One foraging expedition which Bent accompanied was farther afield than usual, up northwards to the great Ngaere swamp, a huge morass near where the present township of Eltham stands, and where dairy cattle now graze on fields that in those days of '66 were seemingly irreclaimable bogs and wildernesses; lagoons, where millions of eels crawled, snake-like, in the ooze, and where countless thousands of wild fowl and water-birds fished and screamed and squabbled all day long. To the edge of the great swamp came the food-hunters; they waded across to the two islets which rose from the middle of the bog--ancient refuge-places of fugitive tribes--and camped there, catching and smoke-drying huge quantities of eels for winter food in the home _kainga_, and snaring many ducks and other birds. In this primeval spot the beautiful _kotuku_, the white heron so famous in Maori song and proverb--now never seen in the North Island--then abounded; the white man often admired this graceful bird as he stood on silent watch on the marge of some sedgy pool, then, like lightning-flash, darted his long spear-bill on his prey. The birds were tame, and easily caught, and many were snared and eaten by the foragers. "Ringiringi" captured some on the shores of the lagoon by the simple expedient of a bent supplejack and an arrangement of flax loops, set near the _kotuku's_ daily haunts; a day seldom passed without a heron being found flapping and choking tightly noosed in the snares of the fowlers. One day in the spring of 1866, when Tito and his _hapu_, their bird-hunting expeditions over for the season, were gathered in their bush-village Rimatoto, three strange Maoris, fully armed, entered the settlement. They had travelled overland from the King Country, far to the north, on a mission from Tawhiao, the Waikato King, who, after the conquest of the Waikato Valley by the white troops, had taken refuge with the Ngati-Maniapoto tribe. The envoys had been sent down to recover some Waikato war-flags which were in the possession of the Taranaki Hauhaus. In the crowded _wharepuni_ that night, when the Waikato warriors made their errand known, one of them caught sight of the white man, sitting silently in his corner, and asked who he was. When Tito explained, the visitor asked, "Why don't you kill him?" "He is my _pakeha_," said Tito, "and I will protect him, because our prophet Te Ua has _tapu_'d him, and ordered us not to harm him." "That is indeed a soft and foolish way to deal with _pakehas_" exclaimed a fierce-looking young warrior, one of the Waikato trio. "We don't take any white prisoners in our country. You ought to have his head stuck on the fence of your _pa_." Tito laughed. "Ringiringi is going to be useful to us," he said. "Besides, he is a Maori now."