64 ADVENTURES IN SOUTH AFRICA. 



aally to make a moonlight flitting and cut and run. foi 

 it, when the services of another of the fraternity are 

 courtpd. 



When the rain-makers fail to fulfill their promises, 

 they always ascribe their want of success to the pres- 

 ence of some mysterious agency which has destroyed 

 the effect of their otherwise infallible nostrums. One 

 of these anti-rain-making articles is ivory, which is be- 

 lieved to have great influence in driving away rain, in 

 conseqiience of which, in the summer season, they pro- 

 duce it only as the sun goes down, at which time it is 

 brought for the trader's inspection carefully wrapped 

 up in a kaross. I remember on one occasion incurring 

 the censure of a whole tribe, who firmly believed me to 

 have frightened the rain from their dominions by ex- 

 posing a quantity of ivory at noon-day ; and on another 

 occasion the chief of a certain tribe commanded a mis- 

 sionary with whom I am acquainted to remove all the 

 rafters from the roof of his house, these having been 

 pointed out by the rain-maker as obstructing the suc- 

 cess of his incantations. 



The Griquas, taking advantage of the superstitions 

 of the Bechuanas, often practice on their credulity, 

 and, a short time before I visited Siohely, a party of 

 Griquas who were hunting in his territory had obtained 

 from him several valuable karosses in barter for a lit- 

 tle sulphur, which they represented as a most effectual 

 medicine for guns, having assured Sichely that by rub- 

 bing a small quantity on their hands before proceeding 

 to the field they would assuredly obtain the animal they 

 hunted. 



It happened in the course of my converse with the 

 chief that the subject turned on ball practice, when, 

 probably relying on the power ni his medicine, the kiag 



