MAJOR HAIR'S SERVICES.

Waikato Times, Volume XVII, Issue 1450, 18 October 1881, Page 2

MAJOR HAIR'S SERVICES.

At a time when both races are reaping the benefits of the successful negotiations of Major Mair with T«iwhiao and his people, and when the question of fitly recognising his efforts in this direction is before the Government, the following account of some of the services which that gallant officer rendered his country in the trying days of the Maori war will not be inappropriate. The extracts aie from a veiy interesting work by Lieut, the lion. Herbert Meade, R.N., entitled " A Rule through the Disturbed Districts, of New Zealand" : —

Capture of Te Teko Pah (1865). After the murder of Mr Volkner (four months later) came the murder of Mi Fulloon, Government interpreter, and the ciew of the Kate by the hauhaus at Whakatane, both on the east coast. By this time the whole country-side, from T<urpo to the East Cape, was one seething hotbed of fanaticism, encouraged by the impunity which followed the murder of Volkner. The Government had avowed their inability to assist the plucky little band of loyal natives who yet remained at Taupo, and advised them to fall back on liotorua, which they did. When Fulloon was killed Mair was at Rotorua, organising an expedition against Kereopa in the Uriwera country, and as soon as he heard of it he took measures to avenge his death. In about a week he collected and equipped a sufficient force, and at the end of that time he started from the lower end of Lake Tarawera with 200 Aiawas, having sent about 150 more to march down the coast from Maketu. On the 16th of August the coast party attacked the Pai-Marire pah, at the confluence of the Awa-o-te-Atua (river of the spirit) and the Rangitaiki, without success, having no boats or canoes. On the same clay Mairs party attacked Parawi, a very strong position on the same river, about seven miles from Mount Edgcumbe, but met with no better luck, and for the same reason. He then effected a junction with the coast party, which the enemy tried to prevent, but failed, losing a chief in the attempt. There were three pahs near the sea, but all too strong to be taken without artillery and boats. Several days were spent in skirmishing, usually picking off one or two hauhous, and waiting in hopes of assistance from the Opotilu expedition (Enghsli troops which landed September Bth) : in this, however, they were disappointed. He then detached a party, who seized all the canoes at Whakatane (the scene of the murder), and got them by fresh water to the rear of the enemy, while the remainder dragged others overland into the lake behind the pahs, and thus cut off their supplies. The hauhaus evacuated all the pahs during the night of the 10th October, and retreated up the intricate channels of the delta, leaving no traces of their route. But on the 15th Man learnt that they had thiown themselves into the Te Teko pah, and following them up, he captured all their canoes, with eleven barrels of powder, and lead for bullets. On the 17th, travelling by land and water with 500 Arawas, he reached the pah. The place was very strong, having in its rear on one side the Rangitaiki— swift, broad, and deep : and on the other three sides three hundred yards smooth glacis, three lines of palisading with flanking angles, and three rows of rifle-pits and breastworks. The pah itself was 90 yards long by 45 broad, and every hut within it was separately fortified. There was, moreover, a covered way communicating with the landing-place on the river. Sapping was the only way to take such a place Mair, who was present at Orakau when that place was sapped under the direction of Captain Hurst, R.E., seems to have made good use of his eyes. He started three saps under cover of a slight undulation of the ground, and in spite of a heavy fire made such good progress that on the 19th the hauhaus craved a truce to arrange terms. Firing was suspended for twenty-iour hours, but the saps were kept driving, and the only terms Mair would accept were unconditional surrender. By 2 a.m. on the 20th the Arawas had cut off the covered way and got close up to the southern angle. Mair then, for the last time, summoned Te Hura to surrender, assuring him that if forced to carry the place by assault, no quarter would be given. They saw that the case was hopeless, and at sunrise the whole garrison marched out and laid down their arms. As they came out each liapu of the Arawa sprang from their trenches with a yell, and immediately had as fine a war dance as ever was seen, old Pohipi and three or four other hoary old sinners giving the time. It must, indeed, have Been a stirring sight : the long column of prisoners standing with drooping heads, while their captors danced the wild war dance with all the fury of excitement and success ; the war cry of the Arawa echoing from hill top to hill top, while the earth trembled under the stamp of a thousand feet. Mair then placed the murderers under the special charge of the native police, and the remainder became prisoners of war to the tribe of Arawa. The murderers were first tried by court martial and convicted, but the court being afterwards deemed informal, they were tried ap-ain by civil law in Auckland, and the sentences carried into effect. Thus ended one of the most completely successful campaigns that was ever organised and carried through during the New Zealand war, every one of the murderers having been brought to justice, beside the capture of a large quantity of ammunition and arms. Amongst them, were some of the most rabid of fanatics, carrying with them the baked heads of Mr Volkner and that of a soldier wherever they went for the purpose of exciting other tribes. **■* < * * Orakau.' The troops moved up .to Orakau from Te Awamutu about the 31st March, 1864, halted at Kihikihi, and arrived abont five in the morning. -The cavalry, were ordered to advance under Lieutenant Rait, and were met by a few ekmaighera from the

pah. Shots were exchanged, but nothing serious occurred till the pah was attacked, when Oapt. Ring (18th R. I.) was mortally wounded, and Capt. Fislier badly wounded, with eleven men killed and wounded. Later on fell two more officers, Oapt. Hurford and Ensign Chaytor (65th Regiment), the latter being buried at Te Awamutu. Sapping" had been kept up steadily for three days, and had reached within five or six yards of the pah, when General Cameron sent Mair to communicate with the garrison of the pab, for which purpose he went to the end of the sap, which was then close to the native entrenohment, and, having called for a cessation of firing, stood up on a banquette within the sap and held a korero with the besieged. But he had scarcely fiuished the ultimatum whioh he had to deliver, when one of the men within the pah fired at him. The Maoris concluded that Mair had been killed, and vehemently condemned the treachery of the man (Toereta) who had fired. However, he escaped, and received no further injury than having the shoulder of his tunio torn open. (From his coolnens on this, as well as other occasions, some of the officers christened him Julius Placidus ) The message from General Cameron was to this effect : " That he admired their pluck, but did not wish to see so many brave men die ; that if they oame out their lives would be spared," but the reply from the Maoris was " We will fi»ht you for ever and ever." They were then appealed to to allow the women and children to come out, but they still said "No ; if the men are to die, the women can die too." About 3 p.m. of the same day they bolted out of one end of the pah, sui pi ising everybody, and commenced to fight their way desperately through the 40th Regiment, but in this last struggle they lost about 50 in the pah, and about 80 lay thick about the fern and swamp. Te Karamoa, minister (or something of that kind) to Potatau, surrendered at the storming of Orakau, meeting the attacking party with a white flag in his hand, but was near being bayoneted when Mair came to the rescue and saved him from the excited soldiery who were jobthug each other in their frantic efforts to gee at him first. Several months afterwards the part Mair had taken at Orakau was very nearly bringing him to grief ; some hauliaus at Taupo determined to take vengeance on him for having led the troops to Orakau, and laid an ambuscade for him on the road to the pah at Oruanui, where he was expected, but luckily he had gone off the road to examine a new steam-jet ; this brought him out on another track, and by this he escaped his assailants, little knowing the ceitain death he had accidentally avoided.