Early in the morning the day after the _pa_ was completed there was a brush with the Government forces. A column of Armed Constabulary and Wanganui Maoris made a reconnaissance up the cliffy, forest-fringed banks of the Patea in the direction of the Hauhau redoubt. Titoko's men attacked them, lining both sides of the river. The troops retired to their tea after a pretty little skirmish; and the Hauhaus marched back to the _pa_ in high jubilation, singing war-songs, waving their guns, and bounding about and grimacing like a company of fiends. Then the steaming pork and potatoes, and speech-making and howling _hakas_ around the great camp-fires. From the Maori point of view, quite a pleasant day's sport. During the two months following the bush fight at Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu no serious engagement occurred, but Titokowaru's war-parties scoured the district for many miles, laid ambuscades on the tracks between the European redoubts, burned settlers' houses, and bagged a stray _pakeha_ or two. One incident of this period illustrates the peculiar ghoulish humour of the Hauhau savage. Two friendly Maoris--Nga-hina and another--who were mail-carriers in the Government service, halted awhile at Manawapou one day, while on their way to Patea, and searched the settlement there for the wherewithal for a dinner. A cask stood beside one of the _wharés_, and on taking the top off they found it to be a barrel of brine, containing meat--apparently pork. Anticipating a good meal of salt pork, they fished up some of the meat. They found to their disgust that it was human flesh!--"Long-pig!" Not being Hauhaus or cannibals, they dropped the man-meat--white man--back into the cask and stayed their hunger on good honest potatoes. The question was, who pickled the _pakeha_? A Hauhau prisoner some time later enlightened the Government Maoris. A scouting party from Titoko's camp had dodged down to Manawapou, and discovered there, not far from the redoubt--which had been temporarily vacated by the troops--a new-made grave. Opening it, they disinterred a white man's corpse. In sheer devilment they cut it up, put it into a cask of brine that stood handy, and then recovered the cask and left it. It would have been an exquisite joke, from the cannibal Hauhau view-point, had the Government soldiers unknowingly helped themselves to a joint of white man! Titokowaru's entrenched position at Otoia was not a strong one, and shortly he, after a council of war with his principal men, decided to abandon it and build a new bush _pa_, which should be as nearly impregnable as a Maori fort could be.