Taratoa's laws of war were far from being observed by his "civilised" opponents. In sadness and shame we read of the devastation of the once smiling Rangiaohia, and of the utter destruction, there and throughout the country, of crops and houses.[13] Hostilities were followed up by wholesale confiscation of the Maoris' lands--a measure which was to some extent the real object of the war. Maddened by defeat, by the loss of lands and homes, by hunger, and by disease which followed hunger, the Maoris were at last ready to doubt the truth of the religion which the white man had brought them. [13] I have kept out of the text all mention of the burning of women and children in a whare at this place, because one clings to the belief that it was accidental. Englishmen don't do things like that intentionally. But there can be no doubt that it made a deep impression upon the Maori mind. The English general had told them (they said) to send their women and children to Rangiaohia for safety. They did so, and then the troops, instead of attacking their _men_, attacked and burnt their women. The Maoris seem to have had a peculiar horror of fire. In their most savage days they always killed their enemies before they cooked them. The match was soon laid to the train. An old man in Taranaki announced that he had received the revelation of a new religion, suited to the Maori people. Like the Arabian Mohammed, Te Ua was considered to be a person of weak intellect; like Mohammed, he claimed to have received his revelation from the Angel Gabriel; like the Arabian prophet again, he put forth a mixture of Judaism[14] and heathenism which sanctioned polygamy, and whose propagation was to be carried on by the sword. A trifling success over a small English troop gave the necessary impetus to the movement, and soon bands of ardent Hauhaus (as they were called) were traversing the island, and winning over crowds of restless and dissatisfied people. By making their listeners walk round a pole, chanting a strange jargon in which a few Latin words can be recognised, they mesmerised the susceptible Maoris, and gained complete control over their minds. [14] This is generally admitted; but Bishop Williams, who had exceptional opportunities for studying Hauhauism, thinks that the element of Judaism was very slight.