RAIN-MAKING. 3 



people in those mountains have plenty of rain, and there- 

 fore must possess a medicine for making it. This faith 

 in rain-making is a remarkable feature in the people in 

 the country, and they have a good deal to say in favour of 

 it. If you say you do not believe that these medicines 

 have any power upon the clouds, they reply that that is 

 just the way people talk about what they do not under- 

 stand. They take a bulb, pound it, and administer an 

 infusion of it to a sheep: in a short time the sheep dies 

 in convulsions, and then they ask, Has not the medicine 

 power \ I do not think our friends of the homoeopathic 

 "persuasion" have much more to say than that. The 

 common argument known to all those tribes is this — 

 " God loves you white men better than us: He made you 

 first, and did not make us pretty like you : He made us 

 afterwards, and does not love us as He loves you. He 

 gave you clothing, and horses and waggons, and guns 

 and powder, and that Book, which you are always talking 



coal made of burnt bats, jackals' livers, baboons' and lions' hearts, ser- 

 pents' skins and vertebrce, in addition to the means mentioned above. 

 They take a philosophical view of the question, and say that they do not 

 pretend to make the rain themselves, but that God Himself makes it 

 in answer to their prayers, and as a consequence of their preparations. 

 They pray by means of their medicines, which act makes the rain theirs. 

 A practice somewhat similar exists among the medicine men of the 

 North-American Indians. It is somewhat striking that the Bakwains 

 were so long afflicted with drought during Dr Livingstone's residence 

 among them. They attributed this partly to his wizard powers, and 

 partly to the presence of the Bible ; regarding him with a suspicion cor- 

 responding with this belief. The dialogue between the medical doctor 

 and the rain-doctor is highly entertaining, and shews great acuteness on 

 the part of the untutored savage. 



9 



