"The challenge was accepted. At dawn on the following morning our natives, three hundred and fifty strong, proceeded to the appointed ground. A hundred picked men crossed on to the island, and the rest remained on the banks as spectators. Of the hundred, fifty, divided into three parties each under a chief, formed the advance guard, while the other fifty remained in reserve at the end of the island two hundred yards away, and too far to be of much use in the event of the advance guard being defeated. The enemy's party were a hundred and thirty strong, and it is difficult to understand why a larger body was not sent over to the island to oppose them, especially as the belief in the invulnerability of the Hau-Haus was generally believed in, even by the natives opposed to them. "It was a curious fight, quite in the manner of the traditional warfare between the various tribes before our arrival on the island. The lower tribesmen fought, not for the defence of the town, for they were not very friendly with the Europeans, having been strong supporters of the king party, but simply for the prestige of the tribe. No hostile war party had ever forced the river, and none ever should do so. The Hau-Haus came down the river in their canoes and landed without opposition. Then a party of the Wanganui advance guard fired. Although the Hau-Haus were but thirty yards distant none of them fell, and their return volley killed the chiefs of two out of the three sections of the advance guard and many others. "Disheartened by the loss of their chiefs, the two sections gave way, shouting that the Hau-Haus were invulnerable. The third section, well led by their chief, held their ground, but were driven slowly back by the overwhelming force of the enemy. The battle appeared to be lost, when Tamehana, the sub-chief of one of the flying sections, after vainly trying to rally his men, arrived on the ground, and, refusing to obey the order to take cover from the Hau-Haus' fire, dashed at the enemy and killed two of them with his double-barrelled gun. The last of the three leaders was at this moment shot dead. Nearly all his men were more or less severely wounded, but as the Hau-Haus rushed forward they fired a volley into them at close quarters, killing several. But they still came on, when Tamehana again rushed at them. Seizing the spear of a dead man he drove it into the heart of a Hau-Hau. Catching up the gun and tomahawk of the fallen man, he drove the latter so deeply into the head of another foe that in wrenching it out the handle was broken. Finding that the gun was unloaded, he dashed it in the face of his foes, and snatching up another he was about to fire, when a bullet struck him in the arm. Nevertheless he fired and killed his man, but the next moment was brought to the ground by a bullet that shattered his knee.