1034 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



ports entered the Bay of Islands, with three hundred soldiers of the Fifty-eighth and 

 Ninety-sixth Regiments, and forty volunteers, under Colonel Hulme. On the ;th of 

 May, this force, together with one hundred Marines and sailors under Captain Sir 

 Everard Home, commenced their march towards Waka's pah. Five days previously, Sir 

 Everard Home committed an act of reprisal which provoked much adverse comment. 

 He took prisoner Pomare, an ally of Heke, while a flag of truce was flying, and burnt 

 his pah to the ground. 



On the gth of May the campaign opened, the British officers being filled with 

 contempt, both for their four hundred native allies and for their enemy, but the senti- 

 ment was destined to undergo a speedy and effective revulsion. Heke, on his part, 

 quietly awaited attack, confident of his ability to cope successfully with troops whose 

 power he and his braves no longer feared. His pali stood on a contracted plain, 

 bordered on one side, and at the back, by a dense forest, and on the other side by a 

 large lake. It was protected by two rows of wooden palisades, with a ditch behind 

 them, the outer row of palisading being covered with flax. Heke had with him about 

 two hundred and fifty men in the pah, and Kawiti, with one hundred and fifty men, 

 was posted in ambush on a small rise within the verge of the forest. The allied forces 

 advanced to within two hundred yards of the pah, and some rockets were discharged 

 with no appreciable effect. The troops then began firing, while a friendly native named 

 Hobbs led Lieutenant McLeary, and a detachment of one hundred men of the Fifty- 

 eighth and the Royal Marines, towards the spot where Kawiti lay in ambush. Kawiti's 

 forces, armed only with tomahawks mounted with long poles, met the attack with the 

 greatest intrepidity. The soldiers then charged with the bayonet, and Kawiti retreated 

 with a loss of twenty men. A sortie from the pah, led by a chief named Haratau, next 

 engaged McLeary's force, and after a hand-to-hand conflict the natives fell back. The 

 firing between the main body and the besieged was continued until sunset, when the 

 allied forces were withdrawn to Waka's camp, the British having lost fourteen soldiers 

 slain and thirty-nine wounded. So terminated the engagement at Okaihau. Colonel 

 Hulme marched back to the Bay, re-embarked with all his forces for Auckland, and on 

 arriving there assured his friends " that the force under his command was indebted to a 

 merciful foe for its safe return." 



The Governor sent to Sydney for more troops, and Heke, withdrawing to Ohaeawai, 

 nineteen miles inland from Kororareka, proceeded to erect a strong pah there. Pending 

 the arrival of these re-inforcements, Tamati Waka Nene kept the field, and frequent 

 skirmishes took place between his forces and those of the enemy. In New South Wales 

 Sir George Gipps and Sir Maurice O'Connell, K.C.B., the Commanding Officer, were 

 exerting themselves for the dispatch of effective assistance, and early in June Colonel 

 Despard arrived with two hundred men of the Ninety-ninth Regiment, while Major \Vil- 

 mot brought some ordnance from Hobart. Colonel Despard was placed in command of an 

 expedition, and on the i6th of June landed at the Bay of Islands, with a force of six 

 hundred and thirty men and four guns : namely, two hundred and seventy men of the 

 Fifty-eighth under Major Bridge, one hundred and eighty men of the Ninety-ninth, seventy 

 men of the Ninety-sixth, eighty Auckland volunteers, thirty sailors from H.M.S. Hazard 

 under Captain Sir Everard Home, and four guns in charge of Major Wilmot. On the 



