Page:More Australian legendary tales.djvu/18

 saving his people and the whites from further sickness of the heat apoplexy kind. We have in the camp an old woman who is supposed to call up spirits—and they do come. She gave us a test of her power one day, which I am bound to say compared favourably with any séances of a like nature I had seen before, inasmuch as she held her in the light of day. She never drinks hot tea nor any sort of liquid which would heat her internally; did she do so she says the spirits would be driven out and she be powerless as a medium of communication with them; it is, she says, because the black people drink the "grog" of the white people they are losing their ancient power; in the past they never drank any hot liquid.

It was the same old woman who accurately foretold the breaking up of a drought. The oldest woman of this tribe having died, was buried the next day. The Blacks told me I could go to the funeral, and on the way the old spiritualist walked beside me. Seeing the droughty desolation of the country, I asked her when she thought it would rain again. Coming very close to me, she half whispered, "In three days I think it; old Beemunny tell me when she dying that s'posing she can send 'im rain, she sent 'im three day, where her yowee go long a Oobi Oobi." Beemunny died or Wednesday night, and we went to bed on Saturday with the skies as cloudless as they had been for weeks; in the middle of the night we were awakened by the patter of raindrops on the iron roof. All night it rained and all the next day.

Since my first series came out I have heard some items which more fitly complete four of the legends in it, which completions I now add. To "Mullyangah the Morning