STORIES OF NEW ZEALAND.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 193, 15 August 1936, Page 2 (Supplement)

STORIES OF NEW ZEALAND.

By JAMES COWAN.

WELLINGTON'S LITTLE WAR—THE WATER NAVAL SCOUTING ADVENTURE.

IF you travel along the main highway to Wellington from the

North you will pass over the exact scenes described in this story of Te Rangiliaeata's war in 184 G. Our illustration, from a water colour drawing by Lieutenant-Colonel W. A. McCleverty in 1847, shows the head of the Paua-tahanui inlet and the stockade pa built by Te Rangihaeata, as mentioned in my last week's story. The great earthquake of 1855 raised the shores of all the Wellington bays, and the head of the bay where canoes and boats once could float is now unwatered. "The exact site of the old-time fortification is now occupied by the Pauatahanui English church, crowning the green hill above the little township. It is a slumberous, pretty spot, "this old churchyard hill that keeps the green graves of the dead." Transformed as the place is by the passage of 90 years, you may still reconstruct the hilltop as it was when Rangihaeata held the fort. A Midshipman's Reconnaissance.

A 3'oung midshipman of H.M.S. Calliope, Mr. H. F. McKillop, was given charge of the Paua-tahanui Harbour patrol. He had a thrilling morning adventure at Rangihaeata's pa on May 10. He left the beach at Paremata camp —"Paremata Fortress" it was styled officially—two hours before daylight, in a light fouroared boat belonging to some of the military officers, several of whom volunteered to make a crew for her. They were accompanied by two larger boats—an eight-oared craft and a police whaleboat. All on board were fully armed. The crew pulled silently up the quiet harbour, with oars and thole-pins well muffled/ 1 ' A little before dawn they reached the head of the Paua-tahanui sea arm, between three and four miles from Paremata, and in the foggy half-light, they found themselves just at, the mouth of the little river which-flowed out from the swamp and the bush past: tho cliffy eastern side of Rangihaeata's fenced hill camp.

Leaving the two larger boats lying outside the entrance to the creek, McKillop and his venturesome companions rowed cautiously up , the stream, guided by smoke which they saw rising from the email bushsurrounded hill in fronts of rJ them. The channel was narrow, ■ shallow

and winding —so narrow that they prudently backed lip, stern first, as it would he impossible to turn —and in rounding one of the quick bends the gig ran aground. The midshipman jumped out and waded ahead, looking for the deepest water. At last the way was found, and the oarsmen, steered by the midshipman, worked carefully up the creek until they reached the base of the steep mound where the enemy lay entrenched. . A Tight Conner.

Leaving the . gigi.in the creek, McKillop climbed the bank to the palisade of the pa and looked through

the slight outer defences. Inside the palings he saw an early riser, an old woman, who was cleaning potatoes for the morning meal. A dog was with her, and it detected the white man's presence and began barking. "The old woman looked up and caught sight of me," he narrated in His report of the incident, "and set up a howl that would have awakened the seven sleepers. She called out 'Pakeha!' and rushed off to one of the huts to tell her tale. I rushed off the other way, to tell my comrades of the alarm I had created; and meeting the artillery officer who was ascending the bank, I rolled over him in my haste and nearly knocked him into the river. I had not time to apologise, hut jumped into the boat, knowing that the natives would be in pursuit of us in a minute.

. "As soon as I had made niy companions ■ understand what ;.had happened, we pulled for our lives, and

had hardly advanced a boat's length before we heard a musketry fire between us and the party we had left at the entrance of the river. We gave way manfully, and soon discovered that a party of natives on the beach, a few hundred yards from the mouth of the small river, were keeping up a .brisk fire on the other two boats; which were, however, at too great a distance for it' to take effect."

The Maoris were hindered by one or two small but deep creeks, otherwise the whites must have been killed or captured by them. At the same time the warriors in the pa,

now thoroughly roused, opened fire in the rear. The two boats left outside pulled in to the gig's assistance, endeavouring to divert the attention of the Maoris, hut without firing a single shot in return. The Maoris' fire was hurried and their aim bad, but their shots, as McKillop said, passed quite close enough to the crews' heads to stimulate their efforts to "get out of reach of this nest of hornets." The steersman, watching the Maoris who were wading across the last creek, about 20 yards from the entrance of our channel, ran his boat on the sand, where she stuck fast. . All hands jumped into the water, and, carrying the gig bodily over the sandbank on which she had grounded, quickly got her;afloat, and under a hot fire pulled with thankful hearts into the open water, "the, musket balls," said McKillop in ihis jstory, "making a. sound, like the drawing of corks in every

direction round about us." All this time the whites did not fire a shot in return, remembering that they had orders not to "commence hostilities." As the Paremata Point was approached the party saw the troops marching out, the commanding officer thinking that the natives would follow the boats down tlie eastern side of the harbour. They vdid, in fact, come some distance, but the boats kept' out of range.

Patrol Boats and War Canoes. The harbour patrol boat crews had a busy and ofttimes exciting life for the next few weeks. JVlcKillop's eight bluejackets in the light boat, frequently reinforced by the police whaleboat, kept watch over the inner waters to prevent Rangihaeata's faction obtaining provisions and other supplies from their friends and relatione, the Ngati-Toa at Porirua, Taupo, Hongoeka and other coast .settlements. By the track from the coast to the north and north-west shores of the Paua-tahanui inlet loads of fish, potatoes and other foods were carried across to the waiting canoes of the rebels, and it was not an easy task to intercept the wary and vigilant rebels. There was at least one white trader, too —an old whaler with a Maori wife—who surreptitiously furnished his friends among the rebels, including Rangiliaeata himself, with gunpowder, tobacco and food from his store some miles up the coast. McKillop's patrol would have been outmatched in a contest with the large war canoes which made a picturesquely barbaric parade on the lake-like waters of Paua-tahanui. The naval boat several times ventured up near the h of the arm, and on two occasions was compelled to retreat before these long totara craft packed with armed Maoris. Two or three of the largest canoes were each manned by about fifty warriors, s,tripped to a rapaki, or loin mat, most of them armed with double-barrelled guns.

When, however, the long boat of the barque Tyne was procured and converted into a gunboat—oar and sail—with a 12-pounder carronade mounted in the bows, besides a small braes gun lent by Captain Stanley, of the Calliope frigate, the scales were more evenly balanced. McKillop felt, with these two pieces of artillery and the addition of six more bluejackets to his crew, that his little raan-o'-war was fit match for the whole of Rangfhaeata's canoe flotilla. It was not long before the sailor's fortune gave him an opportunity of testing his shot and shell on a rebel target, and, indeed, of meeting the cannibal Rangihaeata himself in a pretty little skirmish.

(To be continued.)