The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1896-06-07
How an Aged Rain-Maker Passed
Through the Solid Walls
of the Hut.
A Pupil of the English Novelist
Tells Weird Stories of I'M
seen Powers-Snskes That
Come From the Fire.


editor of the Pail Mall Gazette, believes so
strongly in that he gives him fifteen pages
of his magazine, Borderland, to recount
his weird experiences. Mr.. Stead says:
The writer of the following extraordinary
fragment of autobiography is one OF the most
remarkable persons 1 ever met. For more
than year 1 was under the impression he
was the veritable Jack the Ripper-an i'm
preston which 1 believe was shared by the
police who at least once had him under ar
rest, although as he completely satisfied
them, they liberated him without bringing
him INTO court. The magician who
prefers to be known by his Hermetic name OF
Tautriadelta, and who objects even to be
called magician, will undoubtedly be re-
garded by most people as Baron Munchausen
redivivus. He has certainly travelled in many
lands and seen very strange scenes.
Tautriadelta was a pupil of Lord Lytton,
the novelist, says the New York World.
He talks OF exchanging bodies with his oc-
cult friends as the rest of US would talk
about borrowing an overcoat. He describes
African rainmakers and the marvellous
feats OF the Obeevahs as facts.
He says Rider Haggard's "She" is we'll
within the truth. and tells of exhibitions
of magic beside which the basket and
mango tricks of India are tame.
1t is childish to suppose that we have
learned the half Of what it is possible to
know about the laws of nature and human
life. A century ago the clearest-headed
people would have laughed at the idea of
electricity running tram cars.
Two rainmaKers in the village of an
African king in what is now German terri
tory, the Hinterland of the Cameroons,
Tautriadelta describes at length. This
was thirty years ago. There was great
drought and all living things were dying
for rain.
Out of sky of brass these two men
lone an old man, a stunted but sturdy
fellow, with bow legs, the other. about 80,
a magnificent specimen of humanity, six
feet in height, straight as dart and with
the torso OF Greek wrestler, but most
villaiEous face" at blazing MONDAY drew
torrents Of rain.
Three thousand warriors surrounded
them, and failure meant death. Two
minutes after they finished their incanta-
tons, while the old man was still writhing
in an epileptic fit on the ground, the
clouds suddenly gathered and the thunder
storm broke.
AFTER it was over" says the writer, II
visited the rainmakers, who were fort
unately allotted the next hut to mine. I
found that they both spoke Soosoo and a
little Arabic (which last they had picked
up from the Arab slave-dealers of the in
terror, so we got on finely.
"By certain means, known to all occult
lists, at once acquired their confidence,
and they agreed to show me what they
could do. There was fire on the ground
in the center of the hut, and we seated
ourselves around it at the three angles of
an imaginary triangle.
Throwing some dried herbs and min
eral powders (all of which l carefully ex-
smined and identifed) into the fire, they
commenced singing and rocking them
selves backward and forward.
This continued for a few minutes
when, all rising to our feet, but keeping
the same relative positions. the old man
began making series of motions, like
mesmeric passes, over the fire. Almost
instantly the fire seemed alive with snakes
which crawled out of the fire in scores,
and in which l recognized the most deadly
can tic-polonga. These brutes raced
madly round and round the fire, some en-
deavoring to stand on their tails, kissing
loudly all the time, until it absolutely
produced the effect on the spectator of a
weird dance of serpents. On the utter
ance of one Arabic .monosyllabic word,
the polongas hurled themselves into the
fire and disappeared.
THE younger man, who had hitherto
taken no active part, then opened his
mouth wide and a snakes head popped
out. He seized hold of it by the neck and
pulled out of his throat tic-polonga be-
tween two and three feet long and threw
it also in the fire. / said, DO it again ;
and he repeated the feat several times.
at must be remembered that both men
were entirely naked at the time, excepting
for their feather head-dresses. so no clever
iueglery or sleight of hand was possible.
1.-THE next tning was that the old man
lay down on tie floor and told US to take
him by the head and the heels and raise
him up. This We did to the height OF
about three feet from the floor, he having
made himself perfectly rigid. We held
him there for moment, and then he
softly 'foated' out of our hands and sailed
right around the hut, l following him
closely. He then approached the wall,
feet first, and fairly hoated through it into
the outside darkness. 1 Immediately felt
of the spot where he had gone through,
expecting to find hole; but no, all was as
solid as stout beams OF timber and foot
of sun-baked clay could make it. Irushed
outside to look for him, and even ran
around the hut but, with the dark night
and heavy rain, l could see nothing OF
him. So | returned, wet to the skin The
other man sat by the fire alone, singing.
I'm a few moments the old man came
floating in again and sat down at his point
of the triangle. But l noticed that the
feathers in his head-dress were dripping
wet and that his black skin fairly glistened
with rain.
Speaking of ''She" Tautriadelta saws:
at strikes me as being not so much the
creation of vivid imagination as the sim
pie recital, or, perhaps, one should say,
the skillful adaptation OF facts well known
to those who penetrated the recesses of
the west coast OF Africa generation ago. -