in the fields that day for fear of disturbing the rain, and inducing it to stop. When the wet weather has fairly set in, or as the Bechuanas conceive, when the doctors have brought on the rain, the linyakas have to continue their operation, so as to ensure that the downpour may be of long duration.
For this purpose they are accustomed to resort occasionally by themselves, but much more frequently in company with their pupils and the owners of the land, to some isolated spot away among the hills, where they whistle, shout, mumble their formulæ, and light fires on the ledges of the rocks, into which from time to time they throw handfuls of their magic compounds.
When at any time the efforts of the linyakas seem unavailing, the fault is supposed not to lie with them, but with certain of the community who must have committed some undetected breach of the laws. Suspicion more often than not falls upon widows or widowers, who are presumed to have omitted some of the purifications prescribed for their condition; they are accordingly sentenced to undergo a public purifying, and the linyakas are paid to erect grass-huts outside the town, where the accused are obliged to reside for an indefinite time, their hair being all shorn from their heads, and whence they are not permitted to depart to their homes until they are pronounced thoroughly cleansed.
If this purification of individuals should prove
