62 DAVID LIVINGSTONE. [chap. hi. 



indications of a much larger supply of water in a former 

 age. He ascribed the desiccation to the gradual eleva- 

 tion of the western part of the country. He found traces 

 of a very large ancient river which flowed nearly north 

 and south to a large lake, including the bed of the present 

 Orange River ; in fact he believed that the whole country 

 south of Lake 'Ngami presented in ancient times very 

 much the same appearance as the basin north of that 

 lake does now, and that the southern lake disappeared 

 when a fissure was made in the ridge through which the 

 Orange River now proceeds to the sea. He could even 

 indicate the spot where the river and the lake met, for 

 some hills there had caused an eddy in which was found 

 a mound of calcareous tufa and travertine, full of fossil 

 bones. These fossils he was most eager to examine, in 

 order to determine the time of the change ; but on his 

 first visit he had no time, and when he returned, he was 

 suddenly called away to visit a missionary's child, a 

 hundred miles off. It happened that he was never in the 

 same locality again, and had therefore no opportunity to 

 complete his investigation. 



Dr. Livingstone's mind had that wonderful power 

 which belongs to some men of the highest gifts, of pass- 

 ing with the utmost rapidity, not only from subject to 

 subject, but from one mood or key to another entirely 

 different. In a letter to his family, written about this 

 time, we have a characteristic instance. On one side of 

 the sheet is a prolonged outburst of tender Christian love 

 and lamentation over a young attendant who had died of 

 fever suddenly ; on the other side, he gives a map of the 

 Bakhatla country with its rivers and mountains, and is 

 quite at home in the geographical details, crowning his 

 description with some sentimental and half-ludicrous 

 lines of poetry. No reasonable man will fancy that in 

 the wailings of his heart there was any levity or want of 

 sincerity. What we are about to copy merits careful 



