KURUMAN : ITS FOUNTAIN. 63 



Litter require frequent repairs, none of the Bechuanas have 

 ever learned to mend them. Forges and tools have been 

 at their service, and teachers willing to aid them, but, 

 beyond putting together a camp-stool, no effort has ever 

 been made to acquire a knowledge of the trades. They 

 observe most carefully a missionary at work until they 

 understand whether a tire is well welded or not, and then 

 pronounce upon its merits with great emphasis; but there 

 their ambition rests satisfied. It is the same peculiarity 

 among ourselves which leads us in other matters, such as 

 book-making, to attain the excellence of fault-finding 

 without the wit to indite a page. It was in vain I tried 

 to indoctrinate the Bechuanas with the idea that criticism 

 did not imply any superiority over the workman, or even 

 equality with him. 



CHAPTEK VI. 



DR. LIVINGSTONE VISITS HIS FATHER-IN-LAW, MR. MOFFAT, 

 AT KURUMAN. 



The permanence of the station called Kuruman depends 

 entirely on the fine ever-flowing fountain of that name. 

 It comes from beneath the trap-rock, and, as it usually 

 issues at a temperature of 72° Fahr., it probably comes 

 from the old Silurian schists which formed the bottom of 

 the great primeval valley of the continent. I could not 

 detect any diminution in the flow of this gushing fountain 

 during my residence in the country; but when Mr. Moffat 

 first attempted a settlement here, thirty-five years ago, be 

 made a dam six or seven miles below the present one, and 

 led out the stream for irrigation, where not a drop of the 

 fountain-water ever now flows. Other parts, fourteen miles 

 Deiow the Kuruman gardens, are pointed out as having 



