Climbing to the wooded crest of some of the steep little hills that rose from the gently undulating plain, one might here and there, through the gaps between the towering tiers of foliage, catch narrow glimpses of the surrounding country; and perhaps far away to the nor'-west see between the branches, set like a picture in its forest-frame, the pure white snow-cone of tent-shaped Taranaki. Deep in these bush solitudes one day, when the spring had come, the voice of man broke upon the silences. The wild boar stopped his root-foraging to listen, and then turned and crashed off through the supplejacks. A band of brown men, some clad in nondescript articles of European clothing, some wearing only a shoulder-cape of flax and a shawl or blanket-kilt, wound in single file through the bush, striking due east. There were fourteen or fifteen of them. Most of them carried weapons--double-barrelled guns and short-handled tomahawks, stuck in the waist-belt of flax; all had large flax baskets, some containing gourd-calabashes, strapped across their backs. Some sang little lilts of Maori song, and some called now and then to the others, or mimicked the _tui_ and the _kaka_ parrot that cried above them in the trees. Mid-line in the file was a fairer-skinned young forester, bare-footed like the rest, clad only in a "home-made" shirt that seemed to have been cut out of a blanket and a coloured shawl strapped round his waist. He had a thick beard, and his hair was so long that it would have fallen down over his shoulders had it not been caught at the back of his neck and tied with a piece of flax. This was "Ringiringi," the _pakeha_-Maori, wearing as little clothing as his Hauhau companions, and to all appearance as seasoned a bushman as they, as he bent along the jungly way with the easy, noiseless jog of the Maori scout. This party had been despatched from Taiporohenui by Rupé, to work inland through the bush to the upper waters of the Patea River, and scour the country for food supplies for the assembled tribes. They were ordered to bring home wild pork and wild honey, and to catch as many eels as they could carry. They travelled far into the heart of the bush, and then divided into small parties of twos and threes for eel-catching in the creeks.