setting fire to the bushes, drove the cattle to the top of a mountain, praying for rain.​[1048] This may be, as Wellhausen suggests, an imitation of lightning on the horizon;​[1049] but it may also be a way of threatening the sky, as some West African rain-makers put a pot of inflammable materials on the fire and blow up the flames, threatening that if heaven does not soon give rain they will send up a blaze which will set the sky on fire.​[1050] In time of drought the priests of the Muyscas in New Granada ascended a mountain and there burned billets {p304} of wood smeared with resin. The ashes they scattered in the air, thinking thus to condense the clouds and bring rain.​[1051] [Sidenote: Making rain by means of stones. Bezoar stones as instruments of rain.] 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.​[1052] Among the Ta-ta-thi tribe of New South Wales, the rain-maker breaks off a piece of quartz-crystal and spits it towards the sky; the rest of the crystal he wraps in emu feathers, soaks both crystal and feathers in water, and carefully hides them.​[1053] In the Keramin tribe of New South Wales the wizard retires to the bed of a creek, drops water on a round flat stone, then covers up and conceals it.​[1054] Among some tribes of north-western Australia the rain-maker repairs to a piece of ground which is set apart for the purpose of rain-making. There he builds a heap of stones or sand, places on the top of it his magic stone, and walks or dances round the pile chanting his incantations for hours, till sheer exhaustion obliges him to desist, when his place is taken by his assistant. Water is sprinkled on the stone and huge fires are kindled. No layman may approach the sacred spot while the mystic ceremony is being performed.​[1055] When the Sulka of New Britain wish to procure rain they blacken stones with the ashes of certain fruits and set them out, along with certain other plants and buds, in the sun. Then a handful of twigs is dipped in water and weighted with stones, while a spell is chanted. After that rain should follow.​[1056] In Manipur, on a lofty hill to the east of the capital, there is a stone which the popular imagination likens to an umbrella. {p305} When rain is wanted, the rajah fetches water from a spring below and sprinkles it on the stone.​[1057] At Sagami in Japan there is a stone which draws down rain whenever water is poured on it.​[1058] When the Wakondyo, a tribe of Central Africa, desire rain, they send to the Wawamba, who dwell at the foot of snowy mountains, and are the happy possessors of a “rain-stone.” In consideration of a proper payment, the Wawamba