A Great Bush Chase.

Many years ago, standing inside the fern-grown earthwork, my good old friend and bush-travel mate Captain Gilbert Mair told me the story of Puraku and pointed out the scene of the fighting in which he shared. That story is far too full of incident to be told here, but the narrative of the pursuit which followed the capture of the pa I shall briefly give because it deals with those gorges which every now and again open out to the train passenger's eye.

Mair commanded the contingent of Arawa Maoris, friendlies, detailed to work round to the rear of the pa and cut off the retreat. The pa was attacked before they could quite get into position, and so all they could do was to chase the Hauhaus. The main body of the fugitives took flight up a long narrow gorge about two miles on the Waikato side of Tarukenga. The young chief, Hemana, and his party holding this ravine killed seven men, and several more were killed at various points on the line of flight, making twenty-two in all. Hemana and his Arawas had great difficulty in following up the swiftly-flying foe because of the rough country. In order to cross one of the gorges they had to travel along its top for nearly a mile before they found a practicable place of descent, and then they had to lower themselves down by aka vines. The train traveller to-day may imagine something of the formidable obstacles presented to the troops, and even the mobile and lightly-clad Maori.

Up the straight cliffy sides of the gulches the Hauhaus clambered by means of the trailing aka, some as thick and strong as ships hawsers. Hemana was so hot in chase of one man that the two, fugitive and pursuer, were both on the same aka together. The Hauhau, struggling desperately upward, was caught by his foeman, who gripped him in his arms and in page 30 the struggle they either lost their hold of the aka or the tree-vine gave way and they fell to the bottom, where Hemana killed his man.