Rain

December lived up to its Swazi name: "the time to pick teeth for a harvest." The veld lay parched in the midsummer sun. Hillsides and grasslands rotted rustily. Scorching winds raised dust from the river beds. By January even the mighty Orange had shrunk to a feeble trickle. A throttling drought gripped South Africa.

Almost a hundred districts had been officially declared stricken. The staple summer crop, corn, had failed and the country faced famine. At best the harvest could be no bigger than half the 22 million bags needed.

In the kraals the Negroes grew lean and hungry. Their cattle grew lean and died. The cattle price for wives (lobola) dropped steadily' as the herds diminished. Many Negroes walked hundreds of miles to the towns for food, but there, too, the white folks were standing all night outside food stores.

Now, if ever, was the time for the rain makers. In the kraals the witch doctors prepared to use their muti (medicine). In Parliament Prime Minister Jan Christiaan Smuts proclaimed a national day of prayer for rain. On the advice of their witch doctors, Basutos climbed their peaks with calabashes of Kaffir beer to propitiate their ancestors. But no rain came.

In the neighboring Drakensberg thousands of Bantu, against the advice of their doctors, climbed 12,000 feet to beseech the Christian God for rain. It rained--a little. Then, on Smuts's day of prayer the white folk prayed in their churches. Almost at once, the rains came. They have been coming ever since.

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