GALLIPOLI FIGHTING.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 290, 6 September 1915, Page 3

GALLIPOLI FIGHTING.

THE ARRIVAL OP THE MAORIS,

A UNIQUE SCENE

(Tram Malcolm Ross, Official War (k respondent with the X.Z. Forces).

IM3SOS, July 6

At an early hour on the morning of Saturday, 3rd July, the Maoris arrived from Malta, and landed in the dark on the little pier at Anzac. It was rough, and the disembarkation was difficult, but the Maoris took it all very quietly, and there was no mishap.

That afternoon the General paid them a formal visit. After a mile walk we came upon them digging their bivouac in an amphitheatre, surrounded by steep fantastic cliffs of niurl and waterworn stone —the debris of some anciea: river or lake bed. Hundreds w-t.-

busy with pick and shovel, working amidst the scrub-covered knolls to get their ‘•'dug-outs’’ ready before nightfell. Close beside us two swarthy young warriors, who thought they had hit upon a good spot for their habit." tion, dug Into a corpse, a ghastly ro-

minder of the severe fighting that went on in this place when our men, after the first landing, were getting their gi'ip of this bit of the Peninsula. It was the Maori's first experience of the grim realities of war, and, needloss to say, there was a sudden cessation of digging in that particular quarter. During the forenoon the Maoris had their first experience of shells being fired over thorn; but these were aimed at Ansae beach, and burst half a

mile away. The General, called a halt in the dig

ging, and- the bronzed warriors crowded round liim, while he stood on a little knoll amidst the olive trees and the stunted prickly oak, and made them a brief address. “Officers and men of the Maori Contingent, 7 ’ he said, “I am glad that the

hope I expressed to you when I last saw you in Cairo, that you should come and serve with us in the field, has been realised. I promised you then that I would do all I could to get

with, this division, so that you might join in battle with your comrades of the New Zealand Infantry Brigade and the New Zealand Mounted Infantry. Your comrades, who have for some weeks now beer, fighting on the Peninsula. have covered themselves and the name of New Zealand with glory. They have fought most valiantly In face of very heavy casualties, and in every way have proved themselves efficient and brave soldiers. And now upon you Maoris a very great responsibility rests. Not only have you to prove yourselves worthy to fight with your British comrades, who have already done such noble deeds, but you have also to prove yoursclDes worthy descendants of your ancestors, and worthy, also, of the glorious military traditions of your race. You have lo follow in the footsteps of your great chiefs whose, names we in New Zealand know so well. Your race lias always been distinguished for its bnv-

cry and for its martial ardour, and the people of Nov/ Zealand will look to you to prove that those qualities have in no way diminished. In a very short time you will be called upon to meet the enemy, and when you do so I believe you will prove yourselves absolutely as brave and valiant as your

forefathers before you and as your comrades whom yon have now joined. I am very proud to have you under

my command, and I wish you all the best of fortune in the fight that lies

before you.”

At the conclusion of this stirring ad dress, the whole assemblage of Maori?

responded ■ with their war dance. 1 was indeed a strange scene. As the weird cries of the rhythmic beating of the feet upon Turkish soil ceased, the mind ranged back a few thousand years, and conjured up visions of the Armadas that have sailed these seas and the armies that have traversed those lauds. The ghosts of the great dead seemed to rise again and march before us-—Xerxes and Alexander. Hector and Helen, Achilles and Lysander, with many more famou in song' arid story. And now the coming of the Maori!

Behind us, just beyond the Peninsula, is'the narrow strait across which the Persian General built- his bridge of boats so that his army might cross from one Continent to another. There, too, the Greek fleet, with infinite patience, lay for nine years, a bulwark lo the host ashore. Where Xerxes built his bridge of boats to cross an army, ding of a net of steel to stop our submarines. And now this new Armada. with its great battleships, its thundering guns, its submarines and waterplanes, and its baloon ship, comes upon the scene. And with it an army from he greatest Empire the world has known. Across the narrow strait the other dry we saw Chanak, atop of the buried Abydos, in flames —lit by a ship’s shell which traversed the whole Peninsula. and the straits as well!

Quite close are the now desolate plains and the ruined cities of Troy, with five thousand years of history behind them. Westward the sun was placing a band cf jewelled silver across the Saros Sea. The long promontory ad pointed peaks cf Imbros broke the straight horizon on the left, while nearer the bolder and steeper heights of Saraotha.ee. recalling other scene*Mid the wonderful “winged victory” in the Louvre, stood boldly out nrwins 4 a background of splendid rolling cloud In, the foreground the sandy beach r J the Peninsula swept round to whom “the boat of death” lay stranded at n little promontory. Beyond that again, masts and funnel of a sunken steamer and. quite close, a buoy whore, in face of the impotent rage of those on shore, the Triumph found her grave. Here in the shallows one saw for the first time the wine-coloured sea- of of Homer, as if tinted with the blood of the victims of war; and in the midst of all the New Zealand Genera’’ like some Trojan leader, inciting his Antipodean soldiers to heroic deeds. As the final cadences of the haka were echoed back from the fantastic cliffs,

one pondered over this strange coming of the Maori, and wondered whether his deeds would be worthy of the new Iliad.