This was done, because if that officer were killed or wounded, it would reflect the deepest disgrace on the tribe with whom he served; they would never hear the last of it, not only from their friends, but also from their enemies. And these would continually rate them, and charge them with the accusation that it was through their carelessness or cowardice that the misfortune had happened to the man who had been entrusted to them. The Maori was very superstitious. He firmly believed in dreams, visions, omens of all sorts and the gift of prophecy, while the number of unlucky acts he might involuntarily commit during one day was quite sufficient to account for a whole chapter of accidents on the morrow. He regarded the tohungas (magicians) with great respect, so long as their divinations and prophecies panned out; but there are plenty of well-authenticated cases where a warrior has wreaked his vengeance on a tohunga through whose false prognostications the tribe has got into a mess. Nor are incidents lacking to show that prophets, who had earned a reputation for themselves, would not rather commit suicide than allow themselves to be proved wrong in their divinations. Let me spin you a couple of yarns to illustrate what I have just written. It was in March 1865 that the Hau Hau apostle Kereopa, in the course of a few hours, converted the swagger flock of red-hot Christians, who, under the guidance of Bishop Williams, had earned a mighty reputation for sanctity, to the new faith of Pai Marire. The good bishop and his family, barely escaping with their lives from his own sheep, departed to Napier, leaving the Hau Haus in possession of his residence at Waerengahika, at which place they built a pah that was, in November of the same year, attacked by the Colonial forces. The Hau Haus were superior in numbers, but during the first few days the Colonials gained some trivial advantages, and on the fourth day began to sap up to the works, which they had surrounded. This day chanced to be a Saturday, and the working party were surprised by an attack, in their rear, from a body of the enemy's reinforcements seeking to enter the pah, which they succeeded in doing, the working party having to beat a retreat, with the loss of six men killed and five wounded. This trivial success greatly elated the natives and so bucked up one of the apostles that he at once started in and prophesied nineteen to the dozen. Now this Johnny possessed that small amount of knowledge that is so dangerous to its owner. He had been brought up at a mission station, and accustomed to going to church, with great regularity, every Sunday. He therefore thought that all Christians acted in the same way, and that the Colonial Irregulars would be just as methodical in their religious observance as the goody-goody hangers-on at the various mission stations he was acquainted with.