The Fighting Round Rotorua.

Then the scene of war changed to Rotorua. Here, in 1867, he saved Ohinemutu from a Hauhau raid. With thirty of the loyal NgatiWhakaue tribe, he attacked over a hundred Waikato rebels at the earthworks of Te Koutu Pa, defeating them, with seven of them dead and many wounded. With one hundred picked men of the Ngati-Pikiao and Ngati-Manawa tribes, under the chief Te Pokiha Taranui, he made a detour of eight miles through broken forest country to cut off the retreat of the rebel Wai-katos, four hundred strong, then holding the Puraku or Ahiria Pa, near the present Tarukenga railway station. A frontal attack by Colonel St. John was delivered prematurely, and only a portion of the enemy was intercepted. The Hauhaus lost, however, eleven men killed and twenty-two severely wounded. For this work Mair was mentioned in despatches and promoted to the rank of Lieutenant.

With a small party of loyal natives he made a midnight attack upon the Rangiwewehi rebels’ camp in the dense forest at Ara-piripiri, west of Rotorua Lake, and himself captured their chief Te Raho-atua.