1841-43] FIRST TWO YEARS IN AFRICA. 37 



CHAPTER III. 



FIRST TWO YEARS IN AFRICA. 

 a.d. 1841-1843. 



His ordination — Voyage out — At Rio cle Janeiro — At the Cape — He proceeds to 

 Kuruman — Letters — Journey of 700 miles to Bechuana country — Selection of 

 site for new station — Second excursion to Bechuana country — Letter to his 

 sister — Influence with chiefs — Bubi —Construction of a water-dam — Sekomi 

 — Woman seized by a lion — The Bakaa — Sebehwe — Letter to Dr. Risdon 

 Bennett — Detention at Kiiruman — He visits Sebehwe's village — Bakhatlas — 

 Sechele, chief of Bakwains — Livingstone translates hymns — Travels 400 miles 

 on oxback — Returns to Kuruman — Is authorised to form new station — 

 Receives contributions for native missionary — Letters to Directors on their 

 Mission pobcy — He goes to new station — Fellow-travellers — Purchase of site 

 — Letter to Dr. Bennett — Desiccation of South Africa — Death of a servant, 

 Sehamy — Letter to his parents. 



Ox the 20th November 1840, Livingstone was ordained 

 a missionary in Albion Street Chapel, along with the 

 Rev. William Ross, the service being conducted by the 

 Rev. J. J. Freeman and the Rev. R. Cecil. On the 8th 

 of December he embarked on board the ship " George," 

 under Captain Donaldson, and proceeded to the Cape, and 

 thence to Algoa Bay. On the way the ship had to put 

 in at Rio de Janeiro, and he had a glance at Brazil, with 

 which he was greatly charmed. It was the only glimpse 

 he ever got of any part of the great continent of 

 America. Writing to the Rev. G. D. Watt, with whom 

 he had become intimate in London, and who was pre- 

 paring to go as a missionary to India, he says : — 



■' It is certainly the finest place I ever saw ; everything delighted 

 me except man. . . . We lived in the home of an American Episcopal 

 Methodist minister — the only Protestant missionary in Brazil. . . . 



