A Tale of Two Scouts.

There is a story of old Taumarunui which I first heard from the late Captain Preece, of Palmerston North, one of the best officers who led Government native expeditions in the last bush wars against the Hauhaus. It was in 1869, just after Te Kooti and his guerilla band had been defeated in the fight at Te Porere, near Mount Tongariro. The wounded desperado and the survivors of his war-party took refuge in the heart of the bush, and recruited at Taumarunui. Here, in this well-hidden spot, he held council and laid plans for a new campaign. The Government forces made expeditions from the east, searching the great trackless forests for their foe. After several fruitless tramps into the wilderness of bush, it was decided to send out scouts and ascertain whether Te Kooti had reached Taumarunui, and if so what he intended doing next. Two men of one of the Rotorua tribes, named Wiremu and Te Honiana, in Preece's contingent, volunteered to go through and pick up what information they could. Armed with carbines and revolvers, they travelled the open part of the track by night and the bush by day, a distance of forty miles, mostly dense forest.

They reached the hills on the east of Taumarunui, somewhere about the place where the hospital now stands, and approached the village that then straggled along the flat, one side of which is now occupied by the railway station and page 29 yards. With the utmost caution they crawled as near as they could through the bush-covered slopes overlooking the marae or open space between the whares, the village square. There they lay hidden nearly all one day, listening to the speeches made in the open air, where Te Kooti addressed his followers and a large gathering of the Upper Wanganui people. They heard him announce his intention to move northward along the west side of Lake Taupo, making for the Patetere country, between Waikato and Rotorua. With this important piece of intelligence the two daring scouts returned to the Government camp at Lake Rotoaira. They had been absent five days.

Lieut-Colonel McDonnell was so pleased with the information the men had gained at very considerable risk that he presented them with the Government carbines they had taken on the expedition. No doubt they deserved greater recognition than that. The information they gathered as they lay in that bushy cover so close to their enemies—they feared that at any moment some Maori dog would discover their retreat and raise a fatal noise about it—enabled the Government forces to intercept the

“And it's oh! for the gleam of the metal ways.”—C. Quentin Pope.
(Rly. Publicity Photo.)
The Auckland-Wellington “Limited” Express passing through the Taumarunui countryside.

Hauhaus presently at Tapapa, near where the present railway line to Rotorua begins the ascent of the range towards Ngatira and Mamaku.