1056 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



a mixed tribunal of Europeans and Maoris. Wiremu Kingi, however, insisted upon the 

 retrocession of the Waitara block, and Rewi, head chief of the warlike Ngatimaniapoto 

 tribe, with whom Kingi was living, warmly espoused his cause and counselled war. All 

 this time the Ngatiruanui tribe had been in armed occupation of a block of Government 

 land at Tataraimaka, fifteen miles south of New Plymouth, and they were resolved to 

 hold it until Waitara had been returned. 



Finding parleying to be of no avail, the Governor resolved upon decisive action, 

 and accordingly, in the beginning of March, 1863, he left for Taranaki with General 

 Cameron and a strong military force, with the intention of retaking Tataraimaka, and 

 of settling the title to Waitara. The Waikatos accepted this step as the prelude to 

 war, and Rewi and his party at once made reprisals. They seized the Police Barracks 

 and a newspaper office, and dismissed the Resident Magistrate. Meanwhile, at Taranaki, 

 the Governor had investigated the title to the Waitara, and finding it defective had 

 determined to give up the block. Unfortunately he proceeded to retake Tataraimaka 

 before proclaiming his decision with respect to Waitara. On Saturday, the 4th of April, 

 the troops took possession of Tataraimaka, and began to build a redoubt. From the 

 turbulent division of the \Vaikatos the Taranaki natives received the laconic message, 

 " Begin your shooting," and the shooting immediately began. On Monday, the 4th of 

 May, an escort of the Fifty-seventh Regiment, on its way from Tataraimaka, was 

 surprised by a Ngatiruanui ambuscade at Oakura, and Lieutenant Tragett, Dr. Hope 

 and six men were shot down; one man escaped. On the iith, the Governor issued a 

 proclamation renouncing his claim to Waitara, the troops were withdrawn from it, and 

 the war which had been pending so long commenced. 



On Sunday, the I2th of July, General Cameron crossed the Maungatawhiri with 

 three hundred and eighty men of the Twelfth and the Fourteenth Regiments, whom 'he 

 placed in a redoubt on the Koheroa Heights, overlooking the Waikato River, only five 

 hundred yards distant. On the previous day the Waikatos had set out from Ngaruawahia 

 in two columns. One, composed of the Ngatimaniapoto, and led by Rewi, betook itself 

 to the Hunua Forest, where a harassing guerrilla warfare was kept up with the colonial 

 levies, to the advantage of the Maoris and the loss of the settlers. The other column, 

 composed of the Ngatihaua, and led by Tamihana, adopted European tactics. It advanced 

 straight down the Waikato River with the view of resisting the invasion. On the 1 7 th 

 of July, Rewi's force, having worked its way to the rear of the troops, attacked an 

 escort of the Eighteenth (Royal Irish) Regiment which was marching under Captain 

 Ring from the Queen's Redoubt to Drury, fifteen miles from Auckland. After a smart 

 engagement, the escort, overpowered by numbers, retired to a settler's house with a loss 

 of four killed and ten wounded. On the morning of the same day, the force stationed 

 at Koheroa inflicted a defeat upon a section of Tamihana's party. Observing a body 

 of natives in the ranges in front, Colonel Austin marched out from the redoubt with 

 five hundred men of the Twelfth, the Fourteenth and the Seventieth Regiments. The 

 enemy retired upon several lines of rifle-pits, which were defended so stoutly that the 

 Fourteenth was ordered to advance with the bayonet. The troops were met with a 

 galling fire, and they wavered. The General, who had just arrived, immediately placed 

 himself at their head, and, urging them on, carried the position with a rush. The 



