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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 7, Issue 4 (August 1, 1932)

What Do You Think Of This? — Typical Ruse of Maori Warfare

What Do You Think Of This?
Typical Ruse of Maori Warfare.

“A story is told of an Irish soldier's adventure near the Waikato River, one night towards the end of 1863. Jack Murphy was on sentry duty outside the redoubt, when he heard a Maori pig grunting, and presently observed a big porker rooting in the fern. The pig gradually came nearer, and to the soldier it seemed an unusually large one—a big bush boar, he thought. Getting uneasy, he challenged, and, remembering stories of Maori tricks, he fired. He missed the pig, which next moment threw off its hide and leaped at him with a longhandled tomahawk. It was a naked warrior, who had adopted this old pigskin ruse of creeping up on an unsuspecting sentry. Murphy had no time to reload his muzzle-loading long Enfield. He tried to parry the blow, but the blade caught his left hand. The camp turned out, but the Maori had disappeared, and Murphy was yelling for some one to bring a lantern and find his thumb. The pig with the tomahawk had cut it clean off.”

This exciting story is taken from “The Romance of the Rail,” Book No. 1. (See competition prize-list.)

Here are two other extracts:—

“Kipling once saw Wellington and something of the back-country, as his poem, “The Flowers,” reminds us—

Broom behind the windy town, pollen o' the pine—
Bellbird in the leafy deep where the ratas twine.

For miles the outer hills and gullies where the bush has been cut away are golden with gorse and with the broom that took the poet's eye.” (Book No. 1.)

“The half-caste blend was a race that produced daring seamen, and the active young fellows of the Bluff and Stewart Island have no betters the world over in the handling of small craft.

You are reminded here, too, of the fact that you are at the southern end of New Zealand, cut by such quaint sights as a child walking down the street leading a tame penguin on a string. Now and again a sea-lion wanders into the harbour from the ocean.

This is the jumping-off place of expeditions to the far-south islands with their wonderful plenty of bird life and amphibious animals.” (Book No. 2.)

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Lolly Trains.

Christchurch has some strange trains, but they do not belong to the Railways! These ones can be eaten. They are made by two young girls who have recently started a home-made sweet shop. They are turning out fascinating lolly novelties by the dozen, ships, cottages, baskets of flowers, animals, and all sorts of things like that. The trains are made of liquorice, and look far too nice to be eaten. Perhaps those lickable, likeable, liquorice locos are made specially for such little people?

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