PATARA, THE SCRIBE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7331, 18 February 1902, Page 4

PATARA, THE SCRIBE.

CANNIBAL AND EDITOR. THE LIFE-STORY OF A NOTABLE MAORI CHIEF. THE RAISING OF THE KING. (By J. COWAN.) Quivers and ehaks3 T&e solid earth! Our lands are slipping away! Where shall man find An abiding place? • Oh Ruaimofco! God oi the Lower Bepllhs — Km ana.ii— - Era inau! • ' . Retain our flianda , And hold them fast! — KangJfco Wax Song^ A bent tattooed old Maori chief pressed General Sir Hector's- Macdonald's hand the Other day in Government House grounds, Auckland, and! raised a smile on the great white warriors face by remarking that he, too, would have liked a. shot at the Boers. This was Patara te Tuhi, a venerable chieftain of the real old school, whose desire to see the General conquered for the time being his rheumatics and the aches and pains of his "koroheketanga" (old age). And one of the most noticeable pictures in the recent exhibition of the Auckland Society of Arts was an oil painting of finis same old Patara by Mr C. F. Goldie, whose genius as a portrait-painter is attracting great attention in, our northern city. Mr Goldie has begun to apply his artistic talents, developed by a long course in Paris and London studios, to depicting Maori as well as palefec© subjects. It is well that he is doing so, for the old type of Maori as disappearing fast, and! only here and there are such living Telics of the past to be discovered. These venerable brown-skinned ' men made history in our land, and it is a good thing that artists should! be found trho take the trouble to commit their griz- • lied and tattooed lineaments to canvas. It is a work whoee value will be incalculable in the coming years when the last Maori tattooed! warrior will be as dead as. the moa^ Bufc I am concerned 1 just now more- with fitt> subject! *ha» *&© artist. Patera, te Ttmi ("Patera, the Soribe"), wlho with his fcroti% was introduced to Sir Hector, is a remarkable old fellow, a very good sample of tita Maori rangatira of bygone days-— dignified, courteous to sfcrangera and visitors, taciturn save with, those he knows, to whom he unbends N concerning the brave days of old ; well informed! as to his/ tribal traditions and history, an astute politician in his way, and withal a tattooed gentleman whom it is a pleasure to, meet and to study. He is an. old friend of mine, Patara ; and squatting under tihe shade of the •hick high row of cultivated flax on Ms ancestral farm of Arar&ta, at Mangere, overLooking the shining waters of. the Manukau Harbour, he and his grey-haired brother Honana— also a noted' man in his day— Jiave told? me many a wildi tale of the past and repeated! in long droning chants the sacred priestly incantations which have come down to them through the long dark centuries since their forefathers' canoe Tainui beached on these new mysterious shores. Here, on the green slopes of Manukau, looking back with introspective vision on the stirring days of hie youth and strong manhood, the veteran Kingite chieftain can cay, with Ossian's grim hero, the greybearded ancient Collar "Friends of my I youth ! ... the darkness of age comes like the mist of the desert. My shield is worn with years ! ' My sword istoed' in its place. I said to my soul, Thy evening Shall ibo calm, thy dteparture like a fading, lightv" (Sitting for his portrait tho other day in Mr Goldie's studio, old Patara— -with his minkled blne-carven face, a flax mat flung round his efaouldersv, a rare greenstone heiHki round his neck, a greenstone Kahurangi pendant in one ear and a shark l s-tooth, impended by a black ribbon, in the other, «nd in his hand his treasured carved walk-ing-staff, bearing the presentment of his famed .ancestress Whakaotirangi, she who brought the Kumara letter fromHawaliMin the Tainui — old Patara looked a strange centrepiece for tihe pictures, the bite of statuary casts, the Parisian figure types, and the other odds and ends which make up the furniture of •an artist's workingroom. Yet he was not out of place. There "was an artistic appreciation in his keen old eye> peering out from under deep corrugated eyebrows, as he took in the contents of; the studio, and he chuckled reminiscantly in the aboriginal fashion when he squinted at a little study of a shapely feminine * altogether" on the wall. "Ane!" he said, "we saw lots of fine pakeha women when we were in London with Tawhiao. But many of them were shameless creatures, not like our 'Maori women, whose whakama (shame and bashfulness) would never suffer them to act like some of those fine welldressed ladies of Ranana." Almost like some wild romantic tale of mediaeval days would be a full recital of Patara te Tuhi's younger years and the queer, quaint, superstitious' surroundings of his boyhood and early manhood. In his seventy-eigjit years of life he has seen the full metamorphosis of the Maori savage into the civilised gentleman. He has seen the wild cannibalism and horrid warfare of his elders wiped oub by the power of the white man's gospel ; he has watched the coming of the hordes and shiploads of white settlers and soldiers, and he has seen his people driven back and back from their ancient homes, and their lands occupied by toe pakeha, of the strong hand, and the old-time wastes of his boyhood's days covered by great busy towns in which he wanders now and then unnoticed, save by a stray white or so who looks behind at the strange-tig-ht-lipped old Maori with tattooed face, and wonders where they dug the old fellow op. Patara tells me that he reckons his age to be seventy-eight from a well-known date in Waikato Maori history — the fall of Mataklfcaki Pa, on the Waipa. Hongi Hika and bis Northern cannibal warriors captured Matakitaki with awful slaughter in the year 1822, and Patara was born the following J«Ty at Te Kopua, on the Waipa. In those remote primaeval days the pakeha hadn't much say in New Zealand affairs, save as a coast-trader and purveyor of muskets and ammunition. Pallisaded villages covered the land; long war canoes dotted the estuarks and rivers; flax and feather garments clothed the primitive descendants ot the ancient Polynesian sea-rovers, and the one pakeha treasure in which the soul of the aboriginal delighted was the brigihtbarrelled flintlock musket. The law of "tapu" was the supreme Criminal Code Act of the Maori; every tribe's "mailed fist " was against the other's, the tohungas

I plied their esoteric trade and mumbled their murderous "makutu" incantations and performed the thousand religious rites necessary for the preservation of life and of tribal "lnana." Those were the days of which Patara's earliest recollections deal. More wonderful than any of the magic works of the old tohungas of his tribe is 'the transformation which he has watched taking place in Aoteroa before his living eyes — •the fading away of Maoridom and the enthroning of the peaceful white man, with his cities and railroads, and steamers and telegraphs. The calm, deep look of in'trospectiveness, which I have often noticed in the old chief's eyes, told me, as plainly as words, after we have discussed some theme of the •past,' that "iiis memory was flying back, away back into the early years, wh*n he ran and leaped and threw the spear with his savage fellows on the remote village marae, when war-parties sallied forth to slay and «at 7 and when his nobl* tribal river, the Waitato, was dashed into white water by the paddles of hundreds of redeyed warriors, roaring out in chorus their terrible songs of battle. The old chief comes of a lordly stock. His face is that of a Maori aristocrat. The late King Tawhiao was 'his cousin, and he is uncle to Mahuta, the present headchief and so-called King of the Waikato people. Patara's own -particular tribe is the Ngati-Mahuta. His father was the noted fighting chief Paratere Maioha (whose :< portrait, painted in 1844, or thereabouts, figures in Angas's rare book on New Zealand), and his grandfather was Rongomate, whose remote ancestor, centuries back, was Hoturoa, the adventurous sailor-chief who commanded the canoe Tainui, the "Mayflower" of the Waikatos. The great Te Wherowhero, afterwards King Potatau, was Patara's uncle, and Patara was amongst the Waikato chiefs who assisted to set up that renowned cannibal warrior as the first king of the Maoris. And from tis elders Patara learned the strange lore cf old, the history, the karakais, the songs, and the mythology of the ancients. His mind was early stored with the wild, unwritten series aaisJ legends and incantations of his fathers ; but when Christianity came —-the . " Rongo-pai " (" good tidings ") — the heart of the savage was transformed. He learned, too, then of the wonderful knowledge of the Pakeha, and being ambitious, and of a high order of intelligence, the youth soon picked up an amount of education unusual for the Maoris of those days " before toe war." RAIDING THE TARANAKIS. But while his people were still in their magnificent savage simplicity, Patara had some wild experiences which must seem to him now, as he looks round on the busy towns of the European, almost like dreams. He remembers, when living with his people on the shores of Kawhia , harbour, seeing the great army of Waikato and West Coast warriors, armed with their muskets, tomahawks, spears and meres, march off lor Tarxakai, in the year 1831, and he tells ■how he, a little boy, cried to go to the war with his faither Maioha and his big brother, Te Tuhi ; the latter was a proud young man-eating soldier, shouldering a much-treasured "tupara" (double-barrelled gun), which he had got on a voyage to the distant city of "Poihakene" (Port Jaokspn — Sydney). And' Patara > remembers, too, the victorious return of that merciless taua after their capture of the Pukerangiora Pa and the slaughter of' hundreds cf wretched Taranaki people; remembers the elated welcome home of the horrid caravan of loads of human itesh, borne on the backs of trembling, miserable slaves, the captives bending under the weight of baskets of cooked flesh of their own tribesmen and relatives, and the severed heads of the slain Waikato chiefs, borne- home for the' last awful ceremonies of savage unrestrained lamentations. Remembers, too, the weird ceremonies through which the warriors must pass before they can be released from the mystic "tapu" of the battlefield — the long, high-pitched chant of the home-dwelling Tohunga, the high priest, as he goes forth to greet .the returning fierce-eyed, half-naked soldiers : " I (haere mai Tv i whan,?" (" Wihenoe comes . ifihe war-god Tv?") and- the air-shaking response of the warparty as they wave their brighfcly-polishad gun's and quiver their gleaming spears and meres, and shout: "I haere mad i te Kamihanga, Ite hafouunga • ' "- ' la Tv! Te-ere, tore, ■tere-ntu. na Tv!" (" We hsiro corns from tlh© oeofcing-outi From tihe searching O* Tv! Pilgrims, great p-Mgrums otf Tv!") Patara did -not pass through that remorseless cannibal period witnout tasting human flesh himself. He was too young to march on the annual Taranaki expeditions, winch became the fashion with the Waikato headhunters, and, as he tells me, he did not join in a .cannibal . feast which took place on the shores of the Manukau about 1836, when some bodies of the Arawas, who were killed by the Waikatos in an attack on Ohinemutu Pa, Rotorua, were potted in taha (calabashes) and sent to Potatu and his people. ," I was living at Manukau at the time it was sent, but I was too young to eat man's flesh then; besides," says -the old man, naively, "it was all done when! 1 got there!" It was a year or two later, when living with his father at Wfoaingaroa Harbour (now known as Raglan), on the West Coast, that young Patara got his taste of " long pig." A slave-woman, was killed by her owner for some offence or other; her iiesh was potted in the orthodox fashion In the calabashes made of the hue gourd, and some was sent, as a thoughtful present, to Maioha and has young hopefuls, just as a pakeha might send a gift of a basket of peaches or so forth to a friend. "That," says Patara, "was the only time I tasted human flesh. E- &! it was good! Tino- reka! (sweet indeed!) It was better than pork; the colour waa red, like beef. The slave- woman was fat, and I got a, fat bit of her ; it was very good indeed." And. the ancient man emiled largely, and his deep-set eyes twinkled at this pleasant reminiscence of one of has juvenile treats — much as the good. little boy of the moral story-book would treasure the memory of a particularly nice Sunday school picnic. - Those and the succeeding years up to the war were the halcyon days of Maoridom. When tribal wars ceased, soon after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, the people turned their attention to the arts of the pakeha. Kawhia, Te Kopua, Raglan, and the Waipa basin became busy agricultural places. The Maoris grew wheat,/ potatoes, maize and kumaraa in large quantities, and as time went on began to export largely to Auckland. A notable event, in which Patara took part, was the great gathering of Waikato and other tribes at Remuera, near Auckland, in 1844, when four thousand armed men gave a splendid savage sham figlht and other warlike exercises before the then Governor. He and his brother were amongst ' the young *men who got "the food, supplies (

ready for that memorable gathering, and paraded in the war-dance' with his comrades of Ngati-Mahuta, the men who, nineteen years .afterwards, confronted the British troops at Rangiriri, Mereonere and Paterangi. About this lime occurred to cur fnenu another eventful period in a Maori's life, the tattooing of his face. He and his brother Honana- set trail- one day in a canoe across the waters of the Waitemata, then fringed with magnificent groves of the pohutukawa, and skirting the rocky southern shoTe of black old Rangitoto, ran up the long deep bay between that island and the neighbouring one of Motutapu ("Holy Isle") and beached their dug-out on the white sand, just below a little Native encampment under the grand old twisted pohutukawas. This was the temporary kainga of one Mokomoko, a tohunga-ta (tattooing artist), from the Waikato, who was down here just now on a little tour, combining pleasure with business, for he was enjoying the " kaimataitai " (" food of the salt sea ") of the Hauraki, and in the intervals of feasting on schnapper, oysters and pipis was practising his profession on the untattooed young men and girls of the neighbouring tribes. Here, in the pleasant little cove which the yachtsmen and the coasting sailor now call Drunken Bay, the chiefly brothers had their faces deep-carved and chiselled and blue-marked with the most approved spirals and twists and long-curving lines, to make them " pretty " for life. Each portion oi Patara's " moko "—the lines on nose, cheek, chin; etc. — took a day to tattoo. The tenderest parts were the lips and the outer corners of the eyes. The carving-out was done with a steel chisel, tapped with a little I mallet; before the- Maoris got steel, he says, they' used the bone of the toroa (albatross). The ngarahu or pigment foi colouring the chiselled lines and miniature trenches" in the skin was made by mixing oil with the soot procured by burning the inside of the kahikatea tree. THE KINGITE CAUSE. What pleases the old chief more than anything else is to talk about the rise oi the King movement, that idea nobly conceived by. patriotic Maoris which had for its object the preservation of the lands, "mana" and natibnal independence of the Native" people. Batara says thajb the notion of a. King 'for the. Maoris •originated with Tamehana Rauparaha (son of the famous warrior Rauparaha), who went on a voyage "to England and heard from the people there what a good thing it would be for the Maoris to have one head chief over them, to be called a King, When 'he came back he promulgated the- idea, and Matene tfe Whiwhi, of Otaki, took it up, and in the fifties commenced tho. Kingite crusade. He visited the Rotorua tribes, the'Urewera mountain dwellers, the Taupo people and the Waikatos, haranguing them to unite and set up a King, and prevent the grasping pakehas from grabbingi the lands of the Maori and making them as dogs. In 1857 a great meeting of the tribes was held at Pukawa, Te Heuheu Iwikau's village on the shores of Lake Taupo, near Tokaanu. There gathered the tribesmen from many a remote village, earnest, serious, dark-faced, tattooed men whose prime 'thought was for their country and its salvation. Patara and his fellow chiefs of Waikato were there ; they had come a long and weary journey over devious bush and mountain paths from the distant North. There, too, was the venerable Potatau, who had come on horseback, riding with difficulty, from his Waikato; home. This meeting was the principal one leading up to the proclamation of Potatau as King of the Maoris, for the great Iwifcau, quite equal in rank and importance to the Waikato chief, approved of Potatau being made King. Soon thereafter, in June,, 1858, Potatau was made King with great ceremony at Rangiawhia, the "Garden of the Waikato," and Patara, who had developed into a thoughtful and energetic man, with a gift for picking up the ways and knowledge of the white people, became a chief of some importance in the counsels of the Kingite Party. For some time Patara sojourned at Rangiawhia, a district which is at the present day one of the prettiest and best cultivated farming regions in the Waikato. The tall hedgerows of sweet-smelling hawthorn, the venerable trees, the historic church built j in pfe-pakeha days, the cosy homesteads half-buried in leafy groves, combine to delight the visitor to green and beautiful Rangiawhia. But even in Patara's day, before Potatau was proclaimed King with much hoisting of flags and firing of guns, this place was noted: for its fertility and its pleasant surroundings. Mr Alex. Kennedy, an Aucklander who visited the Waikato very nearly half a : century ago, canoeing Tip the great river from Tuakau and walking across country from the Waipa, thus describes Rangiawhia (or, as he spells it, " Rangahaphia ") as he saw it in 1852: — "The Native village of Rangahaphia is about two miles long, nearly as broad, and is quit© different from an ordinary Maori kainga. Each house is separate and has two or three acres or more attached to it, enclosed and completely cultivated, with numerous rows of peach-trees of/ some standing growing in every field, which give the place an extremely rural appearance, resembling extensive fields of English orchards. The population is about 700, all engaged in agriculture, and we were informed that they had 800 acres in wheat this year, which at the low average of 20 bushels per acre would be 16,000 bushels, worth about 5s per bushel, £4000." The Natives took their produce to Auckland, canoeing down the Waipa and Waikato Rivers, thence across a narrow portage into the Manukau and across another into the tidal waters of "the Waitemata. In those early years the Rangiawhiai 'Maorcs had great numbers of horses and cattle, besides carts, drays, ploughs, and all the usual implements of agriculture. There were a few Europeans in the district who traded with the Natives. The Maoris had built on a hill in the centre of the village a Roman Catholic chapel, nearly as large as St Paul's Church in Auckland, of wood, and built entirely out of their" own funds. Such was Rangiawhia fifty years ago, But the tide of war was soon to sweep through and destroy the pretty village, driving the people across the ' sacred aukatl of the Puniu stream, and planting European military settlers on the famous Garden of the, Waikato. Patara can tell of a wild and stirring scene which took place at Ngaruowahia in May, 1860, when three thousand Waikatos gathered by road and river and fully es-

tablished the Maori Kingdom, erecting a flagstaff and hoisting the King's flag. Fierce-looking and savage wer c the Waikatos and their visitors as they leaped in the war-dances, but there was nothing at this <rime premeditated in the way of war beyond the Taranaki war in which the Ngatimaniapotos intended engaging. The Kingite party adopted this motto : "Te Whakapono, te Aroha, te Ture " ("Religion, Love and the Law"), and Potatau, the' good and patriotic Tamehana and the other leaders said : " The Queen and the King — they are one. Each is on the piece which 'belongs to each 1 but Love and the Law surround them, and above is God." 'Noble words these, bub the high-minded aspirations of the Kingites were to come to disaster and death. At this big hui at Ngaruawahin there were some rather fieryspeeches made, but a reply of Patera (reported at 'the time, by the Rev T. Buddie, the Wesleyan missionary) is worth quoting, as showing the spirit of the man : " Fea.r not man," said he, " but do what is rirht. Never mind the sins of those who have gone ; put that in your garments Out of sight. Patience 1 It is our patience that has kept us quiet so long. But for patience we should not have held out to this day." THE DARKTOWN LUMINARY. Patara had picked up some education in the missionary schools, and, being a man of enterprise, he soon made a nameior himself. This was as editor and printer of the Kingite newspaper., "Te Hokioi," so called alter a legendary bird of dread' omen. It was an enterprising move of the Kingites, tihis embarking in the "rag-planting" industry, and the " Hikioi's " career, if short, Was a merry one. The printing-press and- type were a; present given to some New- "Zealand) chiefs by the Emperor of Austria. The plant was set up at Ngarua-wa&Jav-the historic beauty-spot where itfoe swi-ft-rolttng Waikato and the dark, slowpliding Waipa mingle their streams under the cloudy, bush-clad range of the Hakarimata. Here Patara, and one or two young Maoris who had mastered the wonderful art of "slinging type" and 1 making-up "for.mes," got out the "Hokioi" at irregular intervals. Patara's articles are said to have been "stingers," seme of them, and he went hamimer and tongs for. Mr (now Sii John) Gprst. who was then Government Agent and Magistrate at ,Te Awamutu, further up the valley-: Gorst starred a. paper, too, in those romantic days before ithe war«. , He ■called it the " Pihoihoi <Mbkemoke " ("the " Lonely Lark"),' amd he was wont to knock splinters, metaphorically sneaking, off Patara and his leaders on the King question, a.nd the land-for-the-Maoris policy. Patara seems to have stood it goodl-hwmouredly and well, as every journalist should, but other Kingite notables were not so cool. The fiery Rewi and the truculent Aporo, fresh from the seat of war on- the Tai-anaM frontier, burst up the " Pihoihoi's " show op March 24, 1863, "with a* "war party, seized the "plant," made "pi" of some of Mr Gorst's best matter, a column or two of the Rev Timi Tikera's last sermon, and the "wanted" advertisements, arid sent the staff oi the loathsome contemporary packing. They do say. too, that Rewi's young onen used the ''Pihoihoi " type for bullets in the war that soon followed, ah<L laid out. the British Tommy with scraps of leaderette andi wheatmarket quotations, but Patara. smiles amicably when I suggest it, awd says thai he didn't, at any rate. As a matter of fact, Mr <3orst, in has book, "The Maori King," gives mud praise to Patarat, as a reasonable a.ndf intellectual opposition editor. After the sacking of the "Pihoihoi," by Patara's advice a letter was written from. Ngaruawahia condemning Rewi, and requiring him to Testort the randed.. property, and pay Mr Gorst foi the daimage done and' for the outrage. Would any modern editor do as much foi a hated rival? And wh€» the evicted Magistrate-editor canoed. down • the W a i" kato, Pa-tara hospitably received him and housed (him — the irony of (fate I— in the printing office of the rebel "Hokioi." According to Mr Gorst, Patara's articles in the "Hokioi" exhibited wit and ability. One of his most noticeable articles was upon the subject of a steamer which it was proposed by the Governor, Sir George Grey, should be placed on the waters of tbs Waikato. . "Successive Governors," said the "Hokioi," " have declared to us that the Queen, by the Treaty of Waitangi, promised us the full fhiefship of such of our lands, rivers, fisheries, etc.. as we might wish to retain. Now, Waikato is one of the rivers which we wish, to retain under pur own ohiefship. How is it, then, that we are told a steamer is to be v sent into this river, though we have not given our consent? Is this the way in> which th« Treaty of Waitangi is observed by your side? Pakeha friends, why do you act thus wrongfully, and trample under your feet the words of your Queen?" ON THE WAR-PATH. , The " Hokioi " soon, however, . ceased publication, for its staff, from the editor to the trouserless "P.D.," were off to the war. The Waikato campaign of 1863---64 began; the tribeipeople deserted their cultivations and took up the gun and the tomahawk, and the cartouche-box, built rifle-pits, threw lip breastworks, and prepared to dispute the right-of-way up fie Waikato with the British troops. Honana, the younger brother, stayed at Mangere, as an outwardly loyal subject of the Crown, but Patara, to use his own words, " could not sit still." He went to the front with his doubk-barrelled gun and his ammuni-tion-bag, and prepared to prove that the musket was mightier than the pen, remembering, too, the grand old adage of his peoplfc, "Me mate te tangata me mate mo t* whenua " (" The death of the warrior is to die for -the land"). The war was a grief to Patara, as it was to his old compatriot and friend, William Thompson (Tamehana), Te Waharoa and other of the more reasonable men. He was one of the "moderate" or. peace party amongst the- Kingites, and only took up arms when he saw that war was inevitable, and, in the eyes of the Maoris, forced upon them by the British. He " fought fair," too, did Patara.. He and other chiefs sueosrsfully opposed a proposal 'made, just before the war begaii, by Rewi and other violent warriors, to go down 'the Waikato in canoes to Te la, on the lower part of the river, and make a raid on the white settlers. He condemned vario.us violent actions of the Ngatimaniapoto tribe, as hehad condemned thfiir rajd on Te Awamutu and expulsion of Mr Gors-b. 'WAY DOWN WAIKATO RIVER. Squatting with the tattooed, stern-eyed garrison on the long nine-pitted and trenched fern ridge oi Meremere, overlooking the sweeping river, Paitara, his " tupara " across his knees, saw the first steamer that ever floated on the water® of the Waikato come puffing up the wide swift stream. This was the gunboat Avon, armed with a 12-pound-er Armstrong. Then came the gunboatPioneer, built in Sydney, which, in October, 1863, entered Waikato Heads and paddled up the river. The Pioneer was an I ii-on shallow-draught craft, with two cupolas on her deck pierced for rifles, and entered from below. (One of those historic deck turrets now lies on the river-bank

close by the present railway station at Mercei", a mute memento •of the old war days.) Early in October the pioneer and the Avon, with troops., on board, steamed up the Waikato past Meremere, and those on board mot with a suix prise', for, besides being fired on by..riflemen from the lull trenches, they were saluted with shots from big guns humming about their ears. The roar of artillery ' was a sound unlooked for in these Native parts, and there was much speculation as , to what the pieces were and how they came there mounted on the remote ridge of' Meremere. Patara tells me that the guns were two old pieces of ship artillery, given to his ] people many years ago on the West Coast ' by Captain Kent, an early trader. When the war broke out the Ngati-tahinga tribe and others dragged the guns with great ' labour over the range from Whaingaroa, ' transported them in big canoes down th© ; Waikato to the mouth of the Whangaj marino Creek, and set them up there on s the ridge just north of the creek, und'sr . the shadow of the Kingite war-flag, which, • flapped and fluttered 1 in the breeze over the 5 entrenchments. The Maoris worked the guns, using old iron weights taken from European' stores, old iron, and anything in fact which would go into the muzzle, as 1 projectiles. Once, when. th«» Pioneer was 1 steaming up past Meremere, the Maori bulP lets rattling on the iron turrets, and her riflemen banging away merrily in reply, the Native artillerists on the ridge gleefully " plumped a heavy steel yard! into her. The I shot struck the bulwarks and: embedded itp self in a beef -cask, and was long thereafter , preserved as a 'trophy by Commodore Wises man. F A chivalrous action is reported of the Maoris at- Meremere. Guessing that their j white foemen would be glad: of a little fresh provisions, they one morning considerately « filled a canoe with, potatoes and other food I stores of their own, and paddled 1 it down r to the neighbouring British camp, under £ cover of the white flag, as a little present i to General Cameron. . • For some weeks the Kingite garrison re- {■ mained in ■ the works a>t 'Meremere, watc'ht fully scanning the river waters, from the r grey dawning, when a long white sea of i> mist stretching away down and* up past , their ridgs, with here and there the treetops peeping fantastically through, showed the valley of the silent river, through the i long,, exciting days, till the mor-epork cried r in the Kahilrateas, a,n<J the swamp-hen ap<l the bittern croaked: -and! bellowed in the [, wide marshes ; listening to the distant j reveille in tihe sleeipy camp of the soldiers, 3 and: -wondering at the lomg-dTawn sweet bugle calls in the still early eveniaig hours, [ when every sound seemed startlingly near. r The Maori gunners fired: their two mucht prized pieces of artilkry now and then, and the small-aransmeni often took at the [ steamers dr at the British- redoubt on the i opposite, ridge. Patara was there amongst 5 them, letting drive with' 'his trusty " tur parai" at the .pale-face enemy, and using up . much ammunition without any loss to the E European soldiers, and "lying low" in the t rifle-pits when the Armstrongs on the gunt boats began to speak. r Then came a time when the Maori had i to fall back on Rangiriri, and further, back - still, arid up the Missouri of New Zealand - poured jthe steamers, the transport .boats b and canoes, and the regiments and) naval brigade of the British. Sorrowfully and: 3 angrily retreating, the Waikatos abandoned i Meremere, manned their long canoes, and, dashing their, sharp manuka blades into . their ancestral water-way, paddled up the 3 beautiful river, chanting the old' songs of . war as they dipped and rose, and dapned 5 again, and now amd! then raising a sad low f waaata of grief as they swept past some olden 'hamlet, some nvueh -prized' cultivation, r or a sacred burial-place of thedr tribe, shell tered 'by the low-bending green foliage of . the forest tree. At Rangirdri they made 1 their next stand, one that was to be re--3 membered with sorrow by both races. Patara was not in Rangiriri wihen the fight , occurred. He had gone up to Ngarua- ' wahaa, the "caipital" of 'King v»Tawhiao, styled Potaitau 11. When alt last the troops ' oocupied Ngaruawahia, and ■worked up the Waipa Valley, Patara and his compatriots ; shut -themselves up in Paterangi, a very strc j ngly^constructe<l fortification some miles from. .the Waipa' River, arid awaited an attack there, occasionally making warlike ■demonstrations and firing off their guns on the parapets. But the Icing-expected! assault was not made, and/ Patana's next and last war experience was early in 1864, at Rangia'whiA. when that quiet village, from which tlie "fighting men drew most of their food supplies, was raided, and; the occupants -routed by the British and; colonial forces.- PataTa and his good old) uncle, Tamati Ngaporai, were sitting outside the Roman Catholic Church there when the troops entered the^ village, and they, witnessed' the killing,, of .Colonel 'Nixon, and the burning of one of the Maori whares with a number of its occupants. From Rangiawhia they "trekked" to the district beyond, which afterwards became known as " the King Country," and there Tawhaao, Patara, Wahanui, Rewi, and many another stern old chieftain dwelt for many a year after\*firds, not seeing a pakehai face, nor wishing to," and •arrieving, always grieving, for their lost ancestral lands, the wide valley of "tJhe Waikatoy where now stood the blockhouses and the green farms of the \ white man: ■ JN AFTER YEARS. The exiles of* Waikato dwelt for many a year away back in the; " Rohe-potae," at Te Kujti, at i^ikurangi, and later at the big settlement of Whabiwhatihoe, just across the "aukati," the -frontier-line, near Alexandra township. Patara was a man cf ' affairs, for he was King Tawhiao's seeK- ■ tary and mouth-piece, and was present at the big gatherings at Te Kopua and Hikurangi,' in 1878 and 1879, when Sir George Grey and other important Pakeha rangatiras held meetings with the King. Later on, in -the beginning of the "eighties/ he ! " came' out " with his royal cousin and the I other Kingites, smoked the pipe of peace once more, and made a sort of triumphal procession -though a. peaceful one, thraagn the ' frontier settlements, when the longbanished Waikatos once more visitad their olden homes, wept over the battle-grounds of the past, danced wild war-dances, blazed away much blank ammunition, and feasted mightily. Ihen, in 1884, ths ex-editor of the "Hokioi," accompanied Tawhiao on his voyage to England, and he can still spin wondrous tales of what he saw in marvellous London. Two names of places he remembers well — " Ityde Park " and " Tiatakorosi " (Charing Cross) ; for it was there that he used to go to gaze on the astonishing big crowds of people, which struck him more than any other feature of tho great home country of the Pakeha. And now, in the frosty winter of his days, the old man, sitting at his holismdoor ab Mangera, leans his worn and deepchiselled chin on his hands, supported by his carved staff, and, gazing over the harbour and the thickly-settled slopes of the Manukau, dreamily reviews the great scenes in which hs has been an actor. Then, if you get him in the mood, he will dive back into the days that have been, and will t-ell strange tales of his demi-god ancestors, of the sacred stars of heaven, and the brightly shining rainbow-god Uenuku, which guided ( his canoe ov«r the wide ocean from ihe palm-fringed isles of the southern seas ; ot : the olden wars of the Waikatos, in the lays ' when every bend of the great river had its ' taniwha— its powerful chief— of the marvelous priestly powers of the Whauw'ha.ll Hnrakeke, that tribe, gifted by the gods, which was wont to "charm" a school of whales ashore , for a chieftain's funeral feast; of the murderous wiles of the Tohunga Makutu, the wizard, who could kill- men by the mm? projection of the will, or strike them with the awful affliction, of insanity or the living death of nge'rengore (Maori leprosy). Hi; can spjak of old war comrades and friends, . the mention of whose names sounds now , Ike ancient history. The fine old fellows o f\}iis veneration are nearly all gone, and many a* man of note, whose name brings a ( brighter gleam into the old rangatira's eves and a straighter poise of his head, has ( been in his grave for thirty or forty years. ■, Like Fingal lamenting the dying warrior chief on the drear battle heath »? Moi-lena, .,

[ Patara may murmur in soliloquy, as he puffs at his old black pipe : i' The valiant must fall in their day :<,nd be no more known on their hills. Where are our fathers and warriors, the chiefs of the times of old? They have set like stars that have shone. We only hear the sound of their praise. But they were renowned in their years ; the terror of other times.".