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It would almost appear as if the profound anatomical discovery of the close kinship of birds and reptiles was unconsciously recognized by a people destitute of the rudiments of the knowledge of morphology. Among the inhabitants of an arid region, where rain-making forms a dominant element in their ritual, water animals are eagerly adopted as symbols.

The men about the post were summoned, burros were loaded, and at 2 P.M. the whole rain-making force was far up the foothills unloading and preparing to fly gigantic kites and explode in the upper vaults of the atmosphere bombs and rockets and all sorts of things to make a rainstorm. All went well. The wind was right, and the huge kites, bomb-laden, climbed into the sky like vultures.

Then a traveller coming in with the news that heavy ram had fallen in Darwin news gleaned from the gossiping wire Cheon was filled with jealous fury at the good fortune of Darwin, and taunted Billy with rain-making taunts.

All telephone wires being underground and kept by themselves, they are not interfered with by any high-tension electric-light or power wires, thunderstorms, or anything else. "Rain-making is another subject removed from the uncertainties, and has become an absolute science.

Amongst the Mara tribe the rain-making rite consists simply in "singing" the water, drinking it and spitting it out in all directions. It is reasonable to suppose that in all these cases the "singing" is now merely a charm.

Meanwhile the airship continued to be a source of wonder to the natives. They were always about it, save at night, but their admiration was a respectful one. The king was anxious for the rain-making incantations to begin, but Mr. Durban put him off. "I don't want to deceive these simple natives," he said, "and for our own safety we can't pretend to make rain, and fail.

Three times her mother dreamed that she was delivered of serpents, which betokened that the child she carried would have power with the rain gods. The serpent was the symbol of water. The Princess grew up dedicated to the gods, and wise men taught her the rain-making mysteries.

Stones are often supposed to possess the property of bringing on rain, provided they be dipped in water or sprinkled with it, or treated in some other appropriate manner. In a Samoan village a certain stone was carefully housed as the representative of the rain-making god, and in time of drought his priests carried the stone in procession and dipped it in a stream.

But often and often in the after years I have thought of Indaba-zimbi and his beautiful simile and gathered comfort from it. He was a strange man, this old rain-making savage, and there was more wisdom in him than in many learned atheists those spiritual destroyers who, in the name of progress and humanity, would divorce hope from life, and leave us wandering in a lonesome, self-consecrated hell.

Rather a delicately right idea, isn't it, this inviting of the Elder Brothers, however lowly, to this great religious ceremonial which commemorates the gift of rain-making, as bestowed by their common ancestress, and perpetuates the old ritual so long ago taught by the Snake Chief of the underworld to Tiyo, the Hopi youth who bravely set out to see where all the blessed rain water went, and came back with the still more blessed secrets of whence and how to make it come.