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Show TURKS TERRORIZED BY MAORI DANCING Constantinople Newspaper Claims Straits Are Invaded In-vaded by Cannibals. SIEGE INCIDENT TOLD Natives Courteously Supply Water to Thirsty British Brit-ish Regiment (By an Officer of the New Zealand Contingent on GalUpoli.) PENINSULA OF GALLJPOU, Sept. 25. About a month after the first landing land-ing at Gallipoli a group of men were sitting around the entrance to a dugout on the seaward side of Gaba Tepe. In their midst squatted a Greek interpreter, translating into very bad English some of the news contained in a copy of the Constantinople newspaper. Tan in. The article said: "Information is still larking as to the composition of the enemy's forces, but it appears from indications received from Europe that they mast consult chiefly of black men from Africa and Australia. Thus the straits, for the first time in history, have had to endure attack at-tack Ijy cannibals. No wonder tho listening Australians and New Zealanders laughed uproarious- iy- The many-colored British force at Gallipoli has now been straightened by the arrival of the Maori contingent, direct di-rect descendants of most chivalrous and warlike ancestors, to whom the poaka-roa. poaka-roa. or "long pip,"r as a human joint was termed, was a much-es teemed delicacy. deli-cacy. Nowadays the Maori, instead of fattening fat-tening his slaves on Mana island, spends his time', if he is ambitious, in getting hie V. A. degree or in passing hi" accountancy ac-countancy examinations. Th se men who landed at Gaba Tcne are fhe first Polynesian troops to ne brought oversea to fight for the mother country, and if the spirit of their an-cesto an-cesto -s still lives they will do it well. Back in the Maori wars the forbears of Giese dark-skinned, khaki-clad war-riorp war-riorp were besieged by British 1 roups. The Sixty-fifth regiment sat down arornd tHe fortress gates and prepared to starve out the men inside the pah. Maoris Are Courteous. The hikite peep, as the Maoris called "the besieging regiment, ran outof w I ter first, and the situation was getting ; serious when the pallisade gates of the j pah opened and a line of brown figures j carrying gourd? tilled with water ap-1 ap-1 proached the British trenches. I Fearing a ruse, the colonel of the j Sixty-fifth ordered his men to stand to arms, but the chief leading the water I bearers smiled. He made a courteous I speech, in .which he said naively that j both parties hitherto had been enjoying themselves, and it would be a pity if so small a matter as lack of water should put a stop to what was really a most pleasant siege. Such a thing was unthinkable. There was abundance abun-dance of water in the pah for both besieged be-sieged and besiegers. With further complimentary references refer-ences be took his leave, and the thirsty hikite peep watched the brown backs for a minute or two in amazement and then buried their faces in the cool gourds. The next morning the pah was empty and the garrison had walked out a" back way through what had looked like an impassable swamp. Only a few old women were left to shout and make a noise during the night. Now the Maori fights with us, and be has exchanged his old Tower rausket for tne Markell Star h. E. with which tie is a phenomenal shot. In the afternoon the Maoris started to dig themselves in, and they made their bivouacs in an old water course on the left flank. Near the beach tw swarthy young privates, working with a will, dug into a Turkish grave a grim reminder of the first days of the attack. It was their initial experience of the realities of war, and they went hurriedly hurried-ly and dug elsewhere. Weird Ceremony Enacted. Then the Pakeha (white man) general came along and addressed them, and afterward occurred a scene that has 110 counterpart in thp weird and varied annals an-nals of the Dardanelles. The Maoris, privates and officers, lined up. With protruding tongues and :i rhythmical slapping of hands on thighs and chests, with a deep concerted con-certed "a a nh." ouding abruptly, they began the Maori haka the war dance. Shrill and high the leader intoned in-toned the solo parts, and the chorus crashed out. As the dancers became more animated ani-mated the beat of their feet echoed through the gullies of Ga-Hipoli. The leader now declaimed fiercely, now his voice sank to an eerie whisper, still perfectly audible, and as he crouched low to the ground so the men behind him posed. Suddenly, after a concerted crash of voices, the chant ended with a sibilant hiss, a stamp of the right foot, and the detonation of palms slapping the hard ground. " A hundred yards away in the Turkish trenches perplexed Moslems listened to this blood-curdling serenade, and one of them, in explanation, produced his copy of the Tanin. Ominous nods and bend-shakings bend-shakings followed its reading. "For the first time in history the straits have had to endure attack by cannibals." And the leader of the haka. a full-blooded full-blooded Maori, wrote M. A., hjj. T)., after his name and spoke better English Eng-lish than many a vbite man |