302 SIGHT-SEEING IN NEW ZEALAND. 



never know when they ought to call themselves whipped. The 

 precise and orderly British troops, who must always have every- 

 thing " in good form," and who never have learned to fight 

 behind a tree or in Indian fashion, have been beaten in nearly 

 every encounter with the natives. And they are to-day absolute- 

 ly afraid to arouse the war spirit or to even to execute the laws 

 as against the Maoris. The very day we arrived, there was great 

 excitement and they said this was the cause of so many natives 

 being in town about a Maori named Tutu, who was out in the 

 neighboring country somewhere, scouting about with two hun- 

 dred natives. He had recently with a gang murdered five or six 

 English families, and the authorities were trying to catch him, if 

 they could do it in some safe and amicable way. As we were 

 going right up the country where he was supposed to be, we 

 made up our minds unamimously to follow the example of 

 the authorities, and not to see him unless he was out of sight. 



After breakfast we took the stage, a three-seated covered spring 

 wagon with four horses, for Ohinemutu, 54 miles in the interior. 

 About three miles out we pass the Gate Pah. A Pah is one of 

 the intrenched villages or strongholds of the natives. This one 

 in its time was fortified by three ditches or rifle-pits, with pali- 

 sades and strong hurdle fences on the embankments. Here one 

 morning, twenty years ago, " General Sir Duncan Cameron," I 

 quote from history, " with three regiments of infantry, with 

 sappers and miners and marines, numbering over 4,000 men, with 

 Armstrong guns and all the appliances of modern warfare, took 

 up his position before this mysterious fortification." Well, 500 

 natives, armed with rifles, dodging around in the trenches, and 

 keeping up sham maneuvers in the rear, made this pompous army 

 believe that there were thousands of them, and kept it cannon- 

 ading, and throwing shells at red flags away in the rear till nearly 

 nightfall. And when at last the English attempted three times 

 to storm the breaches, the native marksmen picked off with their 

 rifles nearly all the officers, and sent the troops flying back to the 

 harbor miserably beaten. I read of their virtues and heroism on 

 granite monuments in the cemetery of Tauranga not of the 

 brave Maoris who were defending their homes but of the 

 gallant officers of Her Majesty's 43rd and 68th Regiments. 



