Native Office Grahamstown January 26th 1870 My dear Sir, As Te Hira did not go to Ohineroa as he had intended, in consequence of hearing that Te Kooti had returned from Ohineroa to Tapapa. I purpose going up to Ohinemuri this morning with Moananui, Tarapipipi te Kopara arrived yesterday at about the same hour as we did. he came for the purpose of being present when the Ohinemuri cases came on for hearing in the Native Land Court. I proposed to him to return with me to Auckland for the purpose of seeing you so soon as the sitting of the court might be over -- but now that his mind has been relieved of anxiety as to the sitting of the court he is very desirous of returning to his home in order to prevent any of his people who through fear of our troops might fly to Te Kooti for protection. he will write to you himself as to this -- A number of the Ohinemuri natives are here waiting for the court -- one reason they give for coming is, that they heard troops were going to be sent by way of Ohinemuri -- or Piako to cooperate with the Taupo force at present in pursuit of Te Kooti. I assured them they had no ground for apprehension in that respect -- that there was no intention whatever of doing anything of the sort I reminded them of what I had told Te Hira in reference to the same point on Wednesday last. Well, they are satisfied, as to that, but here is another point -- they say troops should not go from Waikato across to Turangamoana, there seems to be no objection (in fact Tarapipipi told me so) to Te Kooti being followed by our Troops from either Taupo or Tauranga -- but there is a decided objection to any movement from the Waikato side -- I told the natives I had not heard of any military movement from Waikato, that what I had heard was that supplies had been sent from Cambridge to meet McDonnell -- A confused rumour of some skirmishing having taken place reached Ohinmuri on Monday but nothing is known. I think Tarapipipi will return today to Piako, he told me it was his intention to do so last night -- Your obedt. servt. E.W. Puckey