INCIDENTS IN SATURDAY'S PROCEEDINGS.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume II, Issue 170, 9 November 1881, Page 2

INCIDENTS IN SATURDAY'S PROCEEDINGS.

(From the Taranaki Herald.)

When the bugle ordering the advance sounded, the men all at once appeared on the hills overlooking the settlement, and the sheen of their rifles as they so suddenly came into the view of the natives of Parihaka had a magnificent and startling effect. Simultaneously with the advance of the covering parties on the summits of the hills, the A.C. Force, Thames Scottish, and Mounted Rifles advanced to the centre of the settlement, where all the natives were assembled outside the whares. It appears the natives had assembl' d in the same manner before daj'light, waiting for the advance of the Constabulary. The arresting body (numbering ninety-six men in all), who had been specially selected and armed with revolvers for the purpose, then received orders to advance close to the marae, but their progress was impeded by a number of women and children, who held a long rope across the road.

After some delay, the men received orders to advance, notwithstanding all obstacles that might be offered; and Sergeant Garling and several others seized the rope and raised it in order to pass under it. Here ensued a rather amusing spectacle, for in their endeavor to pass under the rope, some of the men lost their hats, and after they had passed it they had to pick their steps among the prostrate bodies of a large number of women and children.

The natives received the farewell addresses without any demonstration of grief, and when Te Whiti and Tohu were driven away before their eyes, no sound escaped their lips, with one exception, and that was a half-caste woman, who stood up and said that the pakehas should be ashamed of themselves for taking Te Whiti away. There were others there who were worse than Te Whiti, and they should be taken first. It was not known positively to whom she alluded, but it was believed to be some pakehas.

Mr. Bryce assembled the officers of the forces together in the afternoon, and addressed them. He thanked them in the name of the colony and the Government for the valuable services rendered that day. He could not speak too highly of the manner they had carried out their instructions. It was a matter for congratulation that the Government were enabled to show the natives that the law of the laud must be obeyed ', and be believed the lesson which chey had taught the natives that day would go far towards settling the native difficulty. Colonel Roberts had told him that he could not speak in too eulogistic terms of the steadiness and alacrity with which the volunteers had obeyed the orders given to them.

Titokowaru, it is said, sent a message to Te Whiti to the effect that he would order the pakehas to leave Parihaka in twenty-four hours, or they would have to take the consequences. Te Whiti sent back word that Titokowaru was to do no such thing, but that everything was to be left in his (Te Whiti's) hands.