The Three Days’ Battle.

For three days and two nights the Maoris held the fort, a noble three hundred and ten against six times their number of well-armed, well-fed soldier foes. The siege began on the morning of March 31; it ended late in the afternoon of April 2. “We lived in a circle of fire and smoke,” said Paitini, a man of the Urewera, who was severely wounded there. There was a supply of food, but the water was exhausted by the end of the first night. To the rifle fire of hundreds of soldiers, a bombardment with two six-pounder Armstrong guns was added, and on the third day hand-grenades were thrown into the pa from the head of a flying-sap dug up to the northern outwork. Ringed with a line of steel, earthworks battered by shell fire, men, women and little children tortured with thirst, the valorous little band held out; there was no thought of surrender. The defenders ran short of ammunition for their double and single-barrel guns, so short that in the night firing they used small pieces of apple and manuka wood as bullets, saving their lead for the day-time. They repulsed repeated charges, and Rewi directed sorties from the redoubt.