No heroic episode in New Zealand's history surpasses in fame the siege and defence of Orákau Pa, where the Kingite Maoris made their last stand in the Waikato War, and no call to valour equals in dramatic inspiration the defiant reply of the garrison to the British General's demand for surrender. The chief figure in the defence, Rewi Maniapoto, was the most vigorous and uncompromising of the Maori Nationalist leaders throughout the war. He and his near kinsmen, whose moving narratives are condensed into this article, were known to the writer from his early years on the sacred soil of Orākau battlefield and the King Country frontier.

The present main road from Te Awamutu towards Arapuni is the Via Sacra of the Waikato, for it followed the old army track to Orākau. This cross-section of historic ground is not by any means the only part of the great southward route rich in human associations. There are stories all the way from Auckland, for it is all more or less the trail of the soldier and the pioneer. But in more than usual measure authentic hero-tradition steeps the farm lands from Paterangi and Te Awamutu to Orākau and the Puniu River. In some ten miles of the old road and the new is concentrated the memory of the final scenes in the conquest of the Waikato, just on seventy years ago. It must be a very dull traveller who does not wonder now and again about the human background of the country through which he passes, or who, if he knows anything at all about the past, does not feel some stirring of the imagination along the quickly-changing highway. Even in the most serenely peaceful places it was not always butterfat.