Of the rest of the stern warriors who had been in grips with the Pakeha, Pomare was dead, Te Tanewha was gone to join the long line of his ancestors, and Waka Nene, their reliable friend, was growing old. In the opinion of many the great past had died with the dead heroes, and was dead for ever. It was in November, 1859, that Governor Gore Browne arrived at Taranaki and announced that, if any native had land to sell, along with a good title, he was there to buy for the Crown. A Maori named Teira--the nearest approach he could make to "Taylor"--offered to part with six hundred acres at Waitara, and this block the Governor agreed to buy, if Teira's title were proved good. The Commissioner was satisfied as to the title; surveyors were sent to mark boundaries, and were promptly ordered off by Wiremu Kingi Te Rangitake (William King), the chief of Teira's tribe, who had already declared that he would not allow the land to be sold. Governor Browne was a soldier, and diplomacy was not for him. He at once sent a force to compel Wiremu Kingi to withdraw his opposition, and these found the Maori strongly entrenched, and quite willing to take up the gage of battle. The Taranaki settlers retired with the soldiers to New Plymouth, and the Maori ravaged the settlement, which extended twenty miles north and south, and eight or ten inland. The fighting which followed during the ensuing months was chiefly remarkable for the first appearance of the colonial force in the field, where they then and afterwards did such good work. For most obvious reasons--were they known--the writer would be the last to disparage the regular forces; but they were hampered by method, and the bush fighting of the Maori was a style of warfare to which they were quite unused. Not a few, without intending disrespect to the regular forces, strongly hold that, had the conduct of military operations been left to McDonnell, Von Tempsky, Whitmore, Atkinson, and a few others, they, with their militia and volunteers, would have brought the war to a successful close in half the time, at half the cost, and with infinitely less loss to their own side. For these fought the Maori in the Maori style, and the natives feared these men, who knew them and the bush, with a fear they never felt for the redcoats, whom, in their queer way, they often expressed themselves sorry to be obliged to shoot. One example will show the difference in method. General Cameron, a man of great experience--elsewhere--and proved courage, one day in 1865 marched from Whanganui with drums beating, colours flying, and bands playing, at the head of as gallant a company of regulars and volunteers as ever went out to war. After a march of fifteen miles they came to the lake of Nukumaru, five miles from the rebel _pa_ of Wereroa, and here the General gave orders to encamp.