Besides these general objects, there are others of an ephemeral and special kind which are generally drawn within the sphere of prayer. Rain is a common object of prayer, and other changes of weather are equally prayed for if they are held to be important. Callaway, for example, was informed by a "very old man" in South Africa that "if it does not rain, the heads of villages and petty chiefs assemble and go to a black chief; they converse and pray for rain" (R. S. A., vol. i. p. 59). Another native described the mode of supplication more particularly. A certain chieftain named Utshaka "came and made his prayers greater than those who preceded him." When he desired rain, he sang the following song, which "consists of musical sounds merely, without any meaning:"— "_One Part_—I ya wu; a wu; o ye i ye." "_Second Part or Response_—I ya wo." And this prayer, so touching in its simplicity, was as successful as the most elaborate composition of Jewish prophet or Christian bishop; for the narrator states that Utshaka "Sang a song and prayed to the Lord of heaven; and asked his forefathers to pray for rain to the Lord of heaven. _And it rained_" (R. S. A., vol. i. p. 92). The efficacy of prayer is plainly independent of the creed of him who offers it. The Mexicans held an important annual festival in the month of May, of which the main purpose was to entreat for water from the sky, this being the season at which there was the greatest need of rain (H. I., b. v. ch. 28). They used to address an elaborate prayer to a god named Tlaloc, the king of the terrestrial paradise, to obtain deliverance from drought. They entreated him not to visit the offenses they had committed with such severity as to continue the privation under which they were laboring.[1] The Tannese, when put to much inconvenience by the dust falling from a certain volcano, "were in the habit of praying to their gods for a change of wind" (N. Y., p. 75). Certain other South Sea Islanders used to pray to their gods to avert the supposed calamity of a lunar eclipse. "As the eclipse passes off, they think it is all owing to their prayers," a mode of reasoning which presents an exact parallel to that employed by many Christians.