e town at its mouth. Wanganui was defended by 300
soldiers; but all the out settlers up the valley were leaving their
farms and hurrying in for shelter, when 300 men of the Wanganui tribe,
who liked the white men and were friendly with them, offered to fight
the Hau Haus. The challenge was accepted; and about 200 of the fanatics
landed on a little island called Moutoa, in the middle of the river.
Though surrounded by a pretty margin of white pebbles, it was covered
with ferns and thick scrub. Through this at daybreak the combatants
crept towards each other, the Hau Haus gesticulating and making queer
sounds. At last they fell to work, and volley after volley was
discharged at only ten yards distance. The friendly natives, having seen
three of their chiefs fall, turned and fled. Many had plunged into the
river, when one of their chiefs made a stand at the end of the island,
and gathering twenty men around him poured in a volley and killed the
Hau Hau leader. This surprised the fanatics and they hesitated; then a
second volley and a charge routed them. Back came the friendly Maoris
who had fled, and chased their enemies into the stream, wherein a heavy
slaughter took place. About seventy of the Hau Haus were slain. The
twelve who fell on the friendly side were buried in Wanganui with
military honours, and a handsome monument now marks the place where
their bones rest.

#13. Conclusion of Maori Wars.#--In 1866 General Chute came to take
command of the troops, in place of General Cameron. A vigorous campaign
crushed the Hau Haus after much skirmishing in different parts of the
Wellington district. But the chief trouble arose from another source.
The 183 prisoners taken at Rangiriri, together with some others taken
afterwards, were detained on board a hulk near Auckland. Sir George Grey
wished to deal in a kindly fashion with them, and proposed to release
them if they gave their word not to give further trouble. The Ministers
of his Cabinet were against this proposal, but agreed that he should
send them to an island near Auckland to live there without any guards.
They gave their promise, but broke it and all but four escaped, Te
Waharoa being among them. They chose the top of a circular hill
thirty-five miles from Auckland and there fortified themselves in a pah
called Omaha. But they did no harm to any one, and as they soon quietly
dispersed they were not meddled with.

A wild outburst of Hau Hau fanaticism on the east c