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Of twenty-seven victories, however, those of Rangi-riri and Orakau were dearly bought; in the double fight at Nukumaru we lost more than the enemy, and at Waireka most of our forces retreated, and only heard of the success from a distance. Two disasters and six successes were wholly or almost wholly the work of native auxiliaries.
But the ringing defiance of the "ake, ake, ake" of the hardly bestead and famishing garrison of Orakau will always remain one of the world's heroic memories; while the English soldiers, with their general, soon sickened of a war on behalf of greedy settlers against such magnificent opponents as the Maoris proved themselves to be.
Four hundred Maories who were shut up in the fortress of Orakau, besieged by 1,000 English, under Brigadier-General Carey, without water or provisions, refused to surrender, but one day at noon cut their way through the then decimated 40th Regiment, and escaped to the marshes." "But," asked John Mangles, "did the submission of the Waikato district put an end to this sanguinary war?"
But they knew that they were trapped, and next day they surrendered, in all 183 men with a few women. Sixty or seventy of the Maoris had been killed, but several hundreds escaped. Orakau.# Meantime General Carey, who was next in command to General Cameron, had been chasing another large body of the Waikato tribe far up the river more than half way to its source in Lake Taupo.
It was a wild and mountainous district, and the Maoris were sheltered at Orakau, a pah in a very strong position. Carey spent three days in running a mine under the walls, while his guns and mortars kept up a perfect storm of shot and shell. Then he offered to accept their surrender. They refused to give in.
A third encounter was signalised by the most heroic incident in the Colony's history. Some three hundred Maoris were shut up in entrenchments at a place called Orakau.
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