330 SPORT, TRAVEL, AND ADVENTURE 



cure is performed upon him. A red cock is taken, 

 his tongue torn out, and his body dashed upon the 

 house where the stroke fell. Then the scene changes 

 to the bank of a small running stream, where the 

 patient is made to kneel while the bird is sacrificed 

 over the water. A raw egg is next given to the 

 patient to swallow, and he is laid on his stomach and 

 encouraged to vomit. The lightning is supposed to be 

 vomited along with the egg, and all ill-effects prevented. 



Among the Banyoro great dread is exhibited of a 

 house which has been struck by lightning. On one 

 occasion I visited a teacher at one of our out-stations 

 called Kicumu. He took me to see the ruins of a 

 house that had recently been burned out, and explained 

 to me that he alone of all the village had ventured 

 near either during the fire or afterwards. Two women 

 and four goats were in the house when the flash passed 

 down one of the centre posts beside which the women 

 were seated at work peeling potatoes. One of them 

 was torn open down the chest, and both rendered un- 

 conscious and unable to fly for their lives. When 

 the teacher arrived on the scene the whole was one 

 mass of flame, in the midst of which were burning 

 the corpses of the women and goats. No one ever 

 approached 'the rums except the teacher and his personal 

 boys, and I picked up the knife which one of the 

 women had been using beside the skull of its late 

 owner. 



The Teso people make use of bells to exorcise the 

 storm fiend ; a person who has been injured by a 

 flash or in the resulting fire wears bells round the 

 ankles for weeks afterwards. Whenever rain threatens 

 and rain in Uganda almost always comes in com- 



