THE HARDSHIPS OF THE EAST COAST CAMPAIGN.

Grey River Argus, Volume VIII, Issue 529, 8 June 1869, Page 4

THE HARDSHIPS OF THE EAST COAST CAMPAIGN.

(From the Southern Cross Correspondent.) Tauranga, May 22. The reported attack on Opotiki was brought by a messenger overland from the Front, and was contradicted at once by the fact that the Sturt had only left Opotiki the previous evening, where, so far from any attack being apprehended, it had been thought unnecessary to retain all the men on paj r , an«£ the majority had been struck'ptf. '■* Private ■ letters speak of the campaign being at an end for the season, and the impression was, though nothing definite was known, that a portion of the force would winter at Fort Galatea, while another portion, if not all the remainder, would proceed to Tauranga to recruit. It appears that the privations and sufferings of the troops have, on a small scale, resembled those of Napoleon's army in Russia. The men are described as being in a pitiable condition ; with clothes in tatters, and many without shoes, they have had to march through a fearfully rugged country and thick bush, sometimes covered with snow, in which they have had to sleep, or attempt vainly to sleep, through nights so piercing that people in warm beds, covered with blankets, have trembled with cold. They have marched over country so steep that one man had to assist the other in hoisting up his accoutrements and baggage, and through bush so almost impenetrably thick that at last the Arawa contingent refused to proceed, dismayed and disheartened by fatigue, cold, and the presence of obstacles so formidable ; aud all this had to be done, not upon a generous military diet, supplemented with rations of rum at intervals, but upon raw flour and laacon, which they could not stay to cook. A pound of baceaand a pint pannikin of flour would be served to each man, the former of which he might moisten into a paste with cold water, and swallow aloug with his uncooked bacon. AH this has demonstrated the hardihood and endurance of our men, and their superiority over Maoris, even in their own dreaded bush ; but at what a cost of future suffering, broken constitutions, and perhaps incurable ailments ! It is said that there will be a great many invalids, on the return of the force, and it is to be feared there will be not a few hollow coughs, and chronic rheumatisms, that will not be shaken off during life. However, this is not the way to regard their case. They had a certain work to do, and we have reason to believe they have done it manfully and well, and raised the prestige of the colonial soldier in the fastnesses of the Han-hau, who can no longer consider himse'f safe in the recesses of his forest home, bill has learned to his cost that what a Maori can do a European can do as "well or better, and where a Maori can go the pakeha can follow. c Of tins we have proof in the late march through the Urewera country, where the troops were nineteen days, during which time they ate tho savages out of house and home— consuming their stock of provisions, destroying their crops, burning their dwellings down, and driving off their horses and stock, leaving them bare of supplies at. the commencement of the ■winter. The weather has been long of breaking, but has broken at last, after three or four bright days and nights of intense cold and frost. "We are apparently in for a spell of north-east weather of some continuance.