Page:Adventures of Kimble Bent.djvu/131

Rh kowaru, the great war-chief of the Hauhaus. Titoko, as his name was usually abbreviated, came riding into the little bush-village one day at the head of an armed band of Ngati-Ruanui and Nga-Ruahiné men, and held a meeting in the marae, urging the people to renew the war. He was travelling from village to village, haranguing the Hauhaus, and explaining his new plan of campaign, which briefly was to make surprise attacks on small isolated redoubts garrisoned by the white soldiers, and to lay ambuscades. He declared, too, that his tactics would be, not to build any more stockaded forts in positions where the Europeans could easily reach them, but to entice the troops into the midst of the forest, where the Maori warrior would have the advantage. This scheme met with general approval, and the tribespeople signified their intention of joining Titoko and fighting his battles for him whenever he gave the word to begin.

Titokowaru was the most brainy, as well as the most ferocious, of the Taranaki chiefs who led the Hauhaus against the whites. It was his strategy that was responsible for the most serious defeats inflicted on the Government forces in the war of 1868–9. In appearance he was a stern, commanding man, with a countenance disfigured by the loss of an eye—reminder of the Battle of Sentry Hill. He was not tattooed. "When roused," says Bent, "he had a voice like a roaring lion." In his attire