This was a big order, but I shall relate how it was carried through in due time. Suffice it for the present to say we left camp before daylight and saw the road all clear for the column, which joined us on the banks of the Waingangora during the afternoon. Later on Mr Roach called me and said: “Burke, I have been ordered by Colonel McDonnell to accompany the chief, Te Kepa, who with one hundred and fifty Kupapas” (friendly natives) “leaves camp on a reconnoitring expedition. He has also instructed me to take four of my own company with me. Would you like to come? I will not disguise the fact that the work will be very hard and that we shall have a rough time, but we are sure to see some real Maori warfare, native against native.” Of course I jumped at the chance, and he despatched me to warn my three mates to draw four days’ rations and be ready to start at sunset. At the appointed time we joined our officer and proceeded over to the Kupapas’ lines, where for the first time I saw the famous fighting chief, Te Kepa, who was even to rise to greater fame before the end of the war, and was undoubtedly one of the chief factors in terminating it. Te Kepa was a Maori, able to grow a large beard, an appendage rare among natives. He was not above middle height, but had a tough, wiry look about him that denoted great strength and an ability to stand any amount of hardship. This chief was better known among the Europeans by the name of Major Kemp, and was highly respected by all ranks of society. His men were chiefly drawn from his own tribe, the Wanganui, and were about three hundred in number, big, brawny fellows, good fighting men, but an officer required the tact of Satan as well as an intimate knowledge of their manners and customs to handle them. No sooner had we reached the Kupapas than night fell and Te Kepa indicated it was time to march, so we started along a rough track that led inland. The object of the expedition was to reconnoitre a big pah called Ketemarae so as to ascertain if it were strongly held, as it was the intention of the General to move the column on there next day, and, in case we found it strongly occupied, Mr Roach was to find out the ways of approaching it. Our scouts had gone on some time before we started, and we had hardly made a move when the heavens opened and it began to pour with rain, which it steadily continued to do all night long. This made the march, which was over a bad bit of country, very miserable, as the track, if it could be called one, was intersected by many steep gullies, the sides of which were slippery to a degree, so that we were soon not only soaked through but became plastered with mud from top to toe.