22 
EAIN-MEDICINE. 
Chap, I. 
it be that they have tlie power of combining the oxygen and 
hydrogen of their vegetable food by vital force so as to form 
water ? ^ 
Eain, 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 counsellors, 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 cliildren, 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 
thunder seemed to portend refi’eshing showers, but next morning 
the sun would rise in a clear cloudless sky; indeed, even these 
lowering appearances were less frequent by far than days of sun¬ 
shine are in London. 
The natives, finding it irksome to sit and wait helplessly until 
God gives them rain from heaven, entertain the more comfort¬ 
able idea that they can help themselves by a variety of prepara¬ 
tions, such as charcoal made of burned bats, inspissated renal 
deposit of th(j mountain coney {Hyfax capensis) (which by the 
way is used in the form of pills as a good anti-spasmodic, 
under the name of stone-sweat ” t)? the internal parts of 
different 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 everywhere, you kindly state that 
you tliink 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 afterwards expires 
* When we come to Angola I shall describe an insect there which distils 
several pints of water every night. 
t The name arises from its being always voided on one spot, in the manner 
practised by others of the rhinocerontine family; and by the action of the sun 
it becomes a black pitchy substance. 
