ter
with his own rifle. As he would not join the Hau-Haus, they and their
converts made the mistake of attacking him. After beating them off
he was joined by Major Biggs and a company of militia. Together they
advanced against the stronghold of the insurgents, perched on a cliff
among the Waiapu hills. By scaling a precipice with twenty picked men,
Ropata and Biggs gained a crest above the _pa_, whence they could fire
down into the midst of their astonished adversaries, over 400 of whom
surrendered in terror to the daring handful. But the mischief had run
down the coast. Spreading from point to point, dying down and then
starting up, it was as hard to put out as fire abroad in the fern. The
amiable Kereopa visited Poverty Bay, three days' journey south of
the Waiapu, and tried hard to persuade the natives to murder Bishop
Williams, the translator of the Scriptures into Maori. Though they
shrank from this, the Bishop had to fly, and his flock took up arms,
stood a siege in one of their _pas_, and lost over a hundred men
before they would surrender to the militia. Further south still the
next rising flared up on the northern frontier of the Hawkes Bay
province. Once more Ropata stamped it under, and the generalship with
which he repaired the mistakes made by others, and routed a body
of 500 insurgents was not more remarkable than the cold-blooded
promptitude with which after the fight he shot four prisoners of note
with his own hand. It took ten months for the spluttering fire to
flame up again. Then it was yet another stage further south, within a
few miles of Napier, amid pastoral plains, where, if anywhere, peace,
it would seem, should have an abiding-place. The rising there was
but a short one-act play. To Colonel Whitmore belonged the credit of
dealing it a first and final blow at Omaranui, where, with a hastily
raised force of volunteers, and some rather useless friendlies, he
went straight at the insurgents, caught them in the open, and quickly
killed, wounded, or captured over ninety per cent. of their number.

After this there was a kind of insecure tranquillity until June, 1868.
Then fighting began again near the coast between Wanganui and Mount
Egmont, where the occupation of confiscated lands bred bitter
feelings. Natives were arrested for horse-stealing. Straggling
settlers were shot. A chief, Titokowaru, hitherto insignificant,
became the head and front of the resistance. In June a sudden attack
was made by