24 RAIN-MEDICINE. 



it be that they have the power of combining the oxygen and 

 hydrogen of their vegetable food by vital force so as to form 

 water ?* 



Rain, however, would not fall. The Bakwains believed that I 

 had bound Sechele with some magic spell, and I received depu- 

 tations, in the evenings, of the old counselors, entreating me to 

 allow him to make only a few showers : " The corn will die if 

 you refuse, and we shall become scattered. Only let him make 

 rain this once, and we shall all, men, women, and children, come 

 to the school, and sing and pray as long as you please." It was 

 in vain to protest that I wished Sechele to act just according to 

 his own ideas of what was right, as he found the law laid down 

 in the Bible, and it was distressing to appear hard-hearted to them. 

 The clouds often collected promisingly over us, and rolling thun- 

 der seemed to portend refreshing showers, but next morning the 

 sun would rise in a clear, cloudless sky ; indeed, even these low- 

 ering appearances were less frequent by far than days of sunshine 

 are in London. 



The natives, finding it irksome to sit and wait helplessly until 

 God gives them rain from heaven, entertain the more comforta- 

 ble idea that they can help themselves by a variety of prepara- 

 tions, such as charcoal made of burned bats, inspissated renal 

 deposit of the mountain cony — Hyrax capensis — (which, by 

 the way, is used, in the form of pills, as a good antispasmodic, 

 under the name of " stone-sweat"f), the internal parts of differ- 

 ent animals — as jackals' livers, baboons' and lions' hearts, and 

 hairy calculi from the bowels of old cows — serpents' skins and 

 vertebrae, and every kind of tuber, bulb, root, and plant to be 

 found in the country. Although you disbelieve their efficacy in 

 charming the clouds to pour out their refreshing treasures, yet, 

 conscious that civility is useful every where, you kindly state that 

 you think they are mistaken as to their power. The rain-doctor 

 selects a particular bulbous root, pounds it, and administers a 

 cold infusion to a sheep, which in five minutes afterward expires 



* When we come to Angola, I shall describe an insect there which distills several 

 pints of water every night. 



t The name arises from its being always voided on one spot, in the manner prac- 

 ticed by others of the rhinocerontine family ; and, by the action of the sun, it be- 

 comes a black, pitchy substance. 



