The safety of the colony was threatened seriously by these sullenly rebellious tribes; and when in 1863, a body of the King’s followers intervened in a dispute between Maoris and Europeans in the south-west of the North island, war became inevitable. The King’s party, which was largely composed of the Waikato tribe, planned to open the campaign by raiding Auckland and exterminating its white inhabitants. Lieutenant-General Sir Duncan A. Cameron, who was in command of the Imperial troops in New Zealand, and Sir George Grey, the Governor of the colony, decided to anticipate the Maoris by advancing upon their strongholds in the wild country south of the Waikato. This river rises in the centre of the North island and winds its way northwards from its source to within forty miles of Auckland, when it turns sharply to the south-west at the native village of Te Ta. Here a tributary, the Mangatawhari creek, joins it from the north-east, and the two streams marked the northern limit of the district held by the followers of the King. Civilisation had spread about twenty-five miles to the south of Auckland, and a metalled road ran past scores of prosperous farms, tangible proofs of the success which had attended the colonists in this part of New Zealand. At the village of Drury the good road was replaced by a rough and narrow track, which winding through a broad belt of bush known as the Hunua forest, crossed very undulating country much cut up by deep ravines, half buried in ferns and scrub. This dense forest, which a series of almost impenetrable thickets rendered ideal for Maori offensive tactics, was to be the scene of many skirmishes in which detachments of the XVIIIth greatly distinguished themselves. The arrival of the Royal Irish brought up the number of regular battalions in New Zealand to seven;[189] but by no means all of these were available for the front. It was necessary to keep up the strength of the detachments in various parts of both islands; the line of communication absorbed a great quantity of fighting men, and garrisons had to be provided for the settlers in lonely hamlets and isolated farms. Though at one time during the war the armed whites in the colony reached the respectable total of 15,000 men, the greatest force of regular and volunteer troops actually under the hand of the General at any time appears never to have exceeded two thousand five hundred. To form an accurate estimate of the numbers against us is impossible, for many tribes remained neutral, others were on our side, while others again took but a fitful part in the operations and preferred to plunder settlers rather than to meet soldiers in the field. One point, however, seems quite clear; on every occasion when there was serious fighting we greatly out-numbered our savage but very gallant foes.