[Sidenote: Gifts sent by the Kings of Fire and Water to the King of Cambodia.] In return the Kings of Fire and Water sent him a huge wax candle and two calabashes, one full of rice and the other of sesame. The candle bore the impress of the Fire King’s middle finger, and was probably thought to contain the seed of fire, which the Cambodian monarch thus received once a year fresh from the Fire King himself This holy candle was kept for sacred uses. On reaching the capital of Cambodia it was entrusted to the Brahmans, who laid it up beside the regalia, and with the wax made tapers which were burned on the altars on solemn days. As the candle was the special gift of the Fire King, we may conjecture that the rice and sesame were the special gift of the Water King. The latter was doubtless king of rain as well as of water, and the fruits of the earth were boons conferred by him on men. In times of calamity, as during plague, floods, and war, a little of this sacred rice and sesame was scattered on the ground “to appease the wrath of the maleficent spirits.” Contrary to the common usage of the country, which is to bury the dead, the bodies of both these mystic monarchs are burnt, but their nails and some of their teeth and bones are religiously preserved as amulets. It is while the corpse is being consumed on the pyre that the kinsmen of the deceased magician flee to the forest and hide themselves for fear of being elevated to the invidious dignity which he has just vacated. The people go and search for them, and the first whose lurking place they discover is made King of Fire or Water.[4] These, then, are examples of what I have called departmental kings of nature. But it is a far cry to Italy from the forests of Cambodia and the sources of the Nile. And though Kings of Rain, Water, and Fire have been found, we have still to discover a King of the Wood to match the Arician priest who bore that title. Perhaps we shall find him nearer home. Footnote 1: A. Bastian, _Die deutsche Expedition an der Loango-Küste_, ii. 230. Footnote 2: “Excursion de M. Brun-Rollet dans la région supérieure du Nil,” _Bulletin de la Société de Géographie_ (Paris), IVme Série, iv. (1852) pp. 421-423; _ib._ viii. (1854) pp. 387 _sq._; Brun-Rollet, _Le Nil Blanc et le Soudan_ (Paris, 1855), pp. 227 _sqq._ As to the rain-making chiefs of this region see above, vol. i. pp. 345 _sqq._ As to the distress and privations endured by these people in the dry season, see E. de Pruyssenaere, “Reisen und Forschungen im Gebiete des Weissen und Blauen Nil,” _Petermann’s Mittheilungen_, _Ergänzungsheft_ No. 50 (Gotha, 1877), p. 23. Footnote 3: W. Munzinger, _Ostafrikanische Studien_ (Schaffhausen, 1864), p. 474. Footnote 4: