Now as a prophet Te Kooti was a distinct failure. He had over and over again declared himself to be invulnerable, yet he had been wounded twice, and on one occasion had had to be carried out of action on a woman’s back. Moreover he had promised his followers time after time invulnerability, yet every tribe who joined him had lost heavily in killed and wounded. Now this was sufficient to have damned a big chief even had he had a previous splendid record, and Te Kooti was no big chief, while his record previous to his, grantedly unjust, transportation was simply that of a rowdy chicken thief. Nevertheless, notwithstanding all his drawbacks and manifold shortcomings, Te Kooti up to the end never visited a tribe that he could not either frighten or persuade numbers of that tribe to join his precarious fortunes, and this without doubt was a marvel, for the Maori is by nature a powerful reasoner and wonderfully clear-headed. Perhaps the most wonderful thing of all was that chiefs of bluest blood who would have pilled him like a shot, had he possessed the effrontery to put himself up for their club, still willingly submitted themselves to his rule and obeyed his commands. On the 20th of January 1870 Topia’s and our column met, and on the 24th our advance patrol surprised and rushed a kainga, in which we killed one Hau Hau and captured three others, who, after putting both themselves and us to a deal of trouble, owned up that they were Te Kooti’s scouts, and that Te Kooti himself was camped a few miles away, this being the first authentic information we had received of his actual whereabouts. Of course the Colonel at once determined to go for him, and Kepa started off with two hundred of his men to get to the wily one’s rear, it being arranged that we were to leave camp two hours before daybreak and make the frontal attack. The country we were in was a sinful one, and quite unknown to us. It was chiefly composed of deep pumice-stone ravines with perpendicular sides, and there were so many of them that Tim’s query, “Where the divil did the man who dug them hape up the stuff he excavated?” was quite justifiable. The following morning, just as I was about to leave camp with the scouts, a dense fog came on, so thick that you could have cut chunks out of it with a knife, when of course it was a case of sit tight, as it would have been worse than madness for men ignorant of the locality to attempt to move. Time passed, the men fell in, and were ordered to lie down at their alarm posts--_i.e._ in square surrounding the camp--and wait quietly till it was possible to move. Daylight came, but the fog was thicker than ever, the Colonel got vexed, the men did not, as they had been vexed ever since they had rolled up their blankets, still although everyone had profound convictions as to the unsuitability of the weather, none expressed them, for to have done so would have only added to the sulphurous density of the atmosphere.