30 LECTURE II. 



polygamy, but left the matter to take its course 1 . Sechele 

 went away, and sent home four of his wives, giving each 

 a new dress, &c, saying he had no fault to find with them, 

 but the sole reason for parting with them was conviction 

 in the truth of the Gospel, and therefore the separation 

 was a relief to his mind ; hence I was saved from many 

 anxious thoughts on this matter. These women and their 

 friends henceforth became the determined enemies both 

 of myself and Sechele. Now, among the Africans, if a 

 chief is fond of hunting, dancing, or drinking, his people 

 are ever anxious to follow in the same pursuits ; but with 

 Christianity this was not the case. Sechele was both 

 astonished and disappointed at finding the people stand 

 aloof from his meetings, and his under-chiefs oppose both 

 him and me. I and my cause were now unpopular. Un- 

 fortunately at this time there was a four years 1 drought ; 

 and the people believed implicitly that their chief had the 

 power of making rain, and since none had come for so 

 long a time, they suspected me of having thrown a charm 

 over him, and would not allow him to make the rain. He 

 was the rain-maker of the tribe ; and this fact was easily 

 connected with my instruments and movements, to them 

 so unfathomable. If Sechele was thus the accredited 

 rain-maker of the tribe, I was now the self-appointed 

 necromancer, and he had become my unconscious victim. 



1 The reason started for so doing, in answer to a question put, at the 

 conversazione at my house, is very striking, " I never preached against 

 polygamy, since I was sure that when the Gospel took effect, it would 

 operate on the mind just as it did with Sechele." 



