Arrival at Ihupuku, 11th, January, 1845. Taupo Depredations.

We arrived at Ihupuku, where the Natives were assembling, on Saturday, the 11th January. On coming towards the pa we were loudly welcomed. We found the Rev. J. Skevington there, who informed us that Te Heuheu was, with his Waikato allies, encamped near the village of Whanganui, and had been visited several times by the Rev. R. Taylor, who, on inquiring the reason of his coming there, was told by Te Heuheu that he had come by invitation of his friend Turoa to settle the land question, and to get satisfaction for his dead. We also learned that several petty thefts had been committed on the Europeans, and that on their way to Whanganui they had carried off and destroyed three hundred pigs from a pa called Mangowai, a number of which were afterwards sold by them at unusually low prices; also that a white child of four years of age had been indecently exposed, which occasioned a report that several European females had been ill-used by them.