112 
ACCOUNT FROM LAHEISEY. 
[1820. 
yourselves it does not run so now. When we 
have plenty of rain our fields are fruitful, and we 
cannot complain ; the ground about the hills is 
good when there is rain, but if there be no rain 
they produce nothing, and the cattle, having no 
water, eat earth and die. Sometimes rain stops 
long away, and we then try to get rain. How- 
ever, in the long days the rain frequently falls so 
heavy that it runs down all the hollow parts of 
the hills to the valley, and passes away to the de- 
sert. Once the wind was so violent that it blew 
down trees ; it came from the west, and I thought 
it came for our destruction. In great drought 
we now send our cattle to Patannee. We never 
employ rain-makers ; we know nothing of them ; 
I think men cannot make rain. Formerly no 
buffaloes came near us, but of late they have 
come. We have neither lions nor wolves, but 
some tigers." 
None of the Bushmen, he told us, now rob 
them ; formerly they did ; but he killed many, 
and they have never troubled him since. " We 
are the only people," said he, " who have a clean 
country ; no robbing Bushmen ; no lions nor 
wolves ; but many serpents, some of whom are 
very large. To cure their bite we cut all around 
the place, to cause it to bleed, that the poison 
may come out along with it. 
