The wound was not a bad one, and after it had been dressed the Colonel interviewed her, offering to have her carried on a stretcher to hospital. To this she objected, requesting instead to be left in a hut, asserting her friends would soon find her. This was done. She was made comfortable in a hut that was not burnt on her account, and we had not left the place an hour when her relations returned, so that at the time of the inquiry she was well and hearty. History of course repeats itself, and the British House of Parliament is, at the present time, still disgraced by some of the foul liars who invented charges against the British troops in the Transvaal, and these treacherous hounds, posing as religious, honourable men, still have a big following in the country. The same was the case in New Zealand, as Parris, who was commissioner for the district, was allowed still to retain his post, and did all in his power to thwart and hamper the Colonel, declaring the natives wished for peace, recommending the disbandment of the field force--in fact, played the part of a Little Englander with a Nonconformist conscience to perfection; and this man, owing to the criminal folly of the Government, was the cause of the discomfiture and defeat of the colonial forces. To give you some idea of the folly the New Zealand Government perpetrated I must again digress. In the House was a very strong peace party, mostly composed of members representing the Middle Island, in which there had been no war, and whose inhabitants begrudged paying the cost of the prolonged struggle, and whose desire to develop the resources of the colony made them ardently long for peace, so much so that they gave ready credence to the reports of Parris, while they ignored those of McDonnell; and bitterly they were to rue it in the near future. At the time the Colonel assumed command he had at his disposal an adequate field force of splendidly trained bush fighters who by continual warfare had not only learned their work but also to place the utmost confidence in their officers, their comrades and themselves. Alas, this was to end! The major part of this force were military settlers who had contracted with the Government to serve for three years, their remuneration to be a grant of land, and it so fell out that at the very moment their services were most needed the time expired of one hundred and fifty of the very best men.