At the beginning of 1865, the Royal Irish were sent to the south-west coast of the North island, to reinforce the small number of regular troops holding the Taranaki (or New Plymouth) district, where since the war began the British had been able to do little more than to hold redoubts round a few settlements, and to send occasional punitive expeditions into the enemy’s country. In the beginning of the campaign the rebel tribes, the adherents of the King, had fought us solely on political grounds; they objected to our presence and wished to drive us out of New Zealand, but no question of religion entered into the quarrel. Many of the Maoris had embraced Christianity, and had become such strict Sabbatarians that on one occasion the garrison of a besieged _pah_ left their works on a Sunday morning to attend chapel, with results disastrous to themselves. But early in 1864, the British learned that a set of fanatics had arisen, named Hau-Haus, whose tenets, appealing to all that was worst in the Maori character, were a weird mixture of cannibalism, paganism, and Christianity.[210] In April 1864, a detachment of the 57th was badly cut up near New Plymouth; an officer, Captain Lloyd, and six men were killed by the Hau-Haus, who cut off their heads and drank their blood. A few days later, according to the native accounts, the Angel Gabriel appeared and ordered Lloyd’s head to be exhumed and carried throughout New Zealand, to serve as the medium of Jehovah’s communication with man. As soon as the head was disinterred it appointed priests, and announced that thanks to the protection of Gabriel and his angels the followers of the new religion would be invulnerable: the Virgin Mary would be constantly present with them: the religion of England was false and its scriptures must be burned; men and women were to live together promiscuously; the priests would obtain victories by shouting the word “Hau,”[211] and could invoke the help of legions of angels for the extermination of the whites. As soon as New Zealand had rid itself of the English, men would arrive from heaven to teach the Maoris all the arts and sciences known to Europeans. This extraordinary creed is believed to have been evolved by educated and unscrupulous natives, who realised that the Maoris had been shaken in their allegiance to the “King movement” by the result of the Waikato campaign, and that a stronger bond of union was required than a purely political organisation, the fortunes of which were not then in the ascendant.