and the Maori in arms. An honest interpreter, to deliver a plain message and bring back a plain answer, would have been a better medium. To be sure, an honest interpreter is not an every-day article, and a plain answer from a savage is as rare. As it was, much delay, and some loss of character for prompt action on our part, were incurred by these negotiations; and rumour did not scruple to charge the reverend gentlemen of Waimate with a desire, from motives of personal and worldly gain, of protracting rather than of terminating the war. It is quite true that the relatives of the Church Missionaries contracted for the supply of provisions to the troops in the Bay of Islands, and that they raised so high the price of meat that it became necessary to meet the increased expense by issuing salt provisions five days out of seven to the soldiers. As for luxuries of a higher nature there were some stories of butter being sold to the officers at the moderate rate of 10s. and 15s. a pound! It is impossible to believe that the self-denying missionary himself would, by fostering the war, emperil, for private profit, the bodies of those whose souls they came so far to save; but that their sons, being farmers and graziers, should take advantage of the exigencies of the public market, is by no means incredible; and indeed these gentlemen did undoubtedly reap a rich harvest, at this juncture, from the wants of the troops and seamen.

CHAPTER VIII.

EXPEDITION AGAINST KAWITI-BRITISH FORCE-KAWA-KAWA RIVER-PAH OF PUKU-TUTU-TRIP ON THE TRACK OF THE TROOPS-ROUGH COUNTRY AND ROUGH WORK KAURI GUM-NATIVE ALLIES — RUINS OF THE STOCKADE-FALL OF THE BAT'S NEST-KAWITI APOLOGIZES AND PUNSOUR PIC-NIC AND RETURN-LIGHT AND SHADE OF BATTLE-NATIVE

NOTABLES.

It was towards the middle of December that the Commandant, with a force and with means infinitely more commensurate with his undertaking than had hitherto been employed in New Zealand, advanced from Kororarika towards the rebel stronghold. His route lay about ten miles by water up the Bay and the KawaKawa River, to a point on the latter, where stood the pah of a friendly chief, named Puku-Tutu, beyond which some twelve or thirteen miles of difficult country lay between him and the Bat's-nest. One half of the force performed the first portion of the distance in boats supplied by the squadron in harbour, while the Colonel himself, with the other half, forced his way over a rough hilly country, moving on the flank of the water expedition, and thus protecting them from attack from the shore.

The chief Puku-Tutu, indeed, alive, like most

Maoris, to the main features of war-movements, had volunteered to keep the banks of the river clear of enemies; for Kawiti had been foraging among his potato gardens, and he owed him therefore a grudge, a kind of debt that the Maori is always ready to pay without being dunned.

In spite of the active cooperation of the naval people, two whole days were expended in getting to the halfway house of this chief with a queer name. Here was

a beautiful spot for an encampment; and the force accordingly halted there, awaiting guns, stores, provisions, and teams, while the staff reconnoitred the country in their front almost up to the embrasures of the Bat's-nest.

On the 22d the Colonel pushed on with the greater part of his little army, and, overcoming a thousand difficulties by dint of extraordinary exertion, was soon enabled to take up a fine position about 1,200 yards from his enemy, where the rest of the force quickly joined him, and where they had to halt in their bivouacs under heavy rain on the 24th and 25th.

On the 29th December the force before Kawiti's pah was, in rough numbers, as follows:--

STAFF.

1 Acting Colonel, and 1 Acting Major of Brigade.

ARTILLERY AND ENGINEERS.

1 Captain, and 1 Subaltern.

SMALL-ARMED SEAMEN.

10 Officers, and 211 Seamen.

ROYAL MARINES.

3 Officers, 79 men of all ranks.

DETACHMENTS OF THE 58TH AND 99TH REGIMENTS.

27 Officers, 750 men.

Two medium 32-pounders; one 18-pounder; two 12-pounders brass howitzers; two 6-pounders; and four 54-inch mortars, with shot, shell, and rockets.

The veteran chief must have felt flattered, if not frightened, by the very respectable armament assembled for his subjugation. On a commanding eminence, 1,200 yards, as has been said, from the pah, batteries for shells and rockets were thrown up. The insurgent chief had shown no little shrewdness in the choice of his new position. The general aspect of the country between Puku-tutu's village and the Rua-peka-peka is that of bare and steep downs, intersected by occasional strips of bush, through several of which the troops had to pioneer their way by axe-work.

The pah itself was erected on a rising spur of land, about a quarter of a mile within the margin of an extensive tract of the heaviest timber and brushwood, which skreened its front and flanks, and stretched away interminably in its rear. About 200 yards of cleared glacis surrounded it. The chief strength of the pah lay in its difficulty of approach, and the massiveness of its palisading. The commander of the incursion, warned by foregone events, resolved to proceed against the work by regular trench,-a method which, if ever conteinplated in the affair of Ohaiowai, would probably have failed owing to the excessive wetness of the ground.

Leaving the Colonel snugly, if not very luxuriously, lodged in his camp of boughs, awaiting the concentration of his forces on the eminence above noted, I will beg leave to return to the Bay of Islands, in order to record the favourable and agreeable opportunity I enjoyed of following, step by step, the route of the invaders, and of visiting the ruins of Rua-peka-peka just two years after its capture and destruction.

It was on a beautiful January morning-antipodal midsummer; for New Zealand stands more directly foot to foot with England than does Australia-that the Governor and his lady, with two young officers and myself, stepped into the captain's gig, from the deck of the Inflexible, and, with a choice crew, swept swiftly up the beautiful Bay of Islands, on a lionizing ramble intent. Leaving behind us the cantonments of Wahapu, we soon glided past the old settlement of Russell, where the British flag was first hoisted, and the capital of New Zealand first established by New Zealand's first Governor. In this case "Hobson's choice" was a bad one !-the face of the country being barren and dreary to the extremity of desolation, and so rugged of feature, that, if Rome had seven hills for her site, Russell would have sat upon seventy hillocks. The spot was abandoned ere much more than the survey of allotments had been completed, and nothing now remains of Russell but a huge ugly storehouse, once occupied by the military, now probably the abode of owls and satyrs, for I saw no human being in its vicinity, nor sign of human frequency.

On our right in entering the Kawa-Kawa River, we passed close under a scarped headland, crowned with