"I intend to commence with the goodness-of God in giving iron ore, by giving, if I can, a general knowledge of the simplicity of the substance, and endeavoring to disabuse their minds of the idea which prevents them, in general, from reaping the benefit of that mineral which abounds in their country. I intend, also, to pay more attention to the children of the few believers we have with us as a class, for whom, as baptized ones, we are bound especially to care. May the Lord enable me to fulfill my resolutions! I have now the happy prospect before me of real missionary work. All that has preceded has been preparatory."

All this time Livingstone had been cherishing his plan of a training seminary for native agents. He had written a paper and brought the matter before the missionaries, but without success. Some opposed the scheme fairly, as being premature, while some insinuated that his object was to stand well with the Directors, and get himself made Professor. This last objection induced him to withdraw his proposal. He saw that in his mode of prosecuting the matter he had not been very knowing; it would have been better to get some of the older brethren to adopt it. He feared that his zeal had injured the cause he desired to benefit, and in writing to his friend Watt, he said that for months he felt bitter grief, and could never think of the subject without a pang[23].

[Footnote 23: Dr. Moffat favored the scheme of a training seminary, and when he came home afterward, helped to raise a large sum of money for the purpose. He was strongly of opinion that the institution should be built at Sechele's; but, contrary to his view, and that of Livingstone, it has been placed at Kuruman.]

A second time he brought forward his proposal, but again without success. Was he then to be beaten? Far from it. He would change his tactics, however. He would first set himself to show what could be done by native efforts; he would travel about, wherever he found a road, and after inquiries, settle native agents far and wide. The plan had only to be tried, under God's blessing, to succeed. Here again we trace the Providence that shaped his career. Had his wishes been carried into effect, he might have spent his life training native agents, and doing undoubtedly a noble work: but he would not have traversed Africa; he would not have given its death-blow to African slavery; he would not have closed the open sore of the world, nor rolled away the great obstacle to the evangelization of the Continent.

Some glimpses of his Mabotsa life may be got from a letter to his mother (14th May, 1845). Usually his letters for home were meant for the whole family and addressed accordingly; but with a delicacy of feeling, which many will appreciate, he wrote separately to his mother after a little experience of married life:

"I often think of you, and perhaps more frequently since I got married than before. Only yesterday I said to my wife, when I thought of the nice clean bed I enjoy now, 'You put me in mind of my mother; she was always particular about our beds and linen. I had had rough times of it before.'...

"I cannot perceive that the attentions paid to my father-in-law at home have spoiled him. He is, of course, not the same man he formerly must have been, for he now knows the standing he has among the friends of Christ at home. But the plaudits he received have had a bad effect, and tho' not on his mind, yet on that of his fellow-laborers. You, perhaps, cannot understand this, but so it is. If one man is praised, others think this is more than is deserved, and that they, too ('others,' they say, while they mean themselves), ought to have a share. Perhaps you were gratified to see my letters quoted in the Chronicle. In some minds they produced bitter envy, and if it were in my power, I should prevent the publication of any in future. But all is in the Lord's hands; on Him I cast my care. His testimony I receive as it stands—He careth for us. Yes, He does; for He says it, who is every way worthy of credit. He will give what is good for me. He will see to it that all things work together for good. Do thou for me, O Lord God Almighty! May his blessing rest on you, my dear mother....

"I received the box from Mr. D. The clothes are all too wide by four inches at least. Does he think that aldermen grow in Africa? Mr. N., too, fell into the same fault, but he will be pleased to know his boots will be worn by a much better man—Mr. Moffat. I am not an atom thicker than when you saw me....

"Respecting the mission here, we can say nothing. The people have not the smallest love to the gospel of Jesus. They hate and fear it, as a revolutionary spirit is disliked by the old Tories. It appears to them as that which, if not carefully guarded against, will seduce them, and destroy their much-loved domestic institutions. No pro-slavery man in the Southern States dreads more the abolition principles than do the Bakhatla the innovations of the Word of God. Nothing but power Divine can work the mighty change."

Unhappily Mr. and Mrs. Livingstone's residence at Mabotsa was embittered by a painful collision with the missionary who had taken part in rearing the station. Livingstone was accused of acting unfairly by him, of assuming to himself more than his due, and attempts were made to discredit him, both among the missionaries and the Directors. It was a very painful ordeal, and Livingstone felt it keenly. He held the accusation to be unjust, as most people will hold it to have been who know that one of the charges against him was that he was a "non-entity"! A tone of indignation pervades his letters:—that after having borne the heat and burden of the day, he should be accused of claiming for himself the credit due to one who had done so little in comparison. But the noble spirit of Livingstone rose to the occasion. Rather than have any scandal before the heathen, he would give up his house and garden at Mabotsa, with all the toil and money they had cost him, go with his young bride to some other place, and begin anew the toil of house and school building, and gathering the people around him. His colleague was so struck with his generosity that he said had he known his intention he never would have spoken a word against him. Livingstone had spent all his money, and out of a salary of a hundred pounds it was not easy to build a house every other year. But he stuck to his resolution. Parting with his garden evidently cost him a pang, especially when he thought of the tasteless hands into which it was to fall. "I like a garden," he wrote, "but paradise will make amends for all our privations and sorrows here." Self-denial was a firmly established habit with him; and the passion of "moving on" was warm in his blood. Mabotsa did not thrive after Livingstone left it, but the brother with whom he had the difference lived to manifest a very different spirit.

In some of his journeys, Livingstone had come into close contact with the tribe of the Bakwains, which, on the murder of their chief, some time before, had been divided into two, one part under Bubi, already referred to, and the other under Sechele, son of the murdered chief, also already introduced. Both of these chiefs had shown much regard for Livingstone, and on the death of Bubi, Sechele and his people indicated a strong wish that a missionary should reside among them. On leaving Mabotsa, Livingstone transferred his services to this tribe. The name of the pew station was Chonuane; it was situated some forty miles from Mabotsa, and in 1846 it became the centre of Livingstone's operations among the Bakwains and their chief Sechele.

Livingstone had been disappointed with the result of his work among the Bakhatlas. No doubt much good had been done; he had prevented several wars; but where were the conversions[24]? On leaving he found that he had made more impressions on them than he had supposed. They were most unwilling to lose him, offered to do anything in their power for his comfort, and even when his oxen were "inspanned" and he was on the point of moving, they offered to build a new house without expense to him in some other place, if only he would not leave them. In a financial point of view, the removal to Chonuane was a serious undertaking. He had to apply to the Directors at home for a building-grant—only thirty pounds, but there were not wanting objectors even to that small sum. It was only in self-vindication that he was constrained to tell of the hardships which his family had borne;—

[Footnote 24: When some of Livingstone's "new light" friends heard that there were so few conversions, they seem to have thought that he was too much of an old Calvinist, and wrote to him to preach that the remedy was as extensive as the disease—Christ loved you, and gave himself for you. "You may think me heretical," replied he, "but we don't need to make the extent of the atonement the main topic of our preaching. We preach to men who don't know but they are beasts, who have no idea of God as a personal agent, or of sin as evil, otherwise than as an offense against each other, which may or may not be punished by the party offended.... Their consciences are seared, and moral perceptions blunted. Their memories retain scarcely anything we teach them, and so low have they sunk that the plainest text in the whole Bible cannot be understood by them."]

"We endured for a long while, using a wretched infusion of native corn for coffee, but when our corn was done, we were fairly obliged to go to Kuruman for supplies. I can bear what other Europeans would consider hunger and thirst without any inconvenience, but when we arrived, to hear the old woman who had seen my wife depart about two years before, exclaiming before the door, 'Bless me! how lean she is! Has he starved her? Is there no food in the country to which she has been?' was more than I could well bear."

From the first, Sechele showed an intelligent interest in Livingstone's preaching. He became a great reader especially of the Bible, and lamented very bitterly that he had got involved in heathen customs, and now did not know what to do with his wives. At one time he expressed himself quite willing to convert all his people to Christianity by the litupa, i.e. whips of rhinoceros hide; but when he came to understand better, he lamented that while he could make his people do anything else he liked, he could not get one of them to believe. He began family worship, and Livingstone was surprised to hear how well he conducted prayer in his own simple and beautiful style. When he was baptized, after a profession of three years, he sent away his superfluous wives in a kindly and generous way; but all their connections became active and bitter enemies of the gospel, and the conversion of Sechele, instead of increasing the congregation, reduced it so much that sometimes the chief and his family were almost the only persons present. A bell-man of a somewhat peculiar order was once employed to collect the people for service—a tall gaunt fellow. "Up he jumped on a sort of platform, and shouted at the top of his voice, 'Knock that woman down over there. Strike her, she is putting on her pot! Do you see that one hiding herself? Give her a good blow. There she is—see, see, knock her down!' All the women ran to the place of meeting in no time, for each thought herself meant. But, though a most efficient bell-man, we did not like to employ him."

While residing at Chonuane, Livingstone performed two journeys eastward, in order to attempt the removal of certain obstacles to the establishment of at least one of his native teachers in that direction. This brought him into connection with the Dutch Boers of the Cashan mountains, otherwise called Magaliesberg. The Boers were emigrants from the Cape, who had been dissatisfied with the British rule, and especially with the emancipation of their Hottentot slaves, and had created for themselves a republic in the north (the Transvaal), in order that they might pursue, unmolested, the proper treatment of the blacks. "It is almost needless to add," says Livingstone, "that proper treatment has always contained in it the essential element of slavery, viz., compulsory unpaid labor." The Boers had effected the expulsion of Mosilikatse, a savage Zulu warrior, and in return for this service they considered themselves sole masters of the soil. While still engaged in the erection of his dwelling-house at Chonuane, Livingstone received notes from the Commandant and Council of the emigrants, requesting an explanation of his intentions, and an intimation that they had resolved to come and deprive Sechele of his fire-arms. About the same time he received several very friendly messages and presents from Mokhatla, chief of a large section of the Bakhatla, who lived about four days eastward of his station, and had once, while Livingstone was absent, paid a visit to Chonuane, and expressed satisfaction with the idea of obtaining Paul, a native convert, as his teacher. As soon as his house was habitable, Livingstone proceeded to the eastward, to visit Mokhatla, and to confer with the Boers.

On his way to Mokhatla he was surprised at the unusual density of the population, giving him the opportunity of preaching the gospel at least once every day. The chief, Mokhatla, whose people were quiet and industrious, was eager to get a missionary, but said that an arrangement must be made with the Dutch commandant. This involved some delay.

Livingstone then returned to Chonuane, finished the erection of a school there, and setting systematic instruction fairly in operation under Paul and his son, Isaac, again went eastward, accompanied this time by Mrs. Livingstone and their infant son, Robert Moffat[25]—all the three being in indifferent health. Mebalwe, the catechist, was also with them. Taking a different route, they came on another Bakhatla tribe, whose country abounded in metallic ores, and who, besides cultivating their fields, span cotton, smelted iron, copper, and tin, made an alloy of tin and copper, and manufactured ornaments. Livingstone had constantly an eye to the industries and commercial capabilities of the countries he passed through. Social reform was certainly much needed here; for the chief, though not twenty years of age, had already forty-eight wives and twenty children. They heard of another tribe, said to excel all others in manufacturing skill, and having the honorable distinction, "they had never been known to kill any one." This lily among thorns they were unable to visit. Three tribes of Bakhalaka whom they did visit were at continual war.

[Footnote 25: He wrote to his father that he would have called him Neil, if it had not been such an ugly name, and all the people would have called him Ra-Neeley!]

Deriving his information from the Boers themselves, Livingstone learned that they had taken possession of nearly all the fountains, so that the natives lived in the country only by sufferance. The chiefs were compelled to furnish the emigrants with as much free labor as they required. This was in return for the privilege of living in the country of the Boers! The absence of law left the natives open to innumerable wrongs which the better-disposed of the emigrants lamented, but could not prevent. Livingstone found that the forcible seizure of cattle was a common occurrence, but another custom was even worse. When at war, the Dutch forced natives to assist them, and sent them before them into battle, to encounter the battle-axes of their opponents, while the Dutch fired in safety at their enemies over the heads of their native allies. Of course all the disasters of the war fell on the natives; the Dutch had only the glory and the spoil. Such treatment of the natives burned into the very soul of Livingstone. He was specially distressed at the purpose expressed to pick a quarrel with Sechele, for whatever the emigrants might say of other tribes, they could not but admit that the Bechuanas had been always an honest and peaceable people.

When Livingstone met the Dutch commandant he received favorably his proposal of a native missionary, but another obstacle arose. Near the proposed station lived a Dutch emigrant who had shown himself the inveterate enemy of missions. He had not scrupled to say that the proper way to treat any native missionary was to kill him. Livingstone was unwilling to plant Mebalwe beside so bloodthirsty a neighbor**(spelling?), and as he had not time to, go to him, and try to bring him to a better mind, and there was plenty of work to be done at the station, they all returned to Chonuane.

"We have now," says Livingstone (March, 1847), "been a little more than a year with the Bakwains. No conversions have taken place, but real progress has been made." He adverts to the way in which the Sabbath was observed, no work being done by the natives in the gardens that day, and hunting being suspended. Their superstitious belief in rain-maiking had got a blow. There was a real desire for knowledge, though hindered by the prevailing famine caused by the want of rain. There was also a general impression among the people that the missionaries were their friends. But civilization apart from conversion would be but a poor recompense for their labor.

But, whatever success might attend their work among the Bakwains, Livingstone's soul was soaring beyond them:

"I am more and more convinced," he writes to the Directors, "that in order to the permanent settlement of the gospel in any part, the natives must be taught to relinquish their reliance on Europe. An onward movement ought to be made whether men will hear or whether they will forbear. I tell my Bakwains that if spared ten years, I shall move on to regions beyond them. If our missions would move onward now to those regions I have lately visited, they would in all probability prevent the natives settling into that state of determined hatred to all Europeans which I fear now characterizes most of the Caffres near the Colony. If natives are not elevated by contact with Europeans, they are sure to be deteriorated. It is with pain I have observed that all the tribes I have lately seen are undergoing the latter process. The country is fine. It abounds in streams, and has many considerable rivers. The Boers hate missionaries, but by a kind and prudent course of conduct one can easily manage them. Medicines are eagerly received, and I intend to procure a supply of Dutch tracts for distribution among them. The natives who have been in subjection to Mosilikatse place unbounded confidence in missionaries."

In his letters to friends at home, whatever topic Livingstone may touch, we see evidence of one over-mastering idea—the vastness of Africa, and the duty of beginning a new area of enterprise to reach its people. Among his friends the Scotch Congregationalists, there had been a keen controversy on some points of Calvinism. Livingstone did not like it; he was not a high Calvinist theoretically, yet he could not accept the new views, "from a secret feeling of being absolutely at the divine disposal as a sinner;" but these were theoretical questions, and with dark Africa around him, he did not see why the brethren at home should split on them. Missionary influence in South Africa was directed in a wrong channel. There were three times too many missionaries in the colony, and vast regions beyond lay untouched. He wrote to Mr. Watt: "If you meet me down in the colony before eight years are expired, you may shoot me."

Of his employments and studies he gives the following account: "I get the Evangelical, Scottish Congregational, Eclectic, Lancet, British and Foreign Medical Review. I can read in journeying, but little at home. Building, gardening, cobbling, doctoring, tinkering, carpentering, gun-mending, farriering, wagon-mending, preaching, schooling, lecturing on physics according to my means, beside a chair in divinity to a class of three, fill up my time."

With all his other work, he was still enthusiastic in science. "I have written Professor Buckland," he says to Mr. Watt (May, 1845), "and send him specimens too, but have not received any answer. I have a great lot by me now. I don't know whether he received my letter or not. Could you ascertain? I am trying to procure specimens of the entire geology of this region, and will try and make a sort of chart. I am taking double specimens now, so that if one part is lost, I can send another. The great difficulty is transmission. I sent a dissertation on the decrease of water in Africa. Call on Professor Owen and ask if he wants anything in the four jars I still possess, of either rhinoceros, camelopard, etc., etc. If he wants these, or anything else these jars will hold, he must send me more jars and spirits of wine."

He afterward heard of the fate of one of the boxes of specimens he had sent home—that which contained the fossils of Bootchap. It was lost on the railway after reaching England, in custody of a friend. "The thief thought the box contained bullion, no doubt. You may think of one of the faces in Punch as that of the scoundrel, when he found in the box a lot of 'chuckystanes.'" He had got many nocturnal-feeding, animals, but the heat made it very difficult to preserve them. Many valuable seeds he had sent to Calcutta, with the nuts of the desert, but had heard nothing of them. He had lately got knowledge of a root to which the same virtues were attached as to ergot of rye. He tells his friend about the tsetse, the fever, the north wind, and other African notabilia. These and many other interesting points of information are followed up by the significant question—

"Who will penetrate through Africa?"



CHAPTER V.

Third Station—Kolobeng.

A.D. 1847-1852.

Want of rain at Chonuane—Removal to Kolobeng—House-building and public works—Hopeful prospects—Letters to Mr. Watt, his sister, and Dr. Bennett—The church at Kolobeng—Pure communion—Conversion of Sechele—Letter from his brother Charles—His history—Livingstone's relations with the Boers—He cannot get native teachers planted in the East—Resolves to explore northwards—Extracts from Journal—Scarcity of water—Wild animals and other risks—Custom-house robberies and annoyances—Visit from Secretary of London Missionary Society—Manifold employments of Livingstone—Studies in Sichuana—His reflection on this period of his life while detained at Manyuema in 1870.

The residence of the Livingstones at Chonuane was of short continuance. The want of rain was fatal to agriculture, and about equally fatal to the mission. It was necessary to remove to a neighborhood where water could be obtained. The new locality chosen was on the banks of the river Kolobeng, about forty miles distant from Chonuane. In a letter to the Royal Geographical Society, his early and warm friend and fellow-traveler, Mr. Oswell, thus describes Kolobeng: "The town stands in naked 'deformity on the side of and under a ridge of red ironstone; the mission-house on a little rocky eminence over the river Kolobeng." Livingstone had pointed out to the chief that the only feasible way of watering the gardens was to select some good never-failing river, make a canal, and irrigate the adjacent lands. The wonderful influence which he had acquired was apparent from the fact that the very morning after he told them of his intention to move to the Kolobeng, the whole tribe was in motion for the "flitting." Livingstone had to set to work at his old business—building a house—the third which he had reared with his own hands. It was a mere hut—for a permanent house he had to wait a year. The natives, of course, had their huts to rear and their gardens to prepare; but, besides this, Livingstone set them to public works. For irrigating their gardens, a dam had to be dug and a water-course scooped out; sixty-five of the younger men dug the dam, and forty of the older made the water-course. The erection of the school was undertaken by the chief Sechele: "I desire," he said, "to build a house for God, the defender of my town, and that you be at no expense for it whatever." Two hundred of his people were employed in this work.

Livingstone had hardly had time to forget his building troubles at Mabotsa and Chonuane, when he began this new enterprise. But he was in much better spirits, much more hopeful than he had been. Writing to Mr. Watt on 13th February, 1848, he says:—

"All our meetings are good compared to those we had at Mabotsa, and some of them admit of no comparison whatever. Ever since we moved, we have been incessantly engaged in manual labor. We have endeavored, as far as possible, to carry on systematic instruction at the same time, but have felt it very hard pressure on our energies.... Our daily labors are in the following sort of order:

"We get up as soon as we can, generally with the sun in summer, then have family worship, breakfast, and school; and as soon as these are over we begin the manual operations needed, sowing, ploughing, smithy work, and every other sort of work by turns as required. My better-half is employed all the morning in culinary or other work; and feeling pretty well tired by dinner-time, we take about two hours' rest then; but more frequently, without the respite I try to secure for myself, she goes off to hold infant-school, and this, I am happy to say, is very popular with the youngsters. She sometimes has eighty, but the average may be sixty. My manual labors are continued till about five o'clock. I then go into the town to give lessons and talk to any one who may be disposed for it. As soon as the cows are milked we have a meeting, and this is followed by a prayer-meeting in Secheles house, which brings me home about half-past eight, and generally tired enough, too fatigued to think of any mental exertion. I do not enumerate these duties by way of telling how much we do, but to let you know a cause of sorrow I have that so little of my time is devoted to real missionary work."

First there was a temporary house to be built, then a permanent one, and Livingstone was not exempted from the casualties of mechanics. Once he found himself dangling from a beam by his weak arm. Another time he had a fall from the roof. A third time he cut himself severely with an axe. Working on the roof in the sun, his lips got all scabbed and broken. If he mentions such things to Dr. Bennett or other friend, it is either in the way of illustrating some medical point or to explain how he had never found time to take the latitude of his station till he was stopped working by one of these accidents. At best it was weary work. "Two days ago," he writes to his sister Janet (5th July, 1848), "we entered our new house. What a mercy to be in a house again! A year in a little hut through which the wind blew our candles into glorious icicles (as a poet would say) by night, and in which crowds of flies continually settled on the eyes of our poor little brats by day, makes us value our present castle. Oh, Janet, know thou, if thou art given to building castles in the air, that that is easy work to erecting cottages on the ground." He could not quite forget that it was unfair treatment that had driven him from Mabotsa, and involved him in these labors. "I often think," he writes to Dr. Bennett, "I have forgiven, as I hope to be forgiven; but the remembrance of slander often comes boiling up, although I hate to think of it. You must remember me in your prayers, that more of the spirit of Christ may be imparted to me. All my plans of mental culture have been broken through by manual labor. I shall soon, however, be obliged to give my son and daughter a jog along the path to learning.... Your family increases, very fast, and I fear we follow in your wake. I cannot realize the idea of your sitting with four around you, and I can scarcely believe myself to be so far advanced as to be the father of two."

Livingstone never expected the work of real Christianity to advance rapidly among the Bakwains. They were a slow people and took long to move. But it was not his desire to have a large church of nominal adherents. "Nothing," he writes, "will induce me to form an impure church. Fifty added to the church sounds fine at home, but if only five of these are genuine, what will it profit in the Great Day? I have felt more than ever lately that the great object of our exertions ought to be conversion." There was no subject on which Livingstone had stronger feelings than on purity of communion. For two whole years he allowed no dispensation of the Lord's Supper, because he did not deem the professing Christians to be living consistently. Here was a crowning proof of his hatred of all sham and false pretense, and his intense love of solid, thorough, finished work.

Hardly were things begun to be settled at Kolobeng, when, by way of relaxation, Livingstone (January, 1848) again moved eastward. He would have gone sooner, but "a mad sort of Scotchman[26]," having wandered past them shooting elephants, and lost all his cattle by the bite of the tsetse-fly, Livingstone had to go to his help; and moreover the dam, having burst, required to be repaired. Sechele set out to accompany him, and intended to go with him the whole way; but some friends having come to visit his tribe, he had to return, or at least did return, leaving Livingstone four gallons of porridge, and two servants to act in his stead. "He is about the only individual," says Livingstone, "who possesses distinct, consistent views on the subject of our mission. He is bound by his wives: has a curious idea—would like to go to another country for three or four years in order to study, with the hope that probably his wives would have married others in the meantime. He would then return, and be admitted to the Lord's Supper, and teach his people the knowledge he has acquired, He seems incapable of putting them away. He feels so attached to them, and indeed we, too, feel much attached to most of them. They are our best scholars, our constant friends. We earnestly pray that they, too, may be enlightened by the Spirit of God."

[Footnote 26: Mr. Gordon Cumming.]

The prayer regarding Sechele was answered soon. Reviewing the year 1844 in a letter to the Directors, Livingstone says: "An event that excited more open enmity than any other was the profession of faith and subsequent reception of the chief into the church."

During the first years at Kolobeng he received a long letter from his younger brother Charles, then in the United States, requesting him to use his influence with the London Missionary Society that he might be sent as a missionary to China. In writing to the Directors about his brother, in reply to this request, Livingstone disclaimed all idea of influencing them except in so far as he might be able to tell them facts. His brother's history was very interesting. In 1839, when David Livingstone was in England, Charles became earnest about religion, influenced partly by the thought that as his brother, to whom he was most warmly attached, was going abroad, he might never see him again in this world, and therefore he would prepare to meet him in the next. A strong desire sprang up in his mind to obtain a liberal education. Not having the means to get this at home, he was advised by David to go to America, and endeavor to obtain admission to one of the colleges there where the students support themselves by manual labor. To help him in this, David sent him five pounds, which he had just received from the Society, being the whole of his quarter's allowance in London. On landing at New York, after selling his box and bed, Charles found his whole stock of cash to amount to L2, 13s. 6d. Purchasing a loaf and a piece of cheese as viaticum, he started for a college at Oberlin, seven hundred miles off, where Dr. Finney was President. He contrived to get to the college without having ever begged. In the third year he entered on a theological course, with the view of becoming a missionary. He did not wish, and could never agree, as a missionary, to hold an appointment from an American Society, on account of the relation of the American Churches to slavery; therefore he applied to the London Missionary Society. David had suggested to his father that if Charles was to be a missionary, he ought to direct his attention to China. Livingstone's first missionary love had not become cold, and much though he might have wished to have his brother in Africa, he acted consistently on his old conviction that there were enough of English missionaries there, and that China had much more need.

The Directors declined to appoint Charles Livingstone without a personal visit, which he could not afford to make. This circumstance led him to accept a pastorate in New England, where he remained until 1857, when he came to this country and joined his brother in the Zambesi Expedition. Afterward he was appointed H. M. Consul at Fernando Po, but being always delicate, he succumbed to the climate of the country, and died a few months after his brother, on his way home, in October, 1873. Sir Bartle Frere, as President of the Royal Geographical Society, paid a deserved tribute to his affectionate and earnest nature, his consistent Christian life, and his valuable help to Christian missions and the African cause generally[27].

[Footnote 27: Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, 1874, p. cxxviii.]

Livingstone's relations with the Boers did not improve. He has gone so fully into this subject in his Missionary Travels that a very slight reference to it is all that is needed here. It was at first very difficult for him to comprehend how the most flagrant injustice and inhumanity to the black race could be combined, as he found it to be, with kindness and general respectability, and even with the profession of piety. He only came to comprehend this when, after more experience, he understood the demoralization which the slave-system produces. It was necessary for the Boers to possess themselves of children for servants, and believing or fancying that in some tribe an insurrection was plotting, they would fall on that tribe and bring off a number of the children. The most foul massacres were justified on the ground that they were necessary to subdue the troublesome tendencies of the people, and therefore essential to permanent peace. Livingstone felt keenly that the Boers who came to live among the Bakwains made no distinction between them and the Caffres, although the Bechuanas were noted for honesty, and never attacked either Boers or English. On the principle of elevating vague rumors into alarming facts, the Boers of the Cashan Mountains, having heard that Sechele was possessed of fire-arms (the number of his muskets was five!) multiplied the number by a hundred, and threatened him with an invasion. Livingstone, who was accused of supplying these arms, went to the commandant Krieger, and prevailed upon him to defer the expedition, but refused point-blank to comply with Krieger's wish that he should act as a spy on the Bakwains. Threatening messages continued to be sent to Sechele, ordering him to surrender himself, and to prevent English traders from passing through his country, or selling fire-arms to his people. On one occasion Livingstone was told by Mr. Potgeiter, a leading Dutchman, that he would attack any tribe that might receive a native teacher. Livingstone was so thoroughly identified with the natives that it became the desire of the colonists to get rid of him and all his belongings, and complaints were made of him to the Colonial Government as a dangerous person that ought not to be let alone.

All this made it very clear to Livingstone that his favorite plan of planting native teachers to the eastward could not be carried into effect, at least for the present. His disappointment in this was only another link in the chain of causes that gave to the latter part of his life so unlooked-for but glorious a destination. It set him to inquire whether in some other direction he might not find a sphere for planting native teachers which the jealousy of the Boers prevented in the east.

Before we set out with him on the northward journeys, to which he was led partly by the hostility of the Boers in the east, and partly by the very distressing failure of rain at Kolobeng, a few extracts may be given from a record of the period entitled "A portion of a Journal lost in the destruction of Kolobeng (September, 1853) by the Boers of Pretorius." Livingstone appears to have kept journals from an early period of his life with characteristic care and neatness; but that ruthless and most atrocious raid of the Boers, which we shall have to notice hereafter, deprived him of all them up to that date. The treatment of his books on that occasion was one of the most exasperating of his trials. Had they been burned or carried off he would have minded it less; but it was unspeakably provoking to hear of them lying about with handfuls of leaves torn out of them, or otherwise mutilated and destroyed. From the wreck of his journals the only part saved was a few pages containing notes of some occurrences in 1848-49:

"May 20, 1848.—Spoke to Sechele of the evil of trusting in medicines instead of God. He felt afraid to dispute on the subject, and said he would give up all medicine if I only told him to do so. I was gratified to see symptoms of tender conscience. May God enlighten him!

"July 10th.—Entered new house on 4th curt. A great mercy. Hope it may be more a house of prayer than any we have yet inhabited.

"Sunday, August 6.—Sechele remained as a spectator at the celebration of the Lord's Supper, and when we retired he asked me how he ought to act with reference to his superfluous wives, as he greatly desired to conform to the will of Christ, be baptized, and observe his ordinances. Advised him to do according to what he saw written in God's Book, but to treat them gently, for they had sinned in ignorance, and if driven away hastily might be lost eternally.

"Sept. 1.—Much opposition, but none manifested to us as individuals. Some, however, say it was a pity the lion did not kill me at Mabotsa. They curse the chief (Sechele) with very bitter curses, and these come from the mouths of those whom Sechele would formerly have destroyed for a single disrespectful word. The truth will, by the aid of the Spirit of God, ultimately prevail.

"Oct. 1.—Sechele baptized; also Setefano.

"Nov.—Long for rains. Everything languishes during the intense heat; and successive droughts having only occurred since the Gospel came to the Bakwains, I fear the effect will be detrimental. There is abundance of rain all around us. And yet we, who have our chief at our head in attachment to the Gospel, receive not a drop. Has Satan power over the course of the winds and clouds? Feel afraid he will obtain an advantage over us, but must be resigned entirely to the Divine will.

"Nov. 27.—O Devil! Prince of the power of the air, art thou hindering us? Greater is He who is for us than all who can be against us. I intend to proceed with Paul to Mokhatla's. He feels much pleased with the prospect of forming a new station. May God Almighty bless the poor unworthy effort! Mebalwe's house finished. Preparing woodwork for Paul's house.

"Dec. 16.—Passed by invitation to Hendrick Potgeiter. Opposed to building a school.... Told him if he hindered the Gospel the blood of these people would be required at his hand. He became much excited at this.

"Dec. 17.—Met Dr. Robertson, of Swellendam. Very friendly. Boers very violently opposed.... Went to Pilanies. Had large attentive audiences at two villages when on the way home. Paul and I looked for a ford in a dry river. Found we had got a she black rhinoceros between us and the wagon, which was only twenty yards off. She had calved during the night—a little red beast like a dog. She charged the wagon, split a spoke and a felloe with her horn, and then left. Paul and I jumped into a rut, as the guns were in the wagon."

The black rhinoceros is one of the most dangerous of the wild beasts of Africa, and travelers stand in great awe of it. The courage of Dr. Livingstone in exposing himself to the risk of such animals on this missionary tour was none the less that he himself says not a word regarding it; but such courage was constantly shown by him. The following instances are given on the authority of Dr. Moffat as samples of what was habitual to Dr. Livingstone in the performance of his duty.

In going through a wood, a party of hunters were startled by the appearance of a black rhinoceros. The furious beast dashed at the wagon, and drove his horn into the bowels of the driver, inflicting a frightful wound. A messenger was despatched in the greatest haste for Dr. Livingstone, whose house was eight or ten miles distant. The messenger in his eagerness ran the whole way. Livingstone's friends were horror-struck at the idea of his riding through the wood at night, exposed to the rhinoceros and other deadly beasts. "No, no; you must not think of it, Livingstone; it is certain death." Livingstone believed it was a Christian duty to try to save the poor fellow's life, and he resolved to go, happen what might. Mounting his horse, he rode to the scene of the accident. The man had died, and the wagon had left, so that there was nothing for Livingstone but to return and run the risk of the forest anew, without even the hope that he might be useful in saving life.

Another time, when he and a brother missionary were on a tour a long way from home, a messenger came to tell his companion that one of his children was alarmingly ill. It was but natural for him to desire Livingstone to go back with him. The way lay over a road infested by lions. Livingstone's life would be in danger; moreover, as we have seen, he was intensely desirous to examine the fossil bones at the place. But when his friend expressed the desire for him to go, he went without hesitation. His firm belief in Providence sustained him in these as in so many other dangers.

Medical practice was certainly not made easier by what happened to some of his packages from England. Writing to his father-in-law, Mr. Moffat (18th January, 1849), he says:

"Most of our boxes which come to us from England are opened, and usually lightened of their contents. You will perhaps remember one in which Sechele's cloak was. It contained, on leaving Glasgow, besides the articles which came here, a parcel of surgical instruments which I ordered, and of course paid for. One of these was a valuable cupping apparatus. The value at which the instruments were purchased for me was L4, 12s., their real value much more.

"The box which you kindly packed for us and despatched to Glasgow has, we hear, been gutted by the Custom-House thieves, and only a very few plain karosses left in it. When we see a box which has been opened we have not half the pleasure which we otherwise should in unpacking it.... Can you give me any information how these annoyances may be prevented? Or must we submit to it as one of the crooked things of this life, which Solomon says cannot be made straight?"

Not only in these scenes of active missionary labor, but everywhere else, Livingstone was in the habit of preaching to the natives, and conversing seriously with them on religion, his favorite topics being the love of Christ, the Fatherhood of God, the resurrection, and the last judgment. His preaching to them, in Dr. Moffat's judgment, was highly effective. It was simple, scriptural, conversational, went straight to the point, was well fitted to arrest the attention, and remarkably adapted to the capacity of the people. To his father he writes (5th July, 1848): "For a long time I felt much depressed after preaching the unsearchable riches of Christ to apparently insensible hearts; but now I like to dwell on the love of the great Mediator, for it always warms my own heart, and I know that the gospel is the power of God—the great means which He employs for the regeneration of our ruined world."

In the beginning of 1849 Livingstone made the first of a series of journeys to the north, in the hope of planting native missionaries among the people. Not to interrupt the continuous account of these journeys, we may advert here to a visit paid to him at Kolobeng, on his return from the first of them, in the end of the year, by Mr. Freeman of the London Missionary Society, who was at that time visiting the African stations. Mr. Freeman, to Livingstone's regret, was in favor of keeping up all Colonial stations, because the London Society alone paid attention to the black population. He was not much in sympathy with Livingstone.

"Mr. Freeman," he writes confidentially to Mr. Watt, "gave us no hope to expect any new field to be taken up. 'Expenditure to be reduced in Africa' was the word, when I proposed the new region beyond us, and there is nobody willing to go except Mr. Moffat and myself. Six hundred miles additional land-carriage, mosquitoes in myriads, sparrows by the million, an epidemic frequently fatal, don't look well in a picture. I am 270 miles from Kuruman; land-carriage for all that we use makes a fearful inroad into the L100 of salary, and then 600 miles beyond this makes one think unutterable things, for nobody likes to call for more salary. I think the Indian salary ought to be given to those who go into the tropics. I have a very strong desire to go and reduce the new language to writing, but I cannot perform impossibilities. I don't think it quite fair for the Churches to expect their messenger to live, as if he were the Prodigal Son, on the husks that the swine do eat, but I should be ashamed to say so to any one but yourself."

"I cannot perform impossibilities," said Livingstone; but few men could come so near doing it. His activity of mind and body at this outskirt of civilization was wonderful. A Jack-of-all-trades, he is building houses and schools, cultivating gardens, scheming in every manner of way how to get water, which in the remarkable drought of the season becomes scarcer and scarcer; as a missionary he is holding meetings every other night, preaching on Sundays, and taking such other opportunities as he can find to gain the people to Christ; as a medical man he is dealing with the more difficult cases of disease, those which baffle the native doctors; as a man of science he is taking observations, collecting specimens, thinking out geographical, geological, meteorological, and other problems bearing on the structure and condition of the continent; as a missionary statesman he is planning how the actual force might be disposed of to most advantage, and is looking round in this direction and in that, over hundreds of miles, for openings for native agents; and to promote these objects he is writing long letters to the Directors, to the Missionary Chronicle to the British Banner, to private friends, to any one likely to take an interest in his plans.

But this does not exhaust his labors. He is deeply interested in philological studies, and is writing on the Sichuana language:

"I have been hatching a grammar of the Sichuana language," he writes to Mr. Watt. "It is different in structure from any other language, except the ancient Egyptian. Most of the changes are effected by means of prefixes or affixes, the radical remaining unchanged. Attempts have been made to form grammars, but all have gone on the principle of establishing a resemblance between Sichuana, Latin, and Greek; mine is on the principle of analysing the language without reference to any others. Grammatical terms are only used when I cannot express my meaning in any other way. The analysis renders the whole language very simple, and I believe the principle elicited extends to most of the languages between this and Egypt. I wish to know whether I could get 20 or 30 copies printed for private distribution at an expense not beyond my means. It would be a mere tract, and about the size of this letter when folded, 40 or 50 pages perhaps[28]. Will you ascertain the cost, and tell me whether, in the event of my continuing hot on the subject half a year hence, you would be the corrector of the press?... Will you examine catalogues to find whether there is any dictionary of ancient Egyptian within my means, so that I might purchase and compare? I should not grudge two or three pounds for it. Professor Vater has written on it, but I do not know what dictionary he consulted. One Tattam has written a Coptic grammar; perhaps that has a vocabulary, and might serve my purpose. I see Tattam advertised by John Russell Smith, 4 Old Compton Street, Soho, London,—'Tattam (H.), Lexicon Egyptiaco-Latinum e veteribus linguae Egyptiacae monumentis; thick 8vo, bds., 10s., Oxf., 1835.' Will you purchase the above for me?"

[Footnote 28: This gives a correct idea of the length of many of his letters.]

At Mabotsa and Chonuane the Livingstones had spent but a little time; Kolobeng may be said to have been the only permanent home they ever had. During these years several of their children were born, and it was the only considerable period of their lives when both had their children about them. Looking back afterward on this period, and its manifold occupations, whilst detained in Manyuema, in the year 1870, Dr. Livingstone wrote the following striking words:

The heart that felt this one regret in looking back to this busy time must have been true indeed to the instincts of a parent. But Livingstone's case was no exception to that mysterious law of our life in this world, by which, in so many things, we learn how to correct our errors only after the opportunity is gone. Of all the crooks in his lot, that which gave him so short an opportunity of securing the affections and moulding the character of his children seems to have been the hardest to bear. His long detention at Manyuema appears, as we shall see hereafter, to have been spent by him in learning more completely the lesson of submission to the will of God; and the hard trial of separation from his family, entailing on them what seemed irreparable loss, was among the last of his sorrows over which he was able to write the words with which he closes the account of his wife's death in the Zambesi and its Tributaries,—"FIAT, DOMINE, VOLUNTUS TUA!"



CHAPTER VI

KOLOBENG continued—LAKE 'NGAMI.

A.D. 1849-1852.

Kolobeng failing through drought—Sebituane's country and the Lake 'Ngami—Livingstone sets out with Messrs. Oswell and Murray—Rivers Zouga and Tamanak'le—Old ideas of the interior revolutionized—Enthusiasm of Livingstone—Discovers Lake 'Ngami—Obliged to return—Prize from Royal Geographical Society—Second expedition to the lake, with wife and children—Children attacked by fever—Again obliged to return—Conviction as to healthier spot beyond—Idea of finding passage to sea either west or east—Birth and death of a child—Family visits Kuruman—Third expedition, again with family—He hopes to find a new locality—Perils of the journey—He reaches Sebituane—The chiefs illness and death—Distress of Livingstone—Mr. Oswell and he go on the Linyanti—Discovery of the Upper Zambesi—No locality found for settlement—More extended journey necessary—He returns—Birth of Oswald Livingstone—Crisis in Livingstone's life—His guiding principles—New plans—The Makololo begin to practice slave-trade—New thoughts about commerce—Letters to Directors—The Bakwains—Pros and cons of his new plan—His unabated missionary zeal—He goes with his family to the Cape—His literary activity.

When Sechele turned back after going so far with Livingstone eastward, it appeared that his courage had failed him. "Will you go with me northward?" Livingstone once asked him, and it turned out that he was desirous to do so. He wished to see Sebituane, a great chief living to the north of Lake 'Ngami, who had saved his life in his infancy, and otherwise done him much service. Sebituane was a man of great ability, who had brought a vast number of tribes into subjection, and now ruled over a very extensive territory, being one of the greatest magnates of Africa. Livingstone, too, had naturally a strong desire to become acquainted with so influential a man. The fact of his living near the lake revived the project that had slumbered for years in his mind—to be the first of the missionaries who should look on its waters. At Kolobeng, too, the settlement was in such straits, owing to the excessive drought which dried up the very river, that the people would be compelled to leave it and settle elsewhere. The want of water, and consequently of food, in the gardens, obliged the men to be absent collecting locusts, so that there was hardly any one to come either to church or school. Even the observance of the Sabbath broke down. If Kolobeng should have to be abandoned, where would Livingstone go next? It was certainly worth his while to look if a suitable locality could not be found in Sebituane's territory. He had resolved that he would not stay with the Bakwains always. If the new region were not suitable for himself, he might find openings for native teachers; at all events, he would go northward and see. Just before he started, messengers came to him from Lechulatebe, chief of the people of the lake, asking him to visit his country, and giving such an account of the quantity of ivory that the cupidity of the Bakwain guides was roused, and they became quite eager to be there.

On 1st June, 1849, Livingstone accordingly set out from Kolobeng. Sechele was not of the party, but two English hunting friends accompanied him, Mr. Oswell and Mr. Murray—Mr. Oswell generously defraying the cost of the guides. Sekomi, a neighboring chief who secretly wished the expedition to fail, lest his monopoly of the ivory should be broken up, remonstrated with them for rushing on to certain death—they must be killed by the sun and thirst, and if he did not stop them, people would blame him for the issue. "No fear," said Livingstone, "people will only blame our own stupidity."

The great Kalahari desert, of which Livingstone has given so full an account, lay between them and the lake. They passed along its northeast border, and had traversed about half of the distance, when one day it seemed most unexpectedly that they had got to their journey's end. Mr. Oswell was a little in advance, and having cleared an intervening thick belt of trees, beheld in the soft light of the setting sun what seemed a magnificent lake twenty miles in circumference; and at the sight threw his hat in the air, and raised a shout which made the Bakwains think him mad. He fancied it was 'Ngami, and, indeed, it was a wonderful deception, caused by a large salt-pan gleaming in the light of the sun; in fact, the old, but ever new phenomenon of the mirage. The real 'Ngami was yet 300 miles farther on.

Livingstone has given ample details of his progress in the Missionary Travels, dwelling especially on his joy when he reached the beautiful river Zouga, whose waters flowed from 'Ngami. Providence frustrated an attempt to rouse ill-feeling against him on the part of two men who had been sent by Sekomi, apparently to help him, but who now went before him and circulated a report that the object of the travelers was to plunder all the tribes living on the river and the lake. Half-way up, the principal man was attacked by fever, and died; the natives thought it a judgment, and seeing through Sekomi's reason for wishing the expedition not to succeed, they by and by became quite friendly, under Livingstone's fair and kind treatment.

A matter of great significance in his future history occurred at the junction of the rivers Tamanak'le and Zouga:

"I inquired," he says, "whence the Tamanak'le came. 'Oh! from a country full of rivers,—so many, no one can tell their number, and full of large trees.' This was the first confirmation of statements I had heard from the Bakwains who had been with Sebituane, that the country beyond was not the 'large sandy plateau' of the philosophers. The prospect of a highway, capable of being traversed by boats to an entirely unexplored and very populous region, grew from that time forward stronger and stronger in my mind; so much so, that when we actually came to the lake, this idea occupied such a large portion of my mental vision, that the actual discovery seemed of but little importance. I find I wrote, when the emotions caused by the magnificent prospects of the new country were first awakened in my breast, that they might subject me to the charge of enthusiasm, a charge which I deserved, as nothing good or great had ever been accomplished in the world without it[29].'"

[Footnote 29: Missionary Travels, p. 65.]

Twelve days after, the travelers came to the northeast end of Lake 'Ngami, and it was on 1st August, 1849, that this fine sheet of water was beheld for the first time by Europeans. It was of such magnitude that they could not see the farther shore, and they could only guess its size from the reports of the natives that it took three days to go round it.

Lechulatebe, the chief who had sent him the invitation, was quite a young man, and his reception by no means corresponded to what the invitation implied. He had no idea of Livingstone going on to Sebituane, who lived two hundred miles farther north, and perhaps supplying him with fire-arms which would make him a more dangerous neighbor. He therefore refused Livingstone guides to Sebituane, and sent men to prevent him from crossing the river. Livingstone was not to be baulked, and worked many hours in the river trying to make a raft out of some rotten wood,—at the imminent risk of his life, as he afterward found, for the Zouga abounds with alligators. The season was now far advanced, and as Mr. Oswell volunteered to go down to the Cape and bring up a boat next year, the expedition was abandoned for the time.

Returning home by the Zouga, they had better opportunity to mark the extraordinary richness of the country, and the abundance and luxuriance of its products, both animal and vegetable. Elephants existed in crowds, and ivory was so abundant that a trader was purchasing it at the rate of ten tusks for a musket worth fifteen shillings. Two years later, after effect had been given to Livingstone's discovery, the price had risen very greatly.

Writing to his friend Watt, he dwells with delight on the river Zouga:

"It is a glorious river; you never saw anything so grand. The banks are extremely beautiful, lined with gigantic trees, many quite new. One bore a fruit a foot in length and three inches in diameter. Another measured seventy feet in circumference. Apart from the branches it looked like a mass of granite; and then the Bakoba in their canoes—did I not enjoy sailing in them? Remember how long I have been in a parched-up land, and answer. The Bakoba are a fine frank race of men, and seem to understand the message better than any people to whom I have spoken on Divine subjects for the first time. What think you of a navigable highway into a large section of the interior? yet that the Tamanak'le is.... Who will go into that goodly land? Who? Is it not the Niger of this part of Africa?... I greatly enjoyed sailing in their canoes, rude enough things, hollowed out of the trunks of single trees, and visiting the villages along the Zouga. I felt but little when I looked on the lake; but the Zouga and Tamanak'le awakened emotions not to be described. I hope to go up the latter next year."

The discovery of the lake and the river was communicated to the Royal Geographical Society in extracts from Livingstone's letters to the London Missionary Society, and to his friend and former fellow-traveler, Captain Steele. In 1849 the Society voted him a sum of twenty-five guineas "for his successful journey, in company with Messrs. Oswell and Murray, across the South African desert, for the discovery of an interesting country, a fine river, and an extensive inland lake." In addressing Dr. Tidman and Alderman Challis, who represented the London Missionary Society, the President (the late Captain, afterward Rear-Admiral, W. Smyth, R.N., who distinguished himself in early life by his journey across the Andes to Lima, and thence to the Atlantic) adverted to the value of the discoveries in themselves, and in the influence they would have on the regions beyond. He spoke also of the help which Livingstone had derived as an explorer from his influence as a missionary. The journey he had performed successfully had hitherto baffled the best-furnished travelers. In 1834, an expedition under Dr. Andrew Smith, the largest and best-appointed that ever left Cape Town, had gone as far as 23 deg. south latitude; but that proved to be the utmost distance they could reach, and they were compelled to return. Captain Sir James E. Alexander, the only scientific traveler subsequently sent out from England by the Geographical Society, in despair of the lake, and of discovery by the oft-tried eastern route, explored the neighborhood of the western coast instead[30]. The President frankly ascribed Livingstone's success to the influence he had acquired as a missionary among the natives, and Livingstone thoroughly believed this. "The lake," he wrote to his friend Watt, "belongs to missionary enterprise." "Only last year," he subsequently wrote to the Geographical Society, "a party of engineers, in about thirty wagons, made many and persevering efforts to cross the desert at different points, but though inured to the climate, and stimulated by the prospect of gain from the ivory they expected to procure, they were compelled, for want of water, to give up the undertaking." The year after Livingstone's first visit, Mr. Francis Galton tried, but failed, to reach the lake, though he was so successful in other directions as to obtain the Society's gold medal in 1852.

[Footnote 30: Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, vol. xx. p. xxviii.]

Livingstone was evidently gratified at the honor paid him, and the reception of the twenty-five guineas from the Queen. But the gift had also a comical side. It carried him back to the days of his Radical youth, when he and his friends used to criticise pretty sharply the destination of the nation's money. "The Royal Geographical Society," he writes to his parents (4th December, 1850), "have awarded twenty-five guineas for the discovery of the lake. It is from the Queen. You must be very loyal, all of you. Next time she comes your way, shout till you are hoarse. Oh, you Radicals, don't be thinking it came out of your pockets! Long live Victoria[31]!"

[Footnote 31: In a more serious vein he wrote in a previous letter: "I wonder you do not go to see the Queen. I was as disloyal as others when in England, for though I might have seen her in London, I never went. Do you ever pray for her?" This letter is dated 5th February, 1850, and must have been written before he heard of the prize.]

Defeated in his endeavor to reach Sebituane in 1849, Livingstone, the following season, put in practice his favorite maxim, "Try again." He left Kolobeng in April, 1850, and this time he was accompanied by Sechele, Mebalwe, twenty Bakwains, Mrs. Livingstone, and their whole troop of infantry, which now amounted to three. Traveling in the charming climate of South Africa in the roomy wagon, at the pace of two miles and a half an hour, is not like traveling at home; but it was a proof of Livingstone's great unwillingness to be separated from his family, that he took them with him, notwithstanding the risk of mosquitoes, fever, and want of water. The people of Kolobeng were so engrossed at the time with their employments, that till harvest was over, little missionary work could be done.

The journey was difficult, and on the northern branch of the Zouga many trees had to be cut down to allow the wagons to pass. The presence of a formidable enemy was reported on the banks of the Tamanak'le,—the tsetse-fly, whose bite is so fatal to oxen. To avoid it, another route had to be chosen. When they got near the lake, it was found that fever had recently attacked a party of Englishmen, one of whom had died, while the rest recovered under the care of Dr. and Mrs. Livingstone. Livingstone took his family to have a peep at the lake; "the children," he wrote, "took to playing in it as ducklings do. Paidling in it was great fun." Great fun to them, who had seen little enough water for a while; and in a quiet way, great fun to their father too,—his own children "paidling" in his own lake! He was beginning to find that in a missionary point of view, the presence of his wife and children was a considerable advantage; it inspired the natives with confidence, and promoted tender feelings and kind relations. The chief, Lechulatebe, was at last propitiated at a considerable sacrifice, having taken a fancy to a valuable rifle of Livingstone's, the gift of a friend, which could not be replaced. The chief vowed that if he got it he would give Livingstone everything he wished, and protect and feed his wife and children into the bargain, while he went on to Sebituane. Livingstone at once handed him the gun. "It is of great consequence," he said, "to gain the confidence of these fellows at the beginning." It was his intention that Mrs. Livingstone and the children should remain at Lechulatebe's until he should have returned. But the scheme was upset by an outburst of fever. Among others, two of the children were attacked. There was no help but to go home. The gun was left behind in the hope that ere long Livingstone would get back to claim the fulfillment of the chiefs promise. It was plain that the neighborhood of the lake was not habitable by Europeans. Hence a fresh confirmation of his views as to the need of native agency, if intertropical Africa was ever to be Christianized.

But Livingstone was convinced that there must be a healthier spot to the north. Writing to Mr. Watt (18th August, 1850), he not only expresses this conviction, but gives the ground on which it rested. The extract which we subjoin gives a glimpse of the sagacity that from apparently little things drew great conclusions; but more than that, it indicates the birth of the great idea that dominated the next period of Livingstone's life—the desire and determination to find a passage to the sea, either on the east or the west coast:

"A more salubrious climate must exist farther up to the north, and that the country is higher, seems evident from the fact mentioned by the Bakoba, that the water of the Teoge, the river that falls into the 'Ngami at the northwest point of it, flows with great rapidity. Canoes ascending, punt all the way, and the men must hold on by reeds in order to prevent their being carried down by the current. Large trees, spring-bucks and other antelopes are sometimes brought down by it. Do you wonder at my pressing on in the way we have done? The Bechuana mission has been carried on in a cul-de-sac. I tried to break through by going among the Eastern tribes, but the Boers shut up that field. A French missionary, Mr. Fredoux, of Motito, tried to follow on my trail to the Bamangwato, but was turned back by a party of armed Boers. When we burst through the barrier on the north, it appeared very plain that no mission could be successful there, unless we could get a well-watered country leaving a passage to the sea on either the east or west coast. This project I am almost afraid to meet, but nothing else will do. I intend (D.V.) to go in next year and remain a twelvemonth. My wife, poor soul—I pity her!—proposed to let me go for that time while she remained at Kolobeng. You will pray for us both during that period."

A week later (August 24, 1850) he writes to the Directors that no convenient access to the region can be obtained from the south, the lake being 870 miles from Kuruman:

"We must have a passage to the sea on either the eastern or western coast. I have hitherto been afraid to broach the subject on which my perhaps dreamy imagination dwells. You at home are accustomed to look on a project as half finished when you have received the co-operation of the ladies. My better half has promised me a twelvemonth's leave of absence for mine. Without promising anything, I mean to follow a useful motto in many circumstances, and Try again."

On returning to Kolobeng, Mrs. Livingstone was delivered of a daughter—her fourth child. An epidemic was raging at the time, and the child was seized and cut off, at the age of six weeks. The loss, or rather the removal, of the child affected Livingstone greatly. "It was the first death in our family," he says in his Journal, "but was just as likely to have happened had we remained at home, and We have now one of our number in heaven."

To his parents he writes (4th December, 1850):

"Our last child, a sweet little girl with blue eyes, was taken from us to join the company of the redeemed, through the merits of Him of whom she never heard. It is wonderful how soon the affections twine round a little stranger. We felt her loss keenly. She was attacked by the prevailing sickness, which attacked many native children, and bore up under it for a fortnight. We could not apply remedies to one so young, except the simplest. She uttered a piercing cry previous to expiring, and then went away to see the King in his beauty, and the land—the glorious land, and its inhabitants. Hers is the first grave in all that country marked as the resting-place of one of whom it is believed and confessed that she shall live again."

Mrs. Livingstone had an attack of serious illness, accompanied by paralysis of the right side of the face, and rest being essential for her, the family went, for a time, to Kuruman. Dr. Livingstone had a strong desire to go to the Cape for the excision of his uvula, which had long been troublesome. But, with characteristic self-denial, he put his own case out of view, staying with his wife, that she might have the rest and attention she needed. He tried to persuade his father-in-law to perform the operation, and, under his direction, Dr. Moffat went so far as to make a pair of scissors for the purpose; but his courage, so well tried in other fields, was not equal to the performance of such a surgical operation.

Some glimpses of Livingstone's musings at this time, showing, among other things, how much more he thought of his spiritual than his Highland ancestry, occur in a letter to his parents, written immediately after his return from his second visit to the lake (28th July, 1850). If they should carry out their project of emigration to America, they would have an interesting family gathering:

"One, however, will be 'over the hills and far away' from your happy meeting. The meeting which we hope will take place in Heaven will be unlike a happy one, in so far as earthly relationships are concerned. One will be so much taken up in looking at Jesus, I don't know when we shall be disposed to sit down and talk about the days of lang syne. And then there will be so many notables whom we should like to notice and shake hands with—Luke, for instance, the beloved physician, and Jeremiah, and old Job, and Noah, and Enoch, that if you are wise, you will make the most of your union while you are together, and not fail to write me fully, while you have the opportunity here....

"Charles thinks we are not the descendants of the Puritans. I don't know what you are, but I am. And if you dispute it, I shall stick to the answer of a poor little boy before a magistrate. M.—'Who were your parents?' Boy (rubbing his eyes with his jacket-sleeve)—'Never had none, sir.' Dr. Wardlaw says that the Scotch Independents are the descendants of the Puritans, and I suppose the pedigree is through Rowland Hill and Whitefield. But I was a member of the very church in which John Howe, the chaplain of Oliver Cromwell, preached, and exercised the pastorate. I was ordained, too, by English Independents. Moreover, I am a Doctor too. Agnes and Janet, get up this moment and curtsy to his Reverence! John and Charles, remember the dream of the sheaves! I descended from kilts and Donald Dhus? Na, na, I won't believe it.

"We have a difficult, difficult field to cultivate here. All I can say is, that I think knowledge is increasing. But for the belief that the Holy Spirit works, and will work for us, I should give up in despair. Remember us in your prayers, that we grow not weary in well-doing. It is hard to work for years with pure motives, and all the time be looked on by most of those to whom our lives are devoted, as having some sinister object in view. Disinterested labor—benevolence—is so out of their line of thought, that many look upon us as having some ulterior object in view. But He who died for us, and whom we ought to copy, did more for us than we can do for any one else. He endured the contradiction of sinners. May we have grace to follow in his steps!'

The third, and at last successful, effort to reach Sebituane was made in April, 1851. Livingstone was again accompanied by his family, and by Mr. Oswell. He left Kolobeng with the intention not to return, at least not immediately, but to settle with his family in such a spot as might be found advantageous, in the hilly region, of whose existence he was assured. They found the desert drier than ever, no rain having fallen throughout an immense extent of territory. To the kindness of Mr. Oswell the party was indebted for most valuable assistance in procuring water, wells having been dug or cleared by his people beforehand at various places, and at one place at the hazard of Mr. Oswell's life, under an attack from an infuriated lioness. In his private Journal, and in his letters to home, Livingstone again and again acknowledges with deepest gratitude the numberless acts of kindness done by Mr. Oswell to him and his family, and often adds the prayer that God would reward him, and of His grace give him the highest of all blessings. "Though I cannot repay, I may record with gratitude his kindness, so that, if spared to look upon these, my private memoranda, in future years, proper emotions may ascend to Him who inclined his heart to show so much friendship."

The party followed the old route, around the bed of the Zouga, then crossed a piece of the driest desert they had ever seen, with not an insect or a bird to break the stillness. On the third day a bird chirped in a bush, when the dog began to bark! Shobo, their guide, a Bushman, lost his way, and for four days they were absolutely without water. In his Missionary Travels, Livingstone records quietly, as was his wont his terrible anxiety about his children.

"The supply of water in the wagons had been wasted by one of our servants, and by the afternoon only a small portion remained for the children. This was a bitterly anxious night; and next morning, the less there was of water, the more thirsty the little rogues became. The idea of their perishing before our eyes was terrible; it would almost have been a relief to me to have been reproached with being the entire cause of the catastrophe, but not one syllable of upbraiding was uttered by their mother, though the tearful eye told the agony within. In the afternoon of the fifth day, to our inexpressible relief, some of the men returned with a supply of that fluid of which we had never before felt the true value."

"No one," he remarks in his Journal, "knows the value of water till be is deprived of it. We never need any spirits to qualify it, or prevent an immense draught of it from doing us harm. I have drunk water swarming with insects, thick with mud, putrid from other mixtures, and no stinted draughts of it either, yet never felt any inconvenience from it."

"My opinion is," he said on another occasion, "that the most severe labors and privations may be undergone without alcoholic stimulus, because those who have endured the most had nothing else but water, and not always enough of that."

One of the great charms of Livingstone's character, and one of the secrets of his power—his personal interest in each individual, however humble—appeared in connection with Shobo, the Bushman guide, who misled them and took the blunder so coolly. "What a wonderful people," he says in his Journal, "the Bushmen are! always merry and laughing, and never telling lies wantonly like the Bechuana. They have more of the appearance of worship than any of the Bechuana. When will these dwellers in the wilderness bow down before their Lord? No man seems to care for the Bushman's soul. I often wished I knew their language, but never more than when we traveled with our Bushman guide, Shobo."

Livingstone had given a fair trial to the experiment of traveling along with his family. In one of his letters at this time he speaks of the extraordinary pain caused by the mosquitoes of those parts, and of his children being so covered with their bites, that not a square inch of whole skin was to be found on their bodies. It is no wonder that he gave up the idea of carrying them with him in the more extended journey he was now contemplating. He could not leave them at Kolobeng, exposed to the raids of the Boers; to Kuruman there were also invincible objections; the only possible plan was to send them to England, though he hoped that when he got settled in some suitable part of Sebituane's dominions, with a free road to the sea, they would return to him, and help him to bring the people to Christ.

In the Missionary Travels Livingstone has given a full account of Sebituane, chief of the Makololo, "unquestionably the greatest man in all that country"—his remarkable career, his wonderful warlike exploits (for which he could always bring forward justifying reasons), his interesting and attractive character, and wide and powerful influence. In one thing Sebituane was very like Livingstone himself; he had the art of gaining the affections both of his own people and of strangers. When a party of poor men came to his town to sell hoes or skins, he would sit down among them, talk freely and pleasantly to them, and probably cause some lordly dish to be brought, and give them a feast on it, perhaps the first they had ever shared. Delighted beyond measure with his affability and liberality, they felt their hearts warm toward him; and as he never allowed a party of strangers to go away without giving every one of them—servants and all—a present, his praises were sounded far and wide. "He has a heart! he is wise!" were the usual expressions Livingstone heard before he saw him.

Sebituane received Livingstone with great kindness, for it had been one of the dreams of his life to have intercourse with the white man. He placed full confidence in him from the beginning, and was ready to give him everything he might need. On the first Sunday when the usual service was held he was present, and Livingstone was very thankful that he was there, for it turned out to be the only proclamation of the gospel he ever heard. For just after realizing what he had so long and ardently desired, he was seized with severe inflammation of the lungs, and died after a fortnight's illness. Livingstone, being a stranger, feared to prescribe, lest, in the event of his death, he should be accused of having caused it. On visiting him, and seeing that he was dying, he spoke a few words respecting hope after death. But being checked by the attendants for introducing the subject, he could only commend his soul to God. The last words of Sebituane were words of kindness to Livingstone's son: "Take him to Maunku (one of his wives) and tell her to give him some milk." Livingstone was deeply affected by his death. A deeper sense of brotherhood, a warmer glow of affection had been kindled in his heart toward Sebituane than had seemed possible. With his very tender conscience and deep sense of spiritual realities, Livingstone was afraid, as in the case of Sehamy eight years before, that he had not spoken to him so pointedly as he might have done. It is awfully affecting to follow him into the unseen world, of which he had heard for the first time just before he was called away. In his Journal, Livingstone gives way to his feelings as he very seldom allowed himself to do. His words bring to mind David's lament for Jonathan or for Absalom, although he had known Sebituane less than a month, and he was one of the race whom many Boers and slave-stealers regarded as having no souls:

"Poor Sebituane, my heart bleeds for thee; and what would I not do for thee now? I will weep for thee till the day of my death. Little didst thou think when, in the visit of the white man, thou sawest the long cherished desires of years accomplished, that the sentence of death had gone forth! Thou thoughtest that thou shouldest procure a weapon from the white man which would be a shield from the attacks of the fierce Matebele; but a more deadly dart than theirs was aimed at thee; and though, thou couldest well ward off a dart—none ever better—thou didst not see that of the king of terrors. I will weep for thee, my brother, and I will cast forth my sorrows in despair for thy condition! But I know that thou wilt receive no injustice whither thou art gone; 'Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?' I leave thee to Him. Alas! alas! Sebituane. I might have said more to him. God forgive me. Free me from blood-guiltiness. If I had said more of death I might have been suspected as having foreseen the event, and as guilty of bewitching him. I might have recommended Jesus and his great atonement more. It is, however, very difficult to break through the thick crust of ignorance which envelops their minds."

The death of Sebituane was a great blow in another sense. The region over which his influence extended was immense, and he had promised to show it to Livingstone and to select a suitable locality for his residence. This heathen chief would have given to Christ's servant what the Boers refused him! Livingstone would have had his wish—an entirely new country to work upon, where the name of Christ had never yet been spoken. So at least he thought. Sebituane's successor in the chiefdom was his daughter, Ma-mochisane. From her he received liberty to visit any part of the country he chose. While waiting for a reply (she was residing at a distance), he one day fell into a great danger from an elephant which had come on him unexpectedly. "We were startled by his coming a little way in the direction in which we were standing, but he did not give us chase. I have had many escapes. We seem immortal till our work is done."