“The soldier is a brave man, none braver, but astonished and confused as these warriors were after a feeble resistance they broke and fled from the place, rushing in their flight against the Ngati Jacks, whose formation they broke and who they carried away with them in their race for safety. No, we did not pursue them, but jumped into our pits to save ourselves from the fire of the big guns and the other soldiers. The big guns and the soldiers, however, did not continue firing, many bugles were blown, the fire ceased and to our astonishment on jumping out of our trenches expecting another attack, we saw all the soldiers retreating, which they continued to do although we danced a war dance, so as to show them we were not all killed but ready to furnish them with another fight should their big chief deem us worthy to be attacked again. This he did not do as perchance he had by this time been informed that ours was only a fishing kainga and not a pah worthy of being attacked by such a redoubtable warrior, so he with all his men returned to Tauranga, and that evening we retreated through the swamps to Te Ranga. “Be still, oh boy, and ask not foolish questions. It befits youth to listen attentively to the discourse of warriors so as to acquire wisdom and knowledge without interrupting, but I answer you this one. No; the white rangatera did not run away when their soldiers fled. It is not their custom to do so. Like as it is with us, a white rangatera must conquer or die, or, if it be necessary to retreat, he must do so in a manner befitting his own honour and the authority he holds from the Great White Queen. “On this occasion they did all that brave men could do to prevent their men from running away, and when this took place those who were left alive and unwounded faced us still, some were quickly killed or wounded by our young men whose wakahihi (fighting madness) was roused, before we, the trained warriors, could stop them. It is not right for rangatera to kill rangatera. When unable to resist they remain on the field of battle, restrained as they are by their sense of honour, nor can you take them prisoners, so that when we forced the young men to cease from killing, those white rangatera, who remained unwounded, retired slowly from the kainga, some of them saluting with their swords, which salute we returned, for this is a befitting thing to do between rangatera, be they Maoris or white men, all brave men should respect one another. “Nor did we torture, nor even kill the wounded men left in the kainga, as although we had given up the missionaries and most of us had become Hau Haus, yet we had not adopted their ferocity. No, we made fern mi-mis for the wounded and brought them water to drink, one of their own officers, a Tohunga (medicine man) who was unwounded, remained with them and attended their hurts; him also we did not molest, but when the evening came we departed for Te Ranga much elated by our success.