304 DAVID LIVINGSTONE, THE BELOVED MISSIONARY 



On the 20th of Novemher, in All)ion Street Chapel, London, Liv- 

 ingstone received his formal commission to preach the Word. Less 

 than a month afterwards, he was sailing southward on the Atlantic, 

 bound for the Cape of Good Hope. 



At this time Kuruman, about 700 miles northeast of Capetown, 

 was the most northerly missionary station in South Africa. Kuru- 

 man, in fact, was the only place for a hundred miles round where 

 j Europeans could settle and exist. And even at Kuruman the excessive 

 droughts which are the curse of the greater part of South Africa were 

 not unknown. Bechuanaland was essentially a dry country — so dry, 

 indeed, that Livingstone has told us that needles could be left for 

 months exposed to the outer air without rusting. To grow crops with 

 success irrigation was necessary, and Moffat had won the confidence 

 of the natives by his active exertions to procure by this means security 

 for the harvest. 



When Livingstone arrived at Kuruman, he found affairs in a 

 prosperous condition. From a few Hottentot servants the Christian 

 congregation had increased to about a thousand, the mission-house 

 and church had been rebuilt on a larger scale and of stone, the schools 

 had become flourishing institutions, and the advance of civilization 

 w^as marked by those of the natives wdio could afford it purchasing 

 wagons and using oxen for labor in the place of women. "The gar- 

 dens," wrote Livingstone, "irrigated by the Kuruman rivulet, are well 

 stocked wath fruit trees and vines, and yield European vegetables and 

 grain readily. The pleasantness of the place is enhanced by the con- 

 trast it presents to the surrounding scenery, and the fact that it owes 

 all its beauty to the manual labor of the missionaries. Externally it 

 presents a picture of civilized comfort to the adjacent tribes; and by 

 its printing-press . . . the light of Christianity is gradually dif- 

 fused in the surrounding region." 



Wliile awaiting the permission of the Society to erect a mission- 

 station north of Kuruman, Livingstone was journeying up and down 

 the whole Bechuana country. He visited the Bakwains — w^hose chief, 

 Sechele, became a great friend — the Bamangwato, the Bakaa, and the 

 Bakhatla in succession, studying their language and customs, and in 

 every way equipping himself for useful effort among them. In the 



