The Tragedy of War.

And ten years later the Governor was launching an army against those once so loyal folk of Rangiaowhia, and presently Hoani Papita and his people were flying for their lives to the swamps and the ranges, leaving their beautiful village a ravaged and bloodstained ruin, and never again were they to worship in their pretty churches (that old Selwyn church of Rangiaowhia still stands there) or gather the fruits of the good soil. Land and cultivations, churches and all passed to the pakeha. For in Kawana Kerei's absence in South Africa, Rangiaowhia had become the centre of Maori Kingite politics; and gun and tomahawk displaced the peaceful age symbolised by Tom Power's plough.

The scene had changed indeed when Grey returned for his second governorship. Profound distrust had succeeded the olden confidence. Governor Grey was no longer the gladly hailed benefactor. Some of the Maori descriptions of him and his officials in the critical period just before the Waikato War were excellently apt and terse and to the point. The chief Patene told young John Gorst, the Government Commissioner at Te Awamutu, that the officers of the Government were worms, bait that Governor Grey was fishing with, and if they were suffered to remain some tribes of Waikato would inevitably be caught. It was a common saying that Governor Browne was a hawk who came swooping down on the Maoris from a clear sky, whereas Kawana Kerei was like a kiore, a rat; he would burrow underground and come out when and where least expected. A Ngati-Haua chief said that the usual way of catching a ruru (owl) was for one man to shake some object before it to attract its attention, while his companion slipped a noose over its head from behind; so Governor Grey had sent his companion (Gorst) to dazzle them with laws and regulations while he was waiting a chance to entangle them in the meshes of the Queen's sovereignity.