While the province of Auckland has been the principal seat of the present campaign, a sort of desultory warfare has been carried on at the same time in the district of Taranaki, where the 57th Regiment is stationed. This district, which has been often described as the garden of New Zealand, extends along the western coast of the North Island; its capital, New Plymouth, is situated at the base of Mount Egmont, a solitary, snow-capped mountain, about 10,000 feet high, rising out of a densely-wooded plain. There is no harbour, and the loud roar of the waves breaking on the inhospitable shore is constantly to be heard. An English settlement was formed there in 1841, but at this time there were only ninety natives, living for security in the cliffs around Mount Egmont, or in holes among the sugar-loaf rocks; the rest had fled to Cook’s Straits or been carried off into captivity. The whole district was a waste, and Governor Hobson bought for 400_l._ the right which Te Whero Whero, a native chief, had acquired over it in virtue of conquest; after it had passed into our hands the fugitives began to return, and nothing could equal their surprise on finding their lands parcelled out among strangers. Twisting their long arms round the gigantic trees, which had long been _tapu_ or sacred, they besought the woodmen to spare them; their spirit was broken by conquest; as yet they offered no open resistance. It was only when our arms had suffered reverses in other parts of the island that the natives of Taranaki began to show a more independent spirit, and to reclaim the lands which had now passed from their hands. The matter was referred to Governor Fitzroy, who decided that the settlers were only entitled to 3500 of the 60,000 acres to which they laid claim; the natives resumed possession of the rest. This decision increased the bitterness of feeling which had already sprung up between the two races, and has been the cause of all the subsequent disturbances at Taranaki. The settlers are anxious to purchase, but the natives refuse to part with their lands. “Money,” they say, “soon melts away, but the land remains.” In order to preserve and sustain this conservative feeling, they formed themselves into the Anti-Land-Selling League, the nature of which may be learned from its title, and absolutely refused to part with a single acre. The war of 1860-2 and 1863-4, which is not yet over, originated from an attempt on the part of the Colonial Government to suppress this league by purchasing lands from any of the natives who were disposed to part with them. If these purchases had been confined to the actual possessors of the soil no objection could have been made to them, every man having a right to do what he likes with his own, but no man has a right to sell what belongs to his neighbours. This was actually done at Taranaki, and unfortunately the Government, in order to assert a principle, took possession by force of the land thus purchased.