Not long ago, at a friendly feast, or feast of love, in West-Florida, during the time of a long-continued drought, I earnestly importuned the old rain-maker, for a sight of the pretended divine stone, which he had assured me he was possessed of; but he would by no means gratify my request. He {87} told me, as I was an infidel, literally, “one who shakes hands with the accursed speech,” and did not believe its being endued with a divine power, the sight of it could no ways benefit me; and that, as their old unerring tradition assured them, it would suffer very great damage in case of compliance, he hoped I would kindly acquiesce; especially, as he imagined, I believed every nation of people had certain beloved things, that might be easily spoiled by being polluted. I told him I was fully satisfied with the friendly excuse he made to my inconsiderate request; but that I could scarcely imagine there were any such beloved men, and beloved things, in so extremely fertile, but now sun-burnt soil. Their crops had failed the year before, by reason of several concurring causes: and, for the most part of the summer season, he had kept his bed through fear of incurring the punishment of a false prophet; which, joined with the religious regimen, and abstemious way of living he was obliged strictly to pursue, it sweated him so severely, as to reduce him to a skeleton. I jested him in a friendly way, saying, I imagined, the supreme holy fire would have proved more kind to his honest devotees, than to sicken him so severely, especially at that critical season, when the people’s food, and his own, entirely depended on his health; that, though our beloved men never undertook to bring down seasonable rains, yet we very seldom failed of good crops, and always paid them the tenth basket-full of our yearly produce; because, they persuaded our young people, by the force of their honest example, and kind-hearted enchanting language, to shun the crooked ways of _Hottuk Kallákse_, “the mad light people,” and honestly to shake hands with the old beloved speech—that the great, supreme, fatherly Chieftain, had told his _Loáche_ to teach us how to obtain peace and plenty, and every other good thing while we live here, and when we die, not only to shun the accursed dark place, where the sun is every day drowned, but likewise to live again for ever, very happily in the favourite country.