the 
 lofty, forest-fringed cliffs of Pariroa jutting out 
 abruptly on the opposite shore. 
 
 The approaching canoe, its four paddles flashing 
 in the sun and dipping again all together, was seen 
 from the kainga while still some little distance up 
 the river, and the men and women of the Hukatere 
 gathered on the water-side and cried and waved 
 their welcome to the long-absent people of the bush. 
 
 " Kumea mai te waka ! " they chanted, and the 
 women waved siiawls and green bi-anches in the 
 poetic greeting of the powhiri. "" To-o-ia tnai te
 
 OUT OF EXILE 323 
 
 imka ! Oh, haul up the canoe ! Draw hitherwards 
 the canoe. To the resting-place— that canoe ! To 
 the sleeping-place — that canoe ! Oh, welcome, wel- 
 come, strangers from the forest-land ! Urge swift 
 your paddles, for home darts your canoe ! " 
 
 So, chanting their ancient song, the villagers re- 
 ceived the new arrivals, and, still waving their gar- 
 ments and their leafy branches, retired slowly be- 
 fore them as they landed and walked up the sloping 
 banks until the open marae in the centre of the 
 kainga was reached. There the guests from Ruku- 
 moana were received by a dignified chief, white- 
 bearded old Nga-waka-taurua (Double-canoe). Now 
 the potuhiri was succeeded by the doleful sounds 
 of the tangi, and one after another the Hukatere 
 tribespeople pressed their noses to those of Rupe 
 and his household ; and they wept long and unre- 
 strainedly for the dead, for those who had passed 
 away since they last met. 
 
 And then the feasting. The bush-family and 
 their " tame white man " enjoyed a meal of truly 
 huge proportions and variety in comparison with 
 the meagre forest-fare to which they had been con- 
 fined so long. And when the pakeha tobacco and 
 pcikeha grog came out — unwonted luxuries to the 
 mohoao, the bush-people — old Rupe and his house- 
 hold were indeed in the Promised Land for which 
 they had longed for many a month ; they had all 
 that the heart of the Hauhau could desire.
 
 324 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 The feast over, the dried eels and honey, conveyed 
 with so much toil from distant Rukumoana, were 
 brought up to the marae, and ceremoniously pre- 
 sented to old "Double-Canoe," who distributed the 
 food amongst the people of the village. The canoe 
 itself was similarly presented to the chief as a gift 
 of aroha from Rupe. In return, the men of Huka- 
 tere placed before the visitors their gifts — £5 in 
 money (representing the sum total of the pakeha 
 cash in the village), and blankets, shirts, and other 
 articles of clothing, of which Bent and his com- 
 panions were in much need after their rough life in 
 the bush. 
 
 "While I was in the kahiga,'" says Bent, "the 
 local chief went down to the town of Patea, a few 
 miles away, to get me some European clothing. 
 He informed some people in the town that Tu-nui- 
 a-moa, the paheka-M.a,ov\, who had been with the 
 Hauhaus for twelve or thirteen years, was in his 
 kainga, and next day about twenty Europeans rode 
 up to the settlement out of curiosity to see me. 
 We had a long talk, and they gave me some articles 
 of clothing, and told me all about the white man's 
 world from which I had cut myself off. This was 
 about the end of the year 1878. 
 
 " After a month's stay we returned to our own 
 village, in a canoe belonging to the Hukatere 
 natives, loaded with goods and ' tucker.' Five days' 
 paddling and poling up-river took us to Ruku-
 
 KIMBLE BENT, THE PAKEHA-MAORI. 
 
 (From a photo taken in 1903.) 
 325
 
 OUT OF EXILE 327 
 
 moana. Planting season came round again ; then 
 we whiled away the time in Maori fashion — hunt- 
 ing wild pigs, snaring and shooting birds, catching 
 eels, and getting honey — until the crops were har- 
 vested. And not long after that we bade farewell 
 to our old kainga for ever, loaded our canoe for the 
 last time, and once more paddled down to Huka- 
 tere." 
 
 From Hukatere the ]xikeha-Ma,ori and his girl- 
 wife went to Taiporohenui — Bent's old home in the 
 war days. There he lived for a year or so, blanketed 
 like a Maori, and working in the cultivations. 
 Here, too, in the long nights he was much with the 
 old men of the kainga, and from such learned men 
 as Hupini and Pokau — true tohungas, or priests, and 
 soothsayers — he learned much of the strange oc- 
 cultism of the Maori. He saw singular ceremonies, 
 the rites of the makutu, the black art. He learned 
 scores of karakias — incantations useful in Maori 
 eyes for all sorts of purposes, all conditions of war 
 and peace time. Some of these were makutu spells 
 by which the wizard could slay an enemy, by witch- 
 craft and the power of the evil eye. Many a case 
 of death from makutu came under Bent's observa- 
 tion during his life among the ^laoris. Old Hupini, 
 says the 7>>aA:eA«-Maori, undoubtedly killed men 
 with his makutu — a combination of three factors : 
 projection of the will force, the malignant exercise
 
 328 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 of h\'pnotic influence, and sheer imagination and 
 fright on the part of the person makniii'd. 
 
 Many Maoris believe that the witchcraft can be 
 wrought by an adept or tohunqa hy taking some of 
 the hair or clothing or even remains of the food of 
 the person intended to be slain, and pronouncing 
 the appropriate powerful karakias and curses over 
 it. The enemy's hau — his life-essence, his vital 
 force — then lies in the hollow of the tohunga''s 
 hand. 
 
 A tohunga can take the hau of a man's footprints 
 and thereby makutu liim ; he can even nuikutu an 
 enemy's horse so that it will fall sick and not be 
 able to travel ! 
 
 Amongst the prayers and ceremonies which old 
 Hupini taught Bent were the karakia for combating 
 the evil spell of the makutu and for restoring a be- 
 witched and ailing ])erson to health and safety — 
 to the Land of Light and Life, the Ao-marama. 
 
 One of these rites Bent describes in true Maori 
 fashion : 
 
 A person is taken seriously ill ; it is the makutu. 
 The wise man is called in ; he divines that the ill- 
 ness is caused by another tohunga''s witchcraft. At 
 daylight in the morning the sick man is carried to 
 the water-side. The wise man then takes three 
 small sticks or twigs [rito) — fern-sticks will do — and 
 sets them up by the side of the river or the pool. 
 One of these sacred wands represents the invalid,
 
 OUT OF EXILE 329 
 
 one the tribe to wliich he belongs, and one the 
 mischief -working wizard {te tangata nana te inakutu). 
 A charm is said over them, and then two rito are 
 taken away, leaving only one— that for the wizard 
 — the " wand of darkness." 
 
 An incantation, beginning : 
 
 " Toko i te po, te po nui, te po roa " (" Staff of the 
 night, the great night, the long night "), etc., is 
 repeated over this wand. When this is said the 
 priest conducts the sick person to the edge of the 
 water and sprinkles water over his body, repeating 
 as he does so a charm to expel the niakutu spirits 
 from his body, ending with a curse upon the malevo- 
 lent wizard — " Eat that tohunga makutu, let him 
 be utterly eaten and destroyed." 
 
 When this is ended the patient is taken back to 
 his house. He is told that the wise man has, by 
 virtue of his very strong charms, seen the rival 
 tohunga makutu, and that it will not be long before 
 that evil man dies. The curse falls, the wizard is 
 himself makutii'd, and the invalid — perhaps — re- 
 covers. 
 
 About the year 1881 Bent- — now able to venture 
 into the towns of the pakeha again in safety — left 
 Taranaki, and travelled to Auckland and up to the 
 Waikato. Then he went on to the west coast, and 
 spent some months amongst the Maoris of the 
 Ngati-Mahuta tribe, living in the historic old settle- 
 ment Makelu, on the shores of Kawhia Harbour,
 
 330 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 close to the legendary landing-place of the Tainui 
 canoe — the Waikato Maoris' pilgrim ship. 
 
 Tawhiao, the Maori King, was then living at 
 Kawhia, and he asked Bent to remain with him and 
 be his pakeka and interpreter. The white man was 
 now, however, wearying to be back in liis old homo, 
 Taranaki . 
 
 "Tawhiao," says Bent, "insisted on mo remain- 
 ing with his tribe, but I repeated a Maori incanta- 
 tion which I had been taught by the tohiingas in 
 Taranaki, a karakia used as a charm by strangers 
 {tangaki taithou) who may desire to leave the place 
 where they are staying on a visit and proceed to a 
 new pa, and who fear obstruction. The charm 
 begins : 
 
 " ' Ka u, ka u, lei tend tauhou, 
 Ki tenet whemm tauhou.^ 
 
 " When the old king heard me repeat the incanta- 
 tion he exclaimed : 
 
 " ' Ha, so you are a tohunga ! ' 
 
 " ' Yes, I am,' I replied. 
 
 "Then the old man said, ' Kua twwhera te rori 
 mou' ('The road is open to you.') He permitted 
 me to return to Taranaki, and sent four of his men 
 to escort me through the King Country to Waitara." 
 
 The last quarter-century of Kimble Bent's life 
 has not carried much adventure. Living amongst 
 the Maoris, he acquired some reputation as a 
 "medicino-man." During; his wild life in Maori-
 
 OUT OF EXILE 331 
 
 dom he had become expert in the rude pharma- 
 copoeia of the bush, and learned to extract potent 
 medicines from the plants of the forest. Native 
 herbs and tree-bark and leaves, prepared in various 
 ways, are exceedingly valuable remedies. The 
 knowledge of these herbal remedies, gained from 
 many a tohnnga and wise woman of the l)ush tribes, 
 the white man now turned to practical account. 
 His fame as a doctor reached Parihaka, the village 
 of Te Whiti, the Prophet of the Mountain. The 
 prophet's people sent for the white medicine-man 
 to come and heal the sick. He spent a week in 
 Parihaka, and returned to his Taiporohenui hut 
 with more money in his pocket than he had pos- 
 sessed since he left his old home-town of Eastport 
 to see life in England. " And I was luckier than 
 most pakeha doctors," says the old man, " for none 
 of my patients died ! " 
 
 And so the tale of " Tu-nui-a-moa " is told, and 
 we take our leave of the old pakeha-M.a,oTi — Kimble 
 Bent, sailor, soldier, outlaw, Hauhau slave, cart- 
 ridge-maker, pft-builder, canoe-carver, medicine- 
 man, and what not — ^sitting smoking his pipe in 
 the midst of his Maori friends. He is still living 
 with the natives ; working in their food-gardens, 
 fishing with them, house-building for them. A grey 
 old man, of mild and quiet eye, who might easily 
 te taken for some highly respectable shopkeeper
 
 332 THE ADVENTURES OF KIMBLE BENT 
 
 who had spent all his life in city bounds. Yet no 
 man probably has lived a wilder life, using the 
 term in the sense of an intimate acquaintance with 
 primeval, passionate savagery, and willi the ever- 
 near face of death. He is the sole living white 
 eye-witness of the secret Hauhau war-rites ; the 
 only white man who has survived to tell of those 
 terrible deeds in the bush, to tell tlic story of the 
 last Taranaki war from the inner side — the Maori 
 side. 
 
 Bent has reached the age of seventy-three ; and 
 now the old man's thoughts go to his boyhood's 
 home in the far-off State of Maine, and he some- 
 times expresses a Avish to reach his homeland again. 
 " If I could only get a berth on some American 
 sailing-vessel bound for New York or Boston, I'd 
 even now try to work my passage home," he says. 
 "I'd like to die in my mother's land." But that 
 can never be. He is for ever beyond the pale ; and 
 he will die as he has lived, a pakeha-MeiOvi .
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 TITOKOWARU, THE TARANAKI WAR-CHIEF 
 
 The following interesting supplementary particulars con- 
 cerning Titokowaru, one of the leading figui'es in this book, 
 were supplied to the writer by the Rev. T. G. Hammond, 
 of Opunake, Wesleyan missionary to tlie Taranaki Maoris : 
 
 " It was Titokowaru' s right eye that had been destroyed 
 by a bullet in some engagement. He was about five feet 
 nine in height and somewhat spare and muscular, with 
 fine bone, an alert, active man, but by no means good- 
 looking. His skin was rather darker than the general run 
 of Maoris, and his nose low in the bridge, with wide 
 nostrils. His face rarely lit up pleasantly, and he was of 
 reserved manner. His knowledge of tikanga Maori was 
 considerable, and during the war he conducted the usual 
 ceremonies to make the war-parties successful. 
 
 " The late Rev. Stannard. of Wanganui, told me that 
 Titokowaru' s name given him in baptism was Hohepa 
 (Josepli), and I liave heard from Taii'uakena and others 
 that Tito was one of tlie young men who accompanied 
 the Rev. Skevington on his last visit to Auckland. (This 
 was long before the Maori War.) They journeyed overland 
 fron^ Te Waimate to Auckland, Mr. Skevington going to 
 attend the Auckland Synod. While in the old High Street 
 Churcli, Auckland, he died suddenly. Titokowaru and the 
 other young men returned to bear the news to the peoiDle, 
 as he (Tairuakena) put it, ' Ka hoki mai matou tangi, 
 haere ki tena kainga, ki tena kainga.'' Mr. Woon succeeded 
 Mr. Skevington at Heretoa, Te Waimate. 
 
 333
 
 334 APPENDIX 
 
 " I had one interview with Titukowaru which I shah 
 never forget. I think it was in 1876, and before I knew 
 Maori. Mr. WilHani WiUiains, of Manaia, Taranaki, was 
 going to visit Titokowarn at Omuturaugi, on the Wairnate 
 Plains, and, as I was on my way to New l*ly mouth, he 
 persuaded me to delay a day and go with him — a most 
 unwise thing, as the Maoris had said they would shoot 
 any one who crossed the Waingongoro. We went from 
 Hawera to Normanby, and then picked up old Katene 
 Tu-Whakaruru, who was just then acting as a Maori 
 policeman. We rode along over these vast plains, with 
 the cocksfoot brushing against our knees as we sat in our 
 saddles. We came to a house on the edge of the bush, 
 and found only one woman, whose face was deeply scarred ; 
 she had lately lost her child, and had been cutting herself 
 in her grief. This woman told us that Titokowaru and 
 the men were in the bush planting potatoes, and pomted 
 out a narrow path, along which we galloped for a good 
 distance, perhaps a mile. 
 
 " Suddenly we came upon about eighty Maoris, all men, 
 and Titokowaru with them. They gathered round us as 
 we dismounted, and Titokowaru came and took mj' right 
 arm, and a big burly fellow my left. They sat me between 
 them, holding me fast, while the smoke fronx the fire close 
 by almost smothered me. An old bald-headed Maori began 
 to speak in an excited manner, and when he had done a 
 very rascally looking young fellow made a speech, coming 
 up to me and smacking his thigh, and letting out an angry 
 grunt at the end of every period. When he finished, 
 Katene spoke, and did his best to turn away their anger ; 
 reminded them of the good the missionaries did in getting 
 them released from bondage in the Waikato and the 
 Ngapuhi Country. 
 
 " Then Williams spoke, and at tlie close of his speech a 
 hne man in a piupiu (flax waist-mat) orated, and then 
 came forward to hongi (rub noses) with me. After which 
 there was a little fraternisation, and we came away. Even
 
 APPENDIX 335 
 
 old Katene looked very white while the row was on, but 
 I did not know enough to be scared. It was a narrow 
 escape ; 1, of course, know now what I did not know 
 then. I thouglit at the time Titokowaru was protecting 
 me, but I think now he was making sure that I did not 
 get away." 
 
 Titokowaru died at his village near Manaia, on the 
 Waimate Plains — the scene of his olden battles against 
 the whites — towards the end of 1889. To the end he was 
 a sturdy enemy of the Europeans, and though he did not 
 actually fight against them after 1869, he was the leader 
 in many obstructive movements against white settlement, 
 surveying, and road-making. 
 
 REWABD FOR TITOKOWARU' S HEAD 
 
 Under address and date Downing Street, February 26th, 
 1869, the Right Hon. Earl Granville, K.G., Secretary of 
 State for the Colonies, wrote to Sir George F. Bowen, 
 G.C.M.G., Governor of New Zealand : 
 
 " I see it stated in the newspapers that you have offered 
 a reward of £1,000 for the person of the Maori chief Titoko- 
 waru — I infer alive or dead — and £5 for the person of 
 every Maori rebel brought in alive. I do not at present 
 pronounce any oj^inion as to the propriety of these steps, 
 but I must observe that they are so much at variance 
 with the usual laws of war, and appear, at first sigh^, so 
 much calculated to exasperate and extend hostilities, that 
 they ought to have been reported to me by you officially 
 with the requisite explanation, wliich I should now be 
 glad to receive.'' 
 
 In the course of his reply to this despatch Governor 
 Bowen said : 
 
 " It is contended that this passage implies that the 
 Maoris now in arms . . . are foreign enemies, or at all
 
 336 APPENDIX 
 
 events belligerents, with wIkmu the usual laws of war 
 must be strictly observed." 
 
 On this, Earl Granville remarked in a despatch of 
 November 4th : 
 
 " I think you would have done well to point out to 
 those who thus argue that my desjjatch nowhere hints 
 that the Maoris are foreigners, a doctrine which I had 
 never heard of before I perused the Attorney-General's 
 opinion ; and tliat the legitimate inference from my de- 
 spatch is the direct contrary to that which is drawn from 
 it. . . . I do not clearly understand how you justify this 
 notice as a matter of law. I imderstand you to disclaim 
 the application of martial law ; and viewing Titokowaru 
 merely as a notorious, but untried and unconvicted rebel 
 and murderer, I am not aware of any Colonial enactment 
 which would make it lawful for any chance person to shoot 
 him down." 
 
 Printed and bound by Hazell, Watson tt Viney, Ld., London and Ayleabury.
 
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