A Bush Surprise Party.

Half a mile below the hill church, on the road to Drury, is the place where a party of lurking Maoris made a most skilful haul of arms one day in 1863. They charged out on a road-party; the soldiers (a detachment of the 40th) had piled their rifles and were plying their axes in the bush at the side of the road. The warriors gave a volley, knocked over a couple of soldiers, seized all the stacked rifles—twenty-three of them and the ammunition, and bolted into the forest as quickly as they had come. They lost two men themselves—but the rifles were worth that trifle of warrior-power. Those rifles saw a lot of service for the Kingites.

That was Bombay before it was Bombay. The farming folk in that high, free country, have their troubles to-day, no doubt; but those woes do not include sentry go and weary escort duty, “boots, boots, moving up and down again,” and now and again a volley from ambush. The high-speed motor car is the road surprise party these times.