“Listen, ye men of the Wanganui, you who have refused to march with the Pakeha” (white man). “It is well, go home; but I, Hori Kingi, will go with them, even though I go alone. It shall not be said that I deserted them; but I warn you all that if you desert me I will never again return to Wanganui. Henceforth the white men shall be my only friends, and my bones shall rest in Taranaki.” Such an awful threat had never been uttered before. Why, the very thought that their great hero’s bones might be buried in the land of their hated enemies was dreadful. Not one of them dare even think of such a diabolical catastrophe. It was worse than blasphemy, and it took some minutes before the frightful idea could percolate into their understandings. There they squatted, open-mouthed and with goggling eyes, until the same thought seemed to flash simultaneously into their dazed brains, when they all raised their voices to let go the piteous howl: “We go, father, we go,” and Mete Kingi was sold again. Next morning the column moved out of camp, eighty picked Kupapas leading with an air of jollity about them as if the row of the previous night had been forgotten and forgiven, though I noticed that old Hori Kingi marched with Mr Roach as if he were still a little sore over his tribe’s misbehaviour. In rear of the Kupapas we marched; then a long line of pack-horses, while three companies of the 14th Regiment brought up the rear. The General having heard that Father Pezant had completed the journey in two days had reckoned on our getting through in three, and therefore three days’ cooked rations had been issued to all hands. The Maoris, however, the most improvident men in the world, especially as in this case they had not intended to come, had eaten most of theirs before we started, and then, in fear of Hori, had said nothing about it. Anyway we were off. For the first few miles the track, although a very rough one, was well defined, and we pushed on, but just before noon we came to a very deep and narrow gully. The Maoris crossed this, so did we, but when it came to the pack-horses’ turn the column came to a dead stop. They certainly could not get down, and, supposing they were chucked over the edge and survived, it was equally certain they could not get out at the other side, so it was a case of getting the picks and spades off them and making one slanting road down and another up. The Tommies tackled this job, but it was very slow work, and we lost a lot of time. At last all hands and the pack-horses were got across, and we proceeded, but had to camp, having covered a far shorter distance than the General had expected we should have done. Next morning we again made an early start, but were brought up by more gullies, some of which we crossed as we had the first one, others we had to bridge in a way that I shall presently describe.