The Hauhaus' Attack.

This was the tribal stronghold and gathering place of the Ngati-Pukeko, a tribe friendly to the Government, against which Te Kooti launched a column of three to four hundred warriors, East Coast men of various tribes—many of them escapees from exile in Chatham Island—reinforced by Urewera and Taupo parties. While one portion of the raiding force, a kokiri under Wirihana Koikoi, was detailed to storm the Poronu redoubt and the tribe's small flour-mill, the main body advanced against the south face of the pa. They came forward in a solid body of bare-legged men, treading the ground with a heavy resounding tramp, their rifles, carbines and double-barrel guns held at the ready. Their threatening march gave the obvious lie to a white flag, borne by one of their front rank men. Some of the people in the pa, however, were so credulous, or so anxious to avoid fighting—the pacifists of Ngati-Pukeko—that they tried to open the gates and admit the enemy, who, once within, would begin slaughtering the garrison. One of these who reposed faith in Te Kooti's flag was an old lay-reader of the church, Ihaia te Ahu. He cried out, “It is peace, peace—there's the white flag!” Another man deceived by the long streamer of white was Hori, one of the chiefs of the pa. He was actually pushing open the solid sliding door, fastened by wooden pegs, which formed the gate on the south side, and the advance files of the enemy were almost within the defences, their guns at the present, when another chief, Tamihana Te Tahawera, saved the situation. He ran to close the door, and was struggling with foolish old Hori, when a young Urewera man, Meihaka Toko-pounamu, fired at him at a range of a few paces. The bullet missed Tahawera and struck the unfortunate Hori, who fell dead just inside the gateway.

The door was made fast, and the baffled Hauhaus retired under fire to dig themselves in. Meihaka's shot was quickly returned by Hirini Manuao, in the pa trench. His bullet broke the staff from which the white flag was floating.

Now the angry Hauhaus found themselves under heavy fire from the whole south face of the pa and the flanking bastion on the west side. The terrain was level and devoid of cover; the plain was covered to the river bank with the Ngati-Pukeko cultivations of corn, potatoes, kumara and taro.

The Hauhaus scooped out a rifle trench behind a whare outside the pa, and secured a little head cover. They then extended the trench eastward towards the river bank, and working nearer the pa as they drove it toward the Whakatane.