“These Ngati Jacks you must understand, boys, do not belong to the same tribes as the soldier, though they likewise fight for the Great White Queen. They are a strange people. I who have seen them know them well, and tell you youths to beware should you ever have the honour to fight against them. Great is the courage of the soldiers, but also very great is their folly, for they will walk up to an entrenchment in a body and suffer themselves to be shot down by our fire from under the pekerangi (outer fence of a pah), but the Ngati Jacks rush at the fence tumultuously, leap on one another’s backs and in a breath are among you. Then, oh my sons, your hearts must be very strong should you want to stay and fight to the end. All the warriors of the Great White Queen swear very much when they are fighting, but the Ngati Jacks swear the most. Yes, my sons, they are a strange people. They have no villages, nor do they plant nor keep cattle, but live in the bowels of the ships in which they store much rum, salt pork and tobacco. Neither do these men possess wives nor women, though when they come ashore it is well to send all women and girls far away as the Ngati Jacks are very prone to make love in a very unceremonious manner. They also roll from side to side as they walk, drink much rum and eat tobacco. “After we had despatched the messengers, we four warriors held a council to decide what we should do under the circumstances. It was plain we could offer no prolonged resistance in the kainga, yet we must fire at least one volley in honour of it, should the great white chief deem it worthy of attacking. Again, although its occupants were nearly all young men and boys, still they were born rangatera, and their honour and future reputation must not be jeopardised by retreating without making a show of resistance, moreover we could not insult the soldiers who had come so far to fight us by allowing them to occupy the place without being fired at. We had, however, heard it was the custom of the great white chief to fire many shots with his big guns before he ordered his storming party to charge, and if he did so on this occasion we, who were without entrenchments, must all be killed before we could fire one volley in honour of the kainga, ourselves or the soldiers, and our hearts grew dark with perplexity. It was then that our chief man spoke. He had fought against the soldiers in the Waikato and his war craft was great.