enemy to cover the formation of the remainder of the troops, who as they emerged gradually from the bush were extended--the detachment of the XVIIIth on the right, the 14th in the centre, and the 50th on the left, with the native contingent in reserve. It was more than an hour before the soldiers at the rear of the column, breathless from their exertions in scaling precipices, had found their places in the ranks. During that time the Hau-Hau garrison, about two hundred strong, had first performed a war dance to keep up their spirits, and then fired, but with little effect, upon the troops. When Chute’s line was in order he gave the word to advance. Under a heavy but almost harmless fusilade the soldiers moved forward, as steadily as on an ordinary parade; when they were within eighty yards of the enemy the double G was sounded; they charged and burst into the _pah_, driving the enemy before them headlong into the bush. A general pursuit followed, in which the Hau-Haus are said to have lost considerably; then the troops were called off; the _pah_ was destroyed and the column marched back to camp. In this affair the British casualties were two men killed and ten wounded, none of them belonging to the XVIIIth. In the course of the next few days General Chute captured several more of the Hau-Hau strongholds, and wound up his punitive expedition by marching round the east of Mount Egmont to Taranaki, by a track believed to be impracticable for civilised troops. In these successes, however, the XVIIIth had no share, for Rocke’s party was ordered back to Patea the day after the Putahi _pah_ was captured. With Chute’s march the war, as far as most of the regular army was concerned, came to an end. The British Government decided that the Imperial forces should no longer be actively employed, as it considered that the Maoris had been sufficiently weakened for the colonists to finish the struggle without further help from the mother country.[218] Nearly all the troops were accordingly withdrawn from the neighbourhood of Wanganui; the Royal Irish, however, remained in their old posts in the Patea-Wanganui district, which continued to be much harassed by rebellious tribes. Communication along the coast road was interrupted; small parties of colonists were frequently surprised and murdered; and the local forces were twice rudely handled in operations in the bush. Occasionally the garrisons of the posts made sorties against the insurgents, but nothing of importance occurred until October, 1866, when the Governor arrived at Patea and called upon Major Rocke for the help of his regiment in quelling disturbances in the country round Wanganui. Major Rocke was in the happy position of being his own commanding-officer, with no senior present to whom the question had to be referred. He joyfully responded to Sir George Grey’s appeal by organising a mobile column of three hundred Royal Irish and an equal number of