802 ADVENTURE IN NEW ZEALAND. Chaf. X. 
I have before mentioned. This force consists of picked 
men from the regiments quartered in New South 
Wales, who are mounted and armed to make war upon 
the reckless " bush-rangers," as the escaped convicts 
are termed in New South Wales. Admirably adapted 
for this purpose from their courage and experience, 
they formed, doubtless, a very good precaution against 
the runaways who abounded in New Zealand ; but 
they were hardly fitted to be brought into immediate 
contact with a population like the great body of our 
immigrants, who were totally unused to the rigours of 
a penal colony. The few prisoners who had been com- 
mitted for trial by Major Baker were handed over to 
the lawful authorities. They had been confined in 
one of the Company's wooden houses at Pit one, which 
was appropriated as a lock-up, and a boatful of 
"mounted police" came over to convey them to a 
thatched house at Thorndon which had been selected 
for a jail. Joe Robinson, the Englishman whom we 
had found at PFaiweiM pa, had been engaged a few 
days before in a drunken merry-making over a wed- 
ding, where some fights had occurred ; and he had 
been committed on the charge of assaulting another 
man who lay badly wounded in the adjoining wooden 
house which was the Company's infirmary. Kobinson 
himself had been a good deal hurt, and moved down to 
the boat with some difficulty. I remember sharing 
with some of the simple labourers who looked on a 
feeling of indignation at the brutal way in which one 
of the policemen repelled a friend of the prisoner's who 
offered him his assistance to walk to the boat. An 
idea of the chain-gangs of New South Wales, guarded 
by military, was called up by the displaying and jingling 
of handcuffs, carbines, and sabres, which accompanied 
