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 Sechéle, 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 theEvangelical, 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 inPunchas 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?"
A.D. 1847-1852.
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 Sechéle--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 Sechéle: "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 Sechéles 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. Sechéle 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."
[26]Mr. Gordon Cumming.
The prayer regarding Sechéle 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 £2, 13s. 6d. Purchasing a loaf and a piece of cheese asviaticum, 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].
[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 hisMissionary Travelsthat 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 Sechéle 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 Sechéle, 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:
"May20, 1848.--Spoke to Sechéle 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, August6.--Sechéle 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 (Sechéle) with very bitter curses, and these come from the mouths of those whom Sechéle would formerly have destroyed for a single disrespectful word. The truth will, by the aid of the Spirit of God, ultimately prevail."Oct. 1.--Sechéle 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 Sechéle'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 £4, 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 £100 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 theMissionary Chronicleto theBritish 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?"
[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:
#/ "I often ponder over my missionary career among the Bakwains or Bakwaina, and though conscious of many imperfections, not a single pang of regret arises in the view of my conduct, except that I did not feel it to be my duty, while spending all my energy in teaching the heathen, to devote a special portion of my time to play with my children. But generally I was so much exhausted with the mental and manual labor of the day, that in the evening there was no fun left in me. I did not play with my little ones while I had them, and they soon sprung up in my absences, and left me conscious that I had none to play with." #/
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 theZambesi and its Tributaries,--"FIAT, DOMINE, VOLUNTUS TUA!"
A.D. 1849-1852.
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--Prosandconsof his new plan--His unabated missionary zeal--He goes with his family to the Cape--His literary activity.
When Sechéle 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. Sechéle 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 theMissionary 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].'"
[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."