From the middle of 1864, to January, 1865, there was so little fighting that it might have been thought that the war was nearing its end. The Waikato had been cleared, and the Tauranga tribes crushed. Thompson, hopeless of further struggling ceased to resist the irresistible, made his peace with us and during the short remainder of his life was treated as became an honourable foe. Nevertheless, nearly two years of harassing guerilla warfare were in store for the Colony. Then there was to be another imperfect period of peace, or rather exhaustion, between the October, 1866, and June, 1868, when hostilities were once more to blaze up and only to die out finally in 1870. This persistency was due to several causes, of which the first was the outbreak, early in 1864, of a curious superstition, the cult of the Hau-Haus. Their doctrine would be hard to describe. It was a wilder, more debased, and more barbaric parody of Christianity than the Mormonism of Joe Smith. It was an angry reaction, a kind of savage expression of a desire to revolt alike from the Christianity and civilization of the _Pakeha_ and to found a national religion. For years it drove its votaries into purposeless outbreaks, and acts of pitiless and ferocious cruelty. By the Hau-Haus two white missionaries were murdered--outrages unknown before in New Zealand. Their murderous deeds and the reprisals these brought about gave a darker tinge to the war henceforth. Their frantic faith led to absurdities as well as horrors. They would work themselves up into frenzy by dances and incantations, and in particular by barking like dogs--hence their name. At first, they seem to have believed that the cry _Hau! Hau!_ accompanied by raising one hand above the head with palm turned to the front, would turn aside the _Pakeha's_ bullets.