RELIC OF THE MAORI WAR.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 60, 21 September 1907, Page 3

RELIC OF THE MAORI WAR.

The recent fishing up of the timbers of the old hulk Million recalls an interesting incident of tin- Maori war. About the year lSli'i the (lovcrninent leased or chartered this hulk (says the Auckland Star), and had her iitted up as a touting prison for the reception of the Maori prisoners captured at Kangiriri and other places in the AVaikato where engagements took place. These, to the number of several hundred, were placed on board the Marion in charge of a medical man. One fine night the Maoris, thinking they had been in ''quad" long enough, seized the boat belonging to the hulk, and, by making five or six trips, rowed themselves to the mainhind near Alatakana, where they built a rude pa. The few settlers then in the neighborhood were, of course, considerably alarmed, as they were unarmed, and thought they might any hour be the victims of a raid from a predatory hand of Maori vagabonds. Strange to relate, however, the runaways conducted themselves fairly well and molested nobody. They must have raised a little cash from some source, as a contingent of them made their way to AVarkworth, where the late Air Henry Palmer, father of .lodge Palmer, had a llouriiiill. The Afaoris bought and paid for half a ton of Hour, which twenty of them shouldered and pikaned to Matakana. Xo strenuous effort was ever made to capture them; they could not return to Waikato as their land w;is confiscated. Many of them were quite young men, so it is quite possible that some of them may be now alive.