In Search of the Castaways; or the Children of Captain Grant

CHAPTER VII THE MAORI WAR

GLE­NAR­VAN would have liked to start with­out an hour’s de­lay, and fol­low the coast to Auck­land. But since the morn­ing heavy clouds had been gath­er­ing, and to­ward eleven o’clock, af­ter the land­ing was ef­fect­ed, the va­pors con­densed in­to vi­olent rain, so that in­stead of start­ing they had to look for shel­ter.

Wil­son was for­tu­nate enough to dis­cov­er what just suit­ed their wants: a grot­to hol­lowed out by the sea in the basaltic rocks. Here the trav­el­ers took shel­ter with their arms and pro­vi­sions. In the cave they found a ready-​gar­nered store of dried sea-​weed, which formed a con­ve­nient couch; for fire, they light­ed some wood near the mouth of the cav­ern, and dried them­selves as well as they could.

John hoped that the du­ra­tion of this del­uge of rain would be in an in­verse ra­tio to its vi­olence, but he was doomed to dis­ap­point­ment. Hours passed with­out any abate­ment of its fury. To­ward noon the wind fresh­ened, and in­creased the force of the storm. The most pa­tient of men would have re­belled at such an un­to­ward in­ci­dent; but what could be done; with­out any ve­hi­cle, they could not brave such a tem­pest; and, af­ter all, un­less the na­tives ap­peared on the scene, a de­lay of twelve hours was not so much con­se­quence, as the jour­ney to Auck­land was on­ly a mat­ter of a few days. Dur­ing this in­vol­un­tary halt, the con­ver­sa­tion turned on the in­ci­dents of the New Zealand war. But to un­der­stand and ap­pre­ci­ate the crit­ical po­si­tion in­to which these MAC­QUAR­IE pas­sen­gers were thrown, some­thing ought to be known of the his­to­ry of the strug­gle which had del­uged the is­land of Ika-​na-​Mani with blood.

Since the ar­rival of Abel Tas­man in Cook’s Strait, on the 16th of De­cem­ber, 1642, though the New Zealan­ders had of­ten been vis­it­ed by Eu­ro­pean ves­sels, they had main­tained their lib­er­ty in their sev­er­al is­lands. No Eu­ro­pean pow­er had thought of tak­ing pos­ses­sion of this archipela­go, which com­mands the whole Pa­cif­ic Ocean. The mis­sion­ar­ies sta­tioned at var­ious points were the sole chan­nels of Chris­tian civ­iliza­tion. Some of them, es­pe­cial­ly the An­gli­cans, pre­pared the minds of the New Zealand chiefs for sub­mit­ting to the En­glish yoke. It was clev­er­ly man­aged, and these chiefs were in­flu­enced to sign a let­ter ad­dressed to Queen Vic­to­ria to ask her pro­tec­tion. But the most clear­sight­ed of them saw the fol­ly of this step; and one of them, af­ter hav­ing af­fixed his tat­too-​mark to the let­ter by way of sig­na­ture, ut­tered these prophet­ic words: “We have lost our coun­try! hence­forth it is not ours; soon the stranger will come and take it, and we shall be his slaves.”

And so it was; on Jan­uary 29, 1840, the En­glish corvette HER­ALD ar­rived to claim pos­ses­sion.

From the year 1840, till the day the DUN­CAN left the Clyde, noth­ing had hap­pened here that Pa­ganel did not know and he was ready to im­part his in­for­ma­tion to his com­pan­ions.

“Madam,” said he, in an­swer to La­dy He­le­na’s ques­tions, “I must re­peat what I had oc­ca­sion to re­mark be­fore, that the New Zealan­ders are a coura­geous peo­ple, who yield­ed for a mo­ment, but af­ter­ward fought foot to foot against the En­glish in­vaders. The Maori tribes are or­ga­nized like the old clans of Scot­land. They are so many great fam­ilies own­ing a chief, who is very jeal­ous of his pre­rog­ative. The men of this race are proud and brave, one tribe tall, with straight hair, like the Mal­tese, or the Jews of Bag­dad; the oth­er small­er, thick­set like mu­lat­toes, but ro­bust, haughty, and war­like. They had a fa­mous chief, named Hi­hi, a re­al Vercinge­torix, so that you need not be as­ton­ished that the war with the En­glish has be­come chron­ic in the North­ern Is­land, for in it is the fa­mous tribe of the Waikatos, who de­fend their lands un­der the lead­er­ship of William Thomp­son.”

“But,” said John Man­gles, “are not the En­glish in pos­ses­sion of the prin­ci­pal points in New Zealand?”

“Cer­tain­ly, dear John,” replied Pa­ganel. “Af­ter Cap­tain Hob­son took for­mal pos­ses­sion, and be­came gov­er­nor, nine colonies were found­ed at var­ious times be­tween 1840 and 1862, in the most fa­vor­able sit­ua­tions. These formed the nu­cle­us of nine provinces, four in the North Is­land and five in the south­ern is­land, with a to­tal pop­ula­tion of 184,346 in­hab­itants on the 30th of June, 1864.”

“But what about this in­ter­minable war?” asked John Man­gles.

“Well,” said Pa­ganel, “six long months have gone by since we left Eu­rope, and I can­not say what may have hap­pened dur­ing that time, with the ex­cep­tion of a few facts which I gath­ered from the news­pa­pers of Mary­bor­ough and Sey­mour dur­ing our Aus­tralian jour­ney. At that time the fight­ing was very live­ly in the North­ern Is­land.”

“And when did the war com­mence?” asked Mary Grant.

“Recom­mence, you mean, my dear young la­dy,” replied Pa­ganel; “for there was an in­sur­rec­tion so far back as 1845. The present war be­gan to­ward the close of 1863; but long be­fore that date the Maories were oc­cu­pied in mak­ing prepa­ra­tions to shake off the En­glish yoke. The na­tion­al par­ty among the na­tives car­ried on an ac­tive pro­pa­gan­da for the elec­tion of a Maori ruler. The ob­ject was to make old Potatau king, and to fix as the cap­ital of the new king­dom his vil­lage, which lay be­tween the Waika­to and Waipa Rivers. Potatau was an old man, re­mark­able rather for cun­ning than brav­ery; but he had a Prime Min­is­ter who was both in­tel­li­gent and en­er­get­ic, a de­scen­dant of the Ngati­hahuas, who oc­cu­pied the isth­mus be­fore the ar­rival of the strangers. This min­is­ter, William Thomp­son, be­came the soul of the War of In­de­pen­dence, and or­ga­nized the Maori troops, with great skill. Un­der this guid­ance a Tarana­ki chief gath­ered the scat­tered tribes around the same flag; a Waika­to chief formed a ‘Land League,’ in­tend­ed to pre­vent the na­tives from sell­ing their land to the En­glish Gov­ern­ment, and war­like feasts were held just as in civ­ilized coun­tries on the verge of rev­olu­tion. The En­glish news­pa­pers be­gan to no­tice these alarm­ing symp­toms, and the gov­ern­ment be­came se­ri­ous­ly dis­turbed at these ‘Land League’ pro­ceed­ings. In short, the train was laid, and the mine was ready to ex­plode. Noth­ing was want­ed but the spark, or rather the shock of ri­val in­ter­ests to pro­duce the spark.

“This shock took place in 1860, in the Tarana­ki province on the south­west coast of Ika-​na-​Mani. A na­tive had six hun­dred acres of land in the neigh­bor­hood of New Ply­mouth. He sold them to the En­glish Gov­ern­ment; but when the sur­vey­or came to mea­sure the pur­chased land, the chief Kin­gi protest­ed, and by the month of March he had made the six hun­dred acres in ques­tion in­to a for­ti­fied camp, sur­round­ed with high pal­isades. Some days af­ter Colonel Gold car­ried this fortress at the head of his troops, and that day heard the first shot fired of the na­tive war.”

“Have the rebels been suc­cess­ful up to this time?”

“Yes, Madam, and the En­glish them­selves have of­ten been com­pelled to ad­mire the courage and brav­ery of the New Zealan­ders. Their mode of war­fare is of the gueril­la type; they form skir­mish­ing par­ties, come down in small de­tach­ments, and pil­lage the colonists’ homes. Gen­er­al Cameron had no easy time in the cam­paigns, dur­ing which ev­ery bush had to be searched. In 1863, af­ter a long and san­guinary strug­gle, the Maories were en­trenched in strong and for­ti­fied po­si­tion on the Up­per Waika­to, at the end of a chain of steep hills, and cov­ered by three miles of forts. The na­tive prophets called on all the Maori pop­ula­tion to de­fend the soil, and promised the ex­ter­mi­na­tion of the pakekas, or white men. Gen­er­al Cameron had three thou­sand vol­un­teers at his dis­pos­al, and they gave no quar­ter to the Maories af­ter the bar­barous mur­der of Cap­tain Sprent. Sev­er­al bloody en­gage­ments took place; in some in­stances the fight­ing last­ed twelve hours be­fore the Maories yield­ed to the En­glish can­non­ade. The heart of the army was the fierce Waika­to tribe un­der William Thomp­son. This na­tive gen­er­al com­mand­ed at the out­set 2,500 war­riors, af­ter­ward in­creased to 8,000. The men of Shon­gi and He­ki, two pow­er­ful chiefs, came to his as­sis­tance. The wom­en took their part in the most try­ing labors of this pa­tri­ot­ic war. But right has not al­ways might. Af­ter se­vere strug­gles Gen­er­al Cameron suc­ceed­ed in sub­du­ing the Waika­to dis­trict, but emp­ty and de­pop­ulat­ed, for the Maories es­caped in all di­rec­tions. Some won­der­ful ex­ploits were re­lat­ed. Four hun­dred Maories who were shut up in the fortress of Orakau, be­sieged by 1,000 En­glish, un­der Brigadier-​Gen­er­al Carey, with­out wa­ter or pro­vi­sions, re­fused to sur­ren­der, but one day at noon cut their way through the then dec­imat­ed 40th Reg­iment, and es­caped to the marsh­es.”

“But,” asked John Man­gles, “did the sub­mis­sion of the Waika­to dis­trict put an end to this san­guinary war?”

“No, my friend,” replied Pa­ganel. “The En­glish re­solved to march on Tarana­ki province and be­siege Mataitawa, William Thomp­son’s fortress. But they did not car­ry it with­out great loss. Just as I was leav­ing Paris, I heard that the Gov­er­nor and the Gen­er­al had ac­cept­ed the sub­mis­sion of the Tau­ran­ga tribes, and left them in pos­ses­sion of three-​fourths of their lands. It was al­so ru­mored that the prin­ci­pal chief of the re­bel­lion, William Thomp­son, was in­clined to sur­ren­der, but the Aus­tralian pa­pers have not con­firmed this, but rather the con­trary, and I should not be sur­prised to find that at this mo­ment the war is go­ing on with re­newed vig­or.”

“Then, ac­cord­ing to you, Pa­ganel,” said Gle­nar­van, “this strug­gle is still go­ing on in the provinces of Auck­land and Tarana­ki?”

“I think so.”

“This very province where the MAC­QUAR­IE’S wreck has de­posit­ed us.”

“Ex­act­ly. We have land­ed a few miles above Kawhia har­bor, where the Maori flag is prob­ably still float­ing.”

“Then our most pru­dent course would be to keep to­ward the north,” re­marked Gle­nar­van.

“By far the most pru­dent,” said Pa­ganel. “The New Zealan­ders are in­censed against Eu­ro­peans, and es­pe­cial­ly against the En­glish. There­fore let us avoid falling in­to their hands.”

“We might have the good for­tune to fall in with a de­tach­ment of Eu­ro­pean troops,” said La­dy He­le­na.

“We may, Madam,” replied the ge­og­ra­pher; “but I do not ex­pect it. De­tached par­ties do not like to go far in­to the coun­try, where the small­est tus­sock, the thinnest brush­wood, may con­ceal an ac­com­plished marks­man. I don’t fan­cy we shall pick up an es­cort of the 40th Reg­iment. But there are mis­sion-​sta­tions on this west coast, and we shall be able to make them our halt­ing-​places till we get to Auck­land.”