So the soldiers, sailors, and other Europeans advanced to the attack of Heke's pa, and with them came also Walker and his men; but before we had gone far, we observed the soldiers carrying on their shoulders certain things made of cloth and wood; these things were rolled up, and we did not know the use of them, so we asked what they were, and were told they were _kauhoa_ on which to carry the dead or wounded! This was the worst of all; there were those soldiers going to battle, and actually carrying on their shoulders things to put themselves on when they were dead! So we began to say one to another, "Those soldiers walking there are all dead men. It only wants a few guns to be fired, and they will be all killed." So some of the chiefs told some of the chiefs of the soldiers what a dreadfully unlucky thing they were doing, but they all laughed, and said that they came there to fight, and that whenever people fought some one was sure to be killed or wounded, and that it was right to have something to carry them on. But our people said it was time enough to think of carrying a man when he could not stand, and that by what they were doing they were _calling_ for death and destruction; and they tried hard to get the soldiers to throw away these things, but the soldiers would not listen to them. So we all said, "This is not a war party here marching on this plain, but a _mate_" (a funeral procession); so all the Maori left the soldiers, and went and sat on the top of the hill called Taumata Kakaramu, except about forty men, Walker's relations, who would not leave him. We felt sorry for the soldiers; but we said, "Let them fight their own battle to-day, and if they are successful we will help them in every other fight." But no one could believe they would be successful. At last the soldiers and sailors got before Heke's pa; the main body of the soldiers remained opposite to it, at the side next to Walker's camp--the rest, about one hundred men, sailors and soldiers, went round by the shore of the lake, which was on the right of the pa, and so got behind it; and on that side there was but one slight fence, and no _pekerangi_.[22] The soldiers had told us in the morning that they would rush on both sides of the pa at once, and that it would be taken in a moment, and that then they would come home to breakfast.