TE NGUTU O TE MANU.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 210, 26 August 1908, Page 4

TE NGUTU O TE MANU.

The determination to hold a commemorative service in memory of the brave dead who fell at Te Ngatu o te Maim forty years ago will recall many memories to old settlers of the troublous times of their youth (writes the Munitwatu Times). Taranaki to-day is a smiling laud in which sleek cattle browse on wondrous green pastures and general air of peace and contentment reigns, but within Ike memory of many a man living it was a theatre of strife and bloody war. in the o Id days Taranaki must have carried a very large Maori population rivalling in that respect the thickly-populated areas of th; East Coast about the Bay of Plenty, and that they were a virile aud warlike i race is not only evidenced by their hisr tory but by the fact that to this day on nearly every prominent knoll—and there are parts of the province where abrupt and isolated volcanic hill-, arc to be met every few yards—the evidence of old fortifications are still to he seen. As many as half-a-dozen old lighting pahs are sometimes in view from one spot on the roadside, and many more if a hill is ascended. Then, as now, brown as well as while, Taranaki produced sturdy men whether for Ihe mimic battle of the football field or the stem game of war, and it was with these men that the gallant Von Tcmpskcy, one of the bravest souls ;n the heroic story of our colonisation, fought—with anil against. Any racial bitterness that ever existed in New Zealand—very little ever did exist—has long .-ince passed away and the descendants of the warriors on both sides arc to be seen to-day driving in perfect amity in their niiik carts to the factories that mark every stream in Taranaki. But it is well to recall sometimes that our fathers had lo face a very dill' eient condition of tilings and had lo battle will) very much greater drawback- ia the days which are still flesh in the memory of many of them than we ever dreamed of, and had Uiey bed able, to look into the future they would have regarded the amenities of our life to-day and its conveniences and degree of ease and comfort, its prosperity, and tin- ccrlaiuity and accessibility of markets as an almost impossible milieu-