A ROMANTIC CHARACTER

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 159, 5 January 1914, Page 6

A ROMANTIC CHARACTER

PACKS PROM TilK. PAST. Mr. T. Adamson, X.Z.U. whose death at Wanganui.was rec.ntly announced, was a picturesque and rugged type of frontiersman, as interesting if not quite so romantic a character as any drawn in the. Indian-lighting volumes of Fenimorc Cooper and Captain Mayne Keid (writes the Lyttelton Times). He was a real backwoodsman, and in his native luishcrafl) he surpassed even the Maoris themselves. He has been described by his old coinrads of the days of llatihau warfare as'a man with a contempt, for danger, and one who delighted in the rough and savage life of bush campaigning. Physically he fitted perfectly the wild part he often played in the forests of the West and East Coasts. He was over six feet high, straight as an arrow and extremely powerful. In the bush or on tho mareJi he very seldom wore bool 3, and he was almost as barbaric a figure as any Maori warrior in the expeditions of 1860 anj 1870, with a "rapaki" or waist-shawl in place of trousers, a tomohawk stuck in his belt, and a Maori kit containing his rations and Maori "loot" strapped across his shoulders with green flax blades. That was Adamson on the warpath as one of his { old acquaintances of tho Taranaki wars j described him. 1 Adamson was brought up on the. banks j of the Wanganui, and he was as expert. j as the Natives' in canoe-paddling and bird-snaring and the many other accomplishments of the Maoris of the past ' generation. As a very young man he became a sort of henchman of Major Kemp, , or Kepa te Kangihiwinui, the AYangamii {chief who fought from ISC") to IS7I on ■ the side of the luivopeans. One of the I fir.st expeditions in which he made his : name as a bush-fighter was in the forest - pursuit of Titokowartt after that Ilau--1 ban leader and his men had abandoned ' Tutinuigaika pa, near the Waitotara, 1 in 1869. Adamson was one 'of the lit- - tie band of Scouts, officials known as - tho Corps of Ouides, under Christopher i- Haling, who followed up the retreating rebels. There were some savage deeds t done during the nine days' chase s through the trackless forest of South d Taranaki. Ono incident of the pursuit, d at the back irf Whakamara, was dee scribed by Mr.Maling. who is now living n in England, in a rjcent letter to a New Zealand acquaintance. "Suddenly, after t a bit of a skirmish, we came upon a g Maori who shammed to be dead. Tom o Adamson, the big scout, happened to i- be with ,me. He made some remark—l d think it was 'Within!' ('Split him!'), d just to test the bona (ides of the 'corpse.' is The. beggar was up in an instant and ie made a blow at Tom with his tomahawk. I had just time to catch hold of y his back hair and jerk him backwards, n and then Adameson snatched the tomo:r hawk from him, and in a second' or two a there was one rebel the fewer." In the r- following year Adamson was wounded >d by an ambush party of Hauhaus in a fe deep gorge- in the Tirewera bush, but io although he had to leave the column on ie account of his wound, ho was in the Held ;r again in" a few months with Major >t Kemp, and he marched and fought through the Opotiki, Patetere and Taupo ie campaigns. For his plucky work as n scout ho received the New Zealand Cross, y a, decoration which is also worn by his s- old chief Haling. In recent years the veteran busliman had a sheep run near 19 Taihape. He was an uneducated man, '° but he was endowed with a great deal ;e of shrewdness, mid for the rough-and-'<l tumble work of the frontier his like and ' s type could hardly be bettered.