This, however, might be taken as prayer and not magic, if we are to understand the water to be thrown into the air as a sign that water is wanted. Sometimes people smear themselves with mud and charcoal to show that they want washing. If the rain still does not come, they go and wash themselves in the rivers and streams. In 1893 the rains were unusually late. In the West Shiré district we only had one or two showers up to December 12—by which time the crops should have been in the ground in the ordinary course of things; and though that day and the next were wet, the weather cleared again—except for delusive thunder and lightning which led to nothing. After about a week of this, I happened to go to a village, and found all the women busy cleaning out the well whence they obtained their usual water-supply. It was a large hole, three or four feet across, and perhaps ten or twelve feet deep, and pegs had been driven into one side, by which even the white-haired old grandmother of the party ascended and descended with the greatest agility. They had already dug out a large heap of mud, and seemed serious and preoccupied, and none of the men were to be seen—in fact, the huts appeared to be deserted. But it never struck me that they were doing anything else but digging out their well because the water had come to an end. Some years later, when I read M. Junod’s _Les Baronga_, a passage in it forcibly recalled this scene, and showed that it had a meaning which had never occurred to me at the time. The Ronga women, it appears, have a solemn rite of clearing out the wells in time of drought. For this, they lay aside all their usual garments, clothing themselves only with grass or leaves, and start for the well, with special songs and dances. I did not notice anything special about the costume of the women at Pembereka’s, nor did I hear any singing, but probably that would accompany the dance, which would have taken place before they actually got to work. As the well was quite close to the huts, there would be no marching in procession—two or three of the women may have come from other kraals, but there were so few in all that the ceremony must have taken place on a very small scale. Not knowing of the Ronga usage, I could not ascertain whether or not the Anyanja women carried it out on the following points: (1) Before starting for the well, they go in a body to the house of _a woman who has had twins_, and pour water over her out of their calabash dippers; (2) When they have finished cleaning out the well, they go and pour water on the graves in the sacred grove.