THE HARDSHIPS OF THE EAST COAST CAMPAIGN.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 13, Issue 1053, 1 June 1869, Page 2

THE HARDSHIPS OF THE EAST COAST CAMPAIGN.

! (Prom the correspondent of the ' Southern Cross.') Taubanga, May 22. Peivate letters speak ofthe campaign being at an end for the season, and the impression was, though nothing definite was known, that a portion of the force would winter at Forb Galatea, while another portion, if not all the remainder, would proceed to Tauranga to recruit. It appears that the privations and sufferings of the troops have, on a small | scale, resembled those of Napoleon's army in Russia. The men are described as being in a pitiable condition ; with clothes in tatters, and many without shoes, they have had to march through a fearfully rugged country and thick bush, sometimes covered with snow, in which they have had to sleep, or attempt vainly to sleep, through nights so piercing that people in warm beds, covered with blankets, have trembled with cold. They have marched over country so steep that one man had to assist the other in hoisting up his accoutrements and baggage, and through bush so almost impenetrably thick thafc at last the Arawa contingent refused to proceed, dismayed and disheartened by fatigue, cold, and the presence of obstacles so formidable; and aU this had to be done, nofc upon a generous military diet, supplemented with rations of rum at intervals, but upon raw flour and bacon, which they could not stay to cook. A pound of bacon and a pint pannikin of flour would be served to each man, the former of which he might moisten into a paste with cold water, and swallow along with liis uncooked bacon. Ail this has demonstrated the hardihood and endurance of our men, and their superiority over Maoris, even in their own dreaded bnsh ; but afc what a cost of futuro suffering, broken constitutions, snd perhaps incurable ailments ! Ifc is said that there will be a great many invalids on the return of I the force. However, this is nofc the way to regard their case. Thoy had a certain work to do, and we|| have reason to believe they have done ifc manfully and well, and raised the prestige ofthe colonial soldier in the fastnesses of the Hauhau, who can now no longer consider himself safo in the recesses of bis forest home, but has learned to his cost that what a Maori can do a European can do as well or better, and where a Maori can go tho pakeha can follow. Of this we have proof in the late march through the Urevvera country, where the troops were nineteen days, during which time they ate tho savages out of house and horne — consuming their stock of provisions, destroying their crops, burning their dwellings down, and driving off their horses and stock, leaving them bare of supplies afc the commencement of winI ter.