ANYWHERE PROVIDED IT BE FORWARD; OR, THE MAN WHO CONQUERED CIRCUMSTANCES
“O little thought my mother,
The day she cradled me,
The lands I was to travel in,
Or the death I was to die.”
“Yet does a sense of weakness mar
Earth's noblest songs of praise.”
THIS is the third house I have built with my own hands, Mary; and the third that I have left for others to enjoy. Then there was the drain and watercourse by which we hoped the natives would be able to cultivate the soil," said Livingstone to his wife, one bright morning in June, 1849.
“Yes, it is hard, David. The enmity of the Boers prevents you teaching the people on the East, and it is evident that you must now penetrate into the unknown North.”
“The Boers have just sent a demand to the Cape for my recall I refused to teach the natives that they were inferior to the Boers, or to act as a spy on their behalf. On my last journey a party of armed Boers entered a village and demanded thirty women to weed their gardens. Of course they had no payment for the toil 'We permit them to live in our country,' said their leader, `only on condition that the black property work for us.' They have circulated a ridiculous story that I have given guns to the natives—you know I have scarcely one for myself—and have a cannon here, meaning our cooking pot.”
Accompanied by two English friends, Messrs. Murray and Oswell, Livingstone left Kolobeng, and coasted along the north-east border of the great Kalahari Desert. They were still three hundred miles from Lake Ngami, towards which they were journeying, when Mr. Oswell, who was in advance, suddenly shouted, "The water! the lake Hurray!”
“Twenty miles in circumference at least," said Livingstone. "How the waves dance in the setting sun What a splendid sheet of water!”
But when they endeavored to approach the supposed lake the illusion vanished, and instead of cooling and refreshing water they found a huge fire pan of sand, gleaming in the sun's setting rays. This appearance or mirage deceived them more than once before they reached the north end of the lake, which they first saw on the 1st August, 1849.
“How large is it; we cannot see the further shore?" asked Livingstone of the natives who gathered round him.
“It takes us three days to go round it," was the reply.
“Allowing twenty-five miles per day for the journey, that will be about seventy-five miles in circumference," observed Livingstone to his two English traveling companions.
“But what are we to do for food?" asked one of his friends.
“On the way," replied Livingstone, "the chief; instead of selling us cattle and sheep, offered us elephants' tusks. He said, 'White men, I know, are fond of bones. Batauana men want goats to eat themselves.' A man, the other day, when I gave him some apricots, in reply to my question as to whether he liked them, remarked, Did you ever taste white ant?' No,' said I. Then,' replied he, you don't know what is good. If you once tasted white ant you would never want to eat any better food ' “It is a strange country this Africa," said Mr. Oswell. "In one part the natives file their teeth so as to make them look like a footstool, in other parts they make them like the teeth of a saw.”
“But the women's head dresses amuse me," added Mr. Murray; "done into little ringlets that are afterward attached to a hoop. It looks like having a cartwheel round the head. Whatever singular fancy possesses the people to dress so?”
“Not a more singular custom than some of our own," replied Livingstone. "Nor do I think the putting of wooden blocks into the lips, as these people do, a bit more singular than our custom of wearing earrings. It is exactly the same principle, only one habit we have become accustomed to see and the other is as yet not imported into England.”
“May it never be.... But this chief is tiresome.”
“He will not give us guides to Sebitaune, to whom I am going," said Livingstone, "or let us hire his boats to cross the river. I will build a raft myself and get over the river in spite of him.”
But the only timber they could obtain was so rotten that, though Livingstone worked many hours in the water at great risk of his life from the alligators that abound in the stream, it was resolved at last to return to Kolobeng and to bring a boat from the Cape with them on a second journey.
Traveling along the banks of the river Zouga, which feeds the lake, they returned to Kolobeng. At that time elephants were so numerous in the district that ten tusks of ivory could be purchased for about fifteen shillings. They were delighted and amazed with the great trees, one being 70 feet in circumference, another bearing a fruit a foot long and three inches in diameter.
For the discovery of this lake and river the Royal Geographical Society voted Livingstone a sum of twenty-five guineas as a slight recognition of his splendid services.
In April, 1850, accompanied by his wife and their three children, Livingstone started again to visit Sebitaune. Sechele, the chief of Kolobeng, and some twenty natives accompanied the party, who were able to undertake the expedition because they were hindered from missionary work at that period, it being near the harvest time.
The journey, at their rate of about two and a-half miles per hour, was very tedious; trees had to be cut down to permit the ox wagon to pass, the oxen fell into pit-falls, and when at last they reached the lake the chief again refused to permit them to pass northwards as he had done the year previous. But the gift of a valuable rifle, upon which he had set his heart, at last induced him to alter his mind. A new difficulty arose from the outbreak of fever, which struck down two of his children, and compelled Livingstone reluctantly once more to return home.
“Never mind, Mary," he said, "try again does it." "That seems your favorite motto, David.”
“Yes, dear, try again generally conquers difficulties." A little daughter, who was born at this period, was cut off at the age of six weeks by an epidemic raging in the village. It was the first death in the happy circle, the first grave of many who have died for Africa.
“A sweet little creature with blue eyes, she was," said Livingstone to his friend, Mebalwe; "how one's affections quickly twine round a little stranger, and how keenly we miss her! 'Only a child!' I have heard people say, but do you know, I fancy one suffers more when the baby goes than when older friends leave us? Mrs. Livingstone, too, is so ill, and has paralysis of the right side of her face. I must take her to Kuruman to be nursed. When she is better, I will myself go to the Cape for a surgical operation; but before I try for personal relief, I will try to reach Sebitaune and his people called the Makololo.”
“Will you come back to live at Kolobeng “No; but if I can find a healthy spot in the interior there will I pitch my tent.”
In April, 1851, accompanied by his wife and family, Livingstone again set out northwards, Mr. Oswell being once more with them. It would have been dangerous to have left his family at Kolobeng, owing to the Boers, who hated missionaries and especially Livingstone. Rather than send the children to England, Livingstone preferred taking them with him in search of what he hoped would be a permanent home.
The children added to his anxiety as much as to his joy, for they suffered terribly from mosquito bites. Some bitterly anxious nights, too, the parents spent owing to the servants having wasted their supply of drinking water, which could not be obtained again for a long period.
Sebitaune received the travelers kindly. The tall olive-colored chief was the most affable and powerful monarch they had met in Africa. But all hope of settling permanently among the Makololo was frustrated by the death of Sebitaune, whose power passed to his daughter.
Accompanied still by Mr. Oswell, Livingstone went further north, and on the 3rd of August discovered the beautiful river Zambesi.
He was now compelled to turn his face southwards, being much disturbed by the hostile criticisms of many friends, who looked upon his course as wrong, especially condemning his taking his wife and children with him upon his journey.
“I have generally managed to think for myself and act accordingly," said Livingstone to his wife in reference to one critic. " I have occasionally met with people who have taken upon themselves to act for me, and they have offered their thoughts with an emphatic I think,' but I have generally excused them on the score of being a little soft-headed in believing that they could think both for me and for themselves. But Mary, I tell you what does so vex me. They seem in London to wonder that I can't convert men. I preach the Gospel to them, and I am sure that the people love me, but they are not willing to become Christians. I can't in truth say now there are fifty converted; and, therefore, they write to me from England, and say ` Be sure you press upon the people the fact that Christ loved them and died for them.' Just as if I did not understand better than people in London the needs of the native heart.”
“Never mind, David; we at least make no sham. It would be easy to get the people to say that they are converted, but what good would that do them?”
“None, Mary. I am resolved to continue doing my duty whatever it cost; and if I don't see any fruit come from it-well, I will not murmur. But I will not attempt to force emotions, to please any man, nor to allege results that are not real. Better wait forever without a single convert than to do this. There are some people who are never satisfied unless you are shouting out, Twenty souls converted; ' as if it were not Christ's work to lift these poor degraded people out of their unthinking savagery into a state of decency and self-respect. In Christian work I think it is as when one melts ice; a lot of heat goes to melt the ice, but the water is still cold; the heat, however, has not been wasted, because IT has been absorbed, then more heat will convert the water into steam. I'm now melting the ice; perhaps someone else will obtain the credit when the water boils.”
“Look at father at Kuruman. It seemed hopeless to expect a change, but he still kept on, and at last the people were converted.'
“Let us keep on too, Mary I will talk it over with your father when we go to Kuruman. Your father and mother are well worth consulting, and would be even if they did not belong to us, but were perfect strangers.”
“I should have liked to settle down with the Bakwains at Kolobeng, and live out my days in quiet service," said Livingstone to Mr. Moffat at the Kuruman, after his return from Sebitaune's country; "but when I got there I found the people so scattered by hunger and the Boers, that I feel Providence seems to call me to the regions beyond, and I will go north no matter who opposes.”
“We don't think you should give up your missionary work, though," replied his father-in-law. "I am a believer in the power of regular and patient work. Keeping on must win in the end; indeed, it is only persistent, untiring patience that will succeed in anything.”
“I am a missionary, heart and soul," replied Livingstone." God had one only Son, and He was a Missionary and a Physician. A poor, poor imitation of Him I am, but I wish to be like Him. In this service I hope to live, in it I hope to die, but I must obey what I feel to be the call of God.”
On 23rd April, 1852, he accordingly sent Mrs. Livingstone and her four children to England, it being perfectly impossible to permit them to grow up amidst the awful influences of heathenism, corrupt and immoral as those influences always are.
For two months after their departure Livingstone waited at the Cape. After having undergone the surgical operation he required, the authorities there did their utmost to prevent his penetrating into the interior.
On the 8th of June, 1852, he left the Cape, his wagon loaded to double its usual weight, through his good nature in taking packages for others. It was not until the 29th of August that he reached Kuruman. The breaking down of a wheel detained him at that place another fortnight; a providential hindrance which prevented his being killed. Had he reached Kolobeng as he hoped and intended, he would have been present at the attack which six hundred Boers, headed by Pretorius, made upon Kolobeng. Livingstone's house they completely gutted; tore the leaves out of the books; broke the medicine bottles; and carried off tea, coffee, cattle—in fact everything that was worth removal “At least £300 worth of property, and many of the things brought to the house by my wife when she was married!" he remarked. "And these men try to justify their deeds from Scripture!" added Mary Moffat, his mother-in-law.
“Never mind," he replied, "we shall remove the more easily, now that we are lightened of our furniture. They have taken away our sofa. After all, I seldom had a good rest upon it. We had only made it just before I left. Well, they have not taken away the stones; I can get a good seat upon one of them, in spite of the Boers, and sit with a merry heart, too, which doeth good like a medicine.”
“They mean to prevent your going into the interior," said Mary Moffat.
“Yes, but I mean to open up the country, or die in the attempt. I'll find a path or make one; and by God's grace will kill this awful slave trade. How these men can call themselves Christians and yet rob and slay the poor innocent natives, I can't understand. Said one of the Dutchmen to me, As well teach a parcel of baboons, as these black cattle.' But by God's grace I will set my foot down and defeat their plans. I will open the interior and destroy the slave trade.”
And he did as he said. Through his heroic labors this terrible scourge to humanity was exposed to the civilized nations of the world, and the first steps taken to root it out.