A Healthy Game.

The most popular game among many was the throwing of 16oz. bullets, and we could boast of having in our detachment a man who could beat all who ever competed with him, a John Sullivan, who afterwards met his death in this colony. I often wondered how he picked up the art, for I had never seen the game before I saw it in Aden, and as he was good and competed with some of the Bombay Artillery shortly after our arrival, who were among the best, he must have had experience in the game before he saw that part. I will here relate the particulars of poor Sullivan's death, and a singular dream he had the night before he met it.

It was during the campaign on the West Coast of the island in 1865-1866, an attack on Otapawa Pah was arranged by General Chute. Consequently, troops from various outposts were collected to assist those marching from Wanganui to Taranaki. Sullivan, then a sergeant, was one of the party which left Waingongoro redoubt to join the combined force during the march. Sullivan related a dream he had the night before, concerning the very pah they were then marching for. I must here mention that no white man—a soldier, at any rate—had ever seen the pah. He described it as accurately as if he was well acquainted with it; that he went with a party to attack it, and when inside and all danger was supposed to be over, a native fired at him out of a whare, and sent a bullet through his right wrist, and, strange to relate, he met the fate he had dreamed of; but, in addition to the bullet passing through his right wrist, it passed through his waist-belt and body, and poor Sullivan was among the ten "Die Hards" who ended their days on the 13th January, 1866, the gallant little Colonel Hazzard being one of them. I may add that poor Sullivan related the dream in the hearing of at least fifty men.

On that same occasion we had a sergeant (Fred Day), who was usually one of the most jovial fellows in the regiment, even when danger existed. He belonged to Colonel Hazzard's company, and when that gallant officer fell, the first words he page 43 asked were, "Is Day killed?" And when answered in the affirmative, he said, "I thought he would he, and he must have had the same idea himself, for he hardly uttered a word during the march here."

The "Die Hards" had a pretty tough time of it that morning—ten killed and nineteen wounded in a very few minutes. Colonel Butler was in a towering rage, for he wanted to send flanking parties out, and had he been allowed to do so, the number who made good their escape at the back could not have done so, and our loss would not have been so great. General Chute boasted that that was the way to take them—rush right at them, and let them see we are not afraid of them. The General himself had a narrrow escape; he had one of the buttons of his coat shot off. Colonel Hazzard's body was taken to Wanganui; the remainder were buried at Waingongoro.