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Updated: May 3, 2025
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.
Early in the war we did none too well in an attack upon a hill pa at Waireka, a few miles south of New Plymouth. Colonel Murray was sent out from the town with some 300 troops and militia to take it, and at the same time to bring in some families of settlers who had stuck to their farms, and who, if we may believe one of them, did not want to be interfered with.
The militia officers, however, kept their men together, and passed the day exchanging shots with their enemy and waiting for Colonel Murray to make a diversion by assailing Waireka. This, however, Colonel Murray did not do. He sent Lieutenant Urquhart and thirty men to clear the ravines aforesaid, and give the militiamen a chance of retreat.
The second was a very late one, and we had scarcely an hour's sleep before we were obliged to get up and start by the 6 A.M. train back to Rolleston, where we remounted our horses and rode to dear little Waireka in time for breakfast. By the evening I was sufficiently rested to make another cake, which also, happily, turned out well.
The highest ranges were still snow-white, and made a magnificent background against the summer sky. An easy twelve miles' ride brought us to a charming little station, called by the pretty native name of Waireka; here lived our three bachelor hosts, and a nicer or more comfortable home in a distant land could not be desired.
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