Fig. 4b.—Specimen of Bushmen Rock Sculptures
Fig. 4c.—Engravings found on Rocks in Algeria
(compare with Bushmen type)
These probably now degraded folk, who live on lizards, locusts, and roots when other food fails, have a good store of legend and folk-lore. Fig. 5 seems to portray their belief in "sympathetic magic," if, as conjectured, it represents the dragging of an hippopotamus or other amphibious animal across the land for the purpose of producing rain. The Semangs of the Malay Peninsula use a bamboo rain-charm (Fig. 6), on which the wind-driven showers are depicted in oblique lines, and, among many other examples wherein the higher and lower culture meet together, there is one supplied by old Rome, where it was the custom to throw images of the corn-spirit into the Tiber so that the crops might be drenched with rain. As showing the persistency of superstitions, here is a paragraph anent the severe drought in Russia last autumn: "In another village of the district of Bugulma some moujiks opened the grave of a peasant who had lately been buried, and then poured water over the corpse, in the belief that this was the best method of bringing rain."—Daily Chronicle, 24th August 1899.
Fig. 5.—Bushman Rain-Charm.
