444 THE RAIN-MAKER. 



slumber, and- seeing his wife sitting on the floor, shaking a 

 milk-sack in order to obtain a little butter to anoint her hair, 

 the wily rain-maker adroitly replied, " Do you not see my wife 

 churning rain as fast as she can ?" This ready answer gave 

 entire satisfaction ; and it presently spread through the length 

 and breadth of the town that the rain-maker had churned 

 the shower out of a milk-sack. 



The moisture, however, caused by this shower soon dried 

 np, and for many a long week afterward not a cloud ap- 

 peared. The women had cultivated extensive fields, but the 

 seed was lying in the soil as it had been thrown from the 

 hand ; the cattle were dying from want of pasture, and hund- 

 reds of emaciated men were seen going to the fields in quest 

 of unwholesome roots and reptiles, while others were perish- 

 ing with hunger. 



All these circumstances irritated the rain-maker very 

 much, and he complained that secret rogues were disobey- 

 ing his proclamations. When urged to make repeated trials, 

 he would reply, "You only give me sheep and goats to kill, 

 therefore I can only make goat-rain ; give me fat slaughter 

 oxen, and I shall let you see ox-rain." 



One night a small cloud passed over, and a single flash of 

 lightning, from which a heavy peal of thunder burst, struck 

 a tree in the town. Next day the rain-maker and a number 

 of people assembled to perform the usual ceremony on such 

 -an event. The stricken tree was ascended, and roots and 

 ropes of grass were bound round different parts of the trunk. 

 When these bandages were made, the conjuror deposited 

 some of his nostrums, and got quantities of water handed up, 

 which he poured with great solemnity on the wounded tree, 

 while the assembled multitude shouted "Pula! pula!" The 

 tree was now hewn down, dragged out of the town, and burn- 

 ed to ashes. Soon after, the rain-maker got large bowls of 

 water, with which was mingled an infusion of bulbs. All 

 5 he men of the town were then made to pass before him. 



