AN INTERLUDE IN WAR.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 197, 4 August 1916, Page 2 (Supplement)

AN INTERLUDE IN WAR.

THE VICTORIOUS MAORI. A SCENE IN A FOREST. NORTHERN FRANCE, 21st May. In the mythology of the Maori tuere are chronicled many strange incidents —the romantic happenings of love and peace and war. Handed down iioin the mists of antiquity by means of the wonderful memories of the Tohungas o. high priests--for tli<) Maori had no written language—these adventures of their forefathers still live, and both the actualities and the myths of bygone generations have still an influence upon Maori character. It would re•quiiro no great stretch of the Maori imagination to feel that the spirit of Heke, the old warrior who defied the British, and time after time cut down the pole from which fluttered the English fhg in Northern .New Zealand had winged its way from the legendary Hawaiki—whither the spiritof the departed arc borne —and was hovering over this forest in Northern France where worthy descendants of the tribes had come to engage m a friendly contest wjtli men from those two great overseas dominions —Canada nnd Australia. H.eke w;:s of our time, yet he remembered the day when the Maori felled his tree by fire and fashioned his canoe with the implements of the stone age. And now what a change! ilie Maori whose fathers only a few generations ago used the stone adze, and whose ancestors could not be conquered by British soldiers, is here helping his former foes in the greatest war of all tliie ages, and in the interlude, meeting them and beating them in the forest at iheir own game. As young Rawiri and Ins men—stripped to the singlet, their great brown biceps showing, and pleasunt smiles revealing fine teeth—stood nxe in hand, each beside his tree awaiting the signal to begin, one could not but remember the splendid spirit of their noble ancestors. The scene was one in which the old warriors would have delighted—the spaciousness of the forest, the songs of the birds, the scent of wild flowers, and better still, the scent of battle in the rtir—for were we not within the sound of the cannon, and even as we marched down the woodland path the sptcful tat-tat-tatting of a machine-gun ranging, assailed the ear. And there were many soldiers from generals to non.-<-oms., and "Tommies" —all eager and interested in the coming contest. There was also an Austn.lian band that played good music, though as someone remarked, they were not bandsmen but miners. There were English, Scottish Irish, and Welsh. French Canadians talked to each other in French, and in the nrddle of a conversation would switch off into English. A French "bucheron" seated beside a famous English war coreispondent on a fallen tree was saving to him —no doubt with memories of his own recent defeat by the Maoris in these same woods—"Ah! these Colonials they are not good axemen :-tlioy waste too . uch timber." A Canadian with a Yankee drawl and some swagger was ask ng for "real .trees." These trees he said were only saplings! That was before the contest, and he, had perhaps never heard of the giant kauri in the forests of Northern New Zealand. Cou'd he but see those forests he would no doubt have to admit that a kauri is "some tree.'' Later a critical Australian watching this same swaggering axeman hacking not too skilfully at a hard elm was heard to remark with caustic humour that he mild do better with a knie and fork! Beside me a very young English ofiirer seemed to be interested in the New Zealandcrs. "I hear there are a lot .'•t' awful blackguards amongst them,'' lie said. I made a non-committal reply. He had evidently mistaken me for an Englishman. He wondered if the Maoris ta'lced English. I assured him (hat they did, better possibly than lie 1. and that quite likely there were among tlieni several with University degrees. He presumed they were good a*„ games. I told him they had earned some fame at "Rugger,' that they plaved cricket fairly well, and that a Maori had carried •if the New Zealand golf championship. "Are you with the New Zealanders!'" he asked, looking me up and down. "Yes, I replied. "I am a New Zealand?iv' Then the conversation languished somewhat, and with all due modesty I assumed that my friend was thinking that after al! lie might have been misinformed about my countrymen. After all he was a very young officer, and, no doubt as brave as his forefathers who ventured forth in the Crusades, or who fought at Blenheim or Almanza. And one felt certain that he would be just as ready to die in a ditch in Flanders, maintaining to the last gasp the honour of the family name. All the same one could not help recalling the lines of our English Poet-seer: —

" What do they know of England Who only England know?" But this war and these meetings under u'ien skies are doing us all good ; and are giving us a better understanding of each other, with the inevitable result that in government and commerce, and even in the arts of peace and war, the Motherland and he:l loyal Dominions will be drawn yet closer together for mutual welfare and protection. Meantime the axemen are waiting beside their trees, a shrill whistle gives the signal to commence, and immediately the chips begin to fly. Canada has three teams, Australia two, and New Zealand one —the Latter selected from the few hundred Maoris who are with the Pioneer Battalion. There are three men in a team, and three trees have to be fe'led by each team. Anv one man in the group may help to fell anv of tlie three trees. Thus, when one man has felled his tree he rushes to the assistance of one of his conuades, till towards the finish there are usually three men hacking away at the last tree. The lots of three trees average in circumference b metres 50 eent 1 - inetres, and tl.e wood is hard. I he Maoris have drawn a set of trees the a verag" of which is a hove all the others but the difference is not great. It is onlv fair to add that the Maoris, bavin" Iteeii at work in the forest for some time, are in slightly better condition tahn' the other axemen. One of the Canadian teams chopped first, and 't was clear to experienced biishmen t.iat tliev would have 110 show against t.ie dusky warriors from the Antipodes The Austral : ans were an unknown quantity, and their first team shaped well. They beat the Canadians easily. The crowd were evidently very interested in the Maori axemen. Unperturbed I v the interest they were exciting, the three young men remained standing sdentlv, axe in hand, each beside Ins tree, and when the whistle sounded tliev went to work w tli fine, swinging blows, each stroke falling within the smallest fraction of an inch of the one before, just a« a perfect golfer might swing his club, and, hitting on tee exact spot, send his ball flying well and trulv from tfio too. Tlio "searfe left, ns tlio g;u> in tlio troo widrniod, was al most as if it had been cut with a sawwith such accuracy dd th-> blows from the kcen-wineing axes fa'l. Thn first tree came crashin? to the ground, to an accompaniment of cheers in six m'nvte< ft was a tree one metre foH\- <■ ve c"iitim 'tri's in circumference. The second tree fell in seven minutes. At

the last tree—the biggest in an/ of the Coups —the three Maoris were now all l'jy:uy thsr axes in great style. In nine minutes forty seconds it, too, had fallen, the three trees thus having been brought down in twenty-two minutes forty seconds. This was a record that, evidently, it wfluld be difficult to excel, and, as a matter of fact, none of the other teams aproached it. The results were:— New Zealand 22 40 Australia 31 8 Canada 4"> 22 Following this contest there was a log-chopping contest, won by an Australian, with a Maori second. It was almost a dead heat. In a cross-cut sawing competition a Canadian pair just managed to beat a Maori team by about a second. The prize for the best axemanship was won by a Maori. Thus ended a competition that will perhaps bo. memorable :n the annals of warfare. Just about this time, in a village only a few miles away, an Australian General was wounded and ;.a Australian doctor blown to bits by a German high explosive shell. Yet Tiere we were, with competitors from our widely scattered Dominions, calmly carrying out in the midst of idyllic surroundings this strange contest. Under the circumstances it was an event fuch as perhaps only the British could have conceived. One of my latest impressions of it was a glimpse of the Maoris grouped for a photograph bv the Baronne from a neighbouring Chateau. She will have an interesting picture. Thousands of miles from their ancestral home, here they were, ready and willing, in forest or trench, to strike a blow for the honour of their native land and of Mother England. Yes, of a surety, the spirit of Hoke, who time and again cut down the flagpole, and of old Rewi, who when asked to surrender said he would fight on for ever and ever, remains with young Rawiri and his men as, smiling, sweating, and victorious, they lean upon their axes beside the fallen elm —a pigmy compared with their own giant kauri—in a forest in Northern France.