MAMAKU. 
351 
diately took the bugle in the left hand, and continued to blow, 
until a second stroke cleft his skull in two. The men rushed 
from their sleeping quarters, and made a gallant stand, drove 
back the enemy, and maintained their post, with the loss of 
six killed and four severely wounded. The officer in com¬ 
mand, Lieutenant Page, showed great courage and self-posses¬ 
sion on the occasion, otherwise he and the little band must 
have been inevitably cut off. Such was the beginning of the 
war. Makaku, a Chief of the Nga ti rangi, on the Upper 
Wanganui, was then on a visit to Wellington; being impor¬ 
tuned by Rangihaeata, he joined the hostile natives, and 
virtually became their chief leader. They constructed a 
strong pa at Pauatahanui, near the furthest extremity of 
Porirua Harbour, and against that point the efforts of the 
military were next directed. The hostile natives, however, 
finding it was commanded by the cannon, abandoned it on 
their approach, and selected a more tenable spot in the Horo- 
kiri Valley. There the next fight took place on the 13th 
August, 1846 ; several of our men fell in gallantly storming the 
heights on which it stood. 
The Chiefs then conducted their men along the mountain 
ranges to Waikanae, and after several skirmishes, in which a 
few prisoners were taken, and one, to our disgrace, hung for 
defending his native land, the enemy reached Poroutawhao, 
where Rangihaeata remained secure amidst the swamps which 
surrounded the place. Mamaku there left him, and returned 
to Wanganui, where he tried to raise a force to aid his former 
ally. He came down upon the town with about eighty men, 
but the Nga ti Ruaka and Putiki natives came forward and 
defended it. The inhabitants, to mark their gratitude for this 
seasonable protection, gave the Head Chiefs a public dinner. 
Before Mamaku and his people left, he said, “ This coat is 
small, but I shall return at Christmas with a warmer one,” 
intimating that he would then come with a larger force, and 
attack the town. 
The Putiki Chiefs, Hoani Wiremu and Te Mawae, aware 
of the critical position of the little settlement, which then had 
scarcely a population of two hundred, immediately wrote to 
