FIFTY YEARS AGO.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 144196, 12 September 1913, Page 5

FIFTY YEARS AGO.

TARANAKI’S EARLY HISTORY.

(From the Taranaki Herald, 1863.1, . Saturday, September 12—The Mataitawa Natives are just beginning _to awake from their winter’s sleep. We reported last week That /they bad •left their kainga bent on mischief, though it was not known where they had gone. It was reported afterwards that they had gone* back again, but a day or two later they gave unmistakeable signs of being at Bell Block. On Tuesday last a party of men from the blockhouse, under Ensign Woon, getting firewood, from Wills’ section (at the back of the block) >found the r© mains of four sheep dately killed,-; also 'a pipe just filled with-tobacco. ' An hour or: two later Captain Atkinson’s and Captain Webster’s parties of bushrangers (from 'town).. coming down by Greenway’s house, found that his beehives had been overturned and the honey taken. Some of. line windows of tho bouse had also been broken. On reaching the* blockhouse and hearing of the sheep, and also from a friendly chief, that 20 or 30 of the enemy, : including Tamati Teito, Little Raul, Haro te Hokai, Eruet'i, and flther Matailawa. worthies were: the men who were prowling about, and that they were likely to remain in the neighbourhood until .they had killed some pakeha, the bushrangers at once returned to Greenway’s, and, going to 1 whore the skins of * the .sheep were, they tracked the Natives into, the bush. About a chain in they had camped for their breakfast. There were the ; remains of five fires—two or three still alights—bones of the sheep, 1 and cue of the beeboxes. Tins was about, a chain from Greenway’s clearing on t}io banks of the .Maugoraka. Our men followed the trades, which were quite fresh, ,for about a mile through the bush to within a few chains of the boundary line between European, and Maori land; beyond this lino they were positively forbidden to go, and they therefor© reluctantly turned back. i Tho main strength of the.army is concentrated along the posts on the lino of the Waikato, and consists of the 14th'(2nd battalion), 65th, 12th (detachment), 18th Royal Irish (2nd battalion), 40th, and 70th. Tho ,67th remains in Taranaki; detachments of the 14th are at Wellington and Napier. Tho Royal Artillery are stationed ab Drury and tho Queen’s .Redoubt. H.M.S. Harrier is lying in the Manukau. Commander Sullivan and about seventy officers and men of that ship hold the redoubt on the Mangata-whiri, and do duty as a naval brigade.'H.M.S. Miranda is in\ tho Waitemqta, 'at 'Auckland, and the colonial steam gunboats Avon and Sand Fly arc employed, tho first on the-Waikato .and. tho latter cruising-about the bays and inlets south of the Thames.

The barque Isabella arrived on. September 2 at Auckland with 109 rank and file of the 12rh Regiment from Hobart Town, under Major Eager, Captairis Cole and Hinds, Lieut. -Featherstonehaugh. Ensign Cooper, and StaffSurgeon Scott. ’ f