In October, the battalion were again fortunate enough to rescue a party of New Zealand volunteers from a dangerous situation. An officer of the irregulars while reconnoitring a large body of natives near his post at Manku, was drawn into an engagement, forced back into his stockade, and closely surrounded. The news reached Drury in the evening, and a strong party of the XVIIIth under Captain Noblett was at once sent, with some of the 70th, to the relief of the volunteers. Pushing on throughout the night the troops early in the morning reached Manku, from which the Maoris decamped promptly, thus depriving the Royal Irish of the excitement of a skirmish. They at once returned to Drury, where they arrived after twenty-two hours’ continuous marching. At the end of the month two companies in charge of Captain Noblett reinforced Ring’s post in the Wairoa country; and in November an expedition, largely composed of the Royal Irish, was sent to avenge outrages committed on the settlers in this district. The marauders had stockaded themselves in a position surrounded by dense bush, swamps, and precipitous ravines, but after a skirmish the _pah_ was captured and destroyed. In war opportunities of distinction do not come to every officer, and such in a marked degree was the case in New Zealand, where much good work was done by some of the officers of the XVIIIth whose names do not appear in General Cameron’s reports. Though the vigorous action of the troops on the line of communication and in the Wairoa country prevented the Maoris from raiding Auckland itself, it was impossible for Cameron with the small number of men at his disposal to carry the war into the enemy’s country, and at the same time protect all the outlying farms cleared in the bush by enterprising settlers. In most cases the colonists abandoned their farms, sent their women and children to Auckland, and turned themselves into a militia, which proved a valuable asset in the British force. Occasionally, however, the entire population of a settlement held its ground, and required help from the troops. Thus, in September, Captain Kemp[199] with 150 of the Royal Irish was sent to the relief of one of these outposts of civilisation; a forced march through virgin forest, past many farms which the Maoris had looted and burned to the ground, brought him to his destination, where he found the colonists had thrown up stockades round their tiny church, in peaceful times used by various denominations as a place of worship, but now turned into the keep of the primitive fortress. Leaving these brave pioneers a supply of provisions and cartridges, and a small party of troops to give backbone to the defence, he returned to Drury, where his next duty was to form a post at a deserted farm on the line of communication. With his own company and fifty men under Lieutenant Briggs he cut down tree ferns, and with their trunks, lashed together with wild