ioned officers and drummers by themselves almost equalled
the garrison. After a heavy though not always very accurate
bombardment, General Cameron decided to storm the works. The attacking
parties of soldiers and sailors charged well enough and entered the
front of the defences, and the Maoris, hopeless and endeavouring to
escape, found themselves shut in by the troops in their rear. Turning,
however, with the courage of despair, they flung themselves on the
assailants of their front. These, seized with an extraordinary panic,
ran in confusion, breaking from their officers and sweeping away their
supports. The assault was completely repulsed, and was not renewed.
In the night the defenders escaped through the swamps, leaving us the
empty _pa_. Their loss was slight. Ours was one hundred and eleven,
and amongst the killed were ten good officers. As a defeat it was
worse than Ohaeawai, for that had been solely due to a commander's
error of judgment.

The blow stung the English officers and men deeply, and they speedily
avenged it. Hearing that the Tauranga warriors were entrenching
themselves at Te Rangi, Colonel Greer promptly marched thither, caught
them before they had completed their works, and charging into the
rifle-pits with the bayonet, completely routed the Maoris. The temper
of the attacking force may be judged from the fact that out of the
Maori loss of one hundred and forty-five no less than one hundred and
twenty-three were killed or died of wounds. The blow was decisive, and
the Tauranga tribe at once submitted.

[Illustration]

Chapter XVII

THE FIRE IN THE FERN

"But War, of its majestic mask laid bare,
The face of naked Murder seemed to wear."

From the middle of 1864, to January, 1865, there was so little
fighting that it might have been thought that the war was nearing its
end. The Waikato had been cleared, and the Tauranga tribes crushed.
Thompson, hopeless of further struggling ceased to resist the
irresistible, made his peace with us and during the short remainder of
his life was treated as became an honourable foe. Nevertheless, nearly
two years of harassing guerilla warfare were in store for the Colony.
Then there was to be another imperfect period of peace, or rather
exhaustion, between the October, 1866, and June, 1868, when
hostilities were once more to blaze up and only to die out finally in
1870. This persistency was due to several causes, of which the first
was the outbr