1843-47] FIRST TWO STATIONS. 65 



CHAPTER IV. 



FIRST TWO STATIONS — MABOTSA AND CHONUANE. 

 A.D. 1843-1847. 



Description of Mabotsa — A favourite hymn — General reading — Mabotsa infested 

 with lions — Livingstone's encounter — The native deacon who saved him — 

 His Sunday-school — Marriage to Mary Moffat — Work at Mabotsa — Pro- 

 posed institution for training native agents — Letter to his mother — Trouble 

 at Mabotsa — Noble sacrifice of Livingstone — Goes to Sechele and the 

 Bakwains — New station at Chonuane — Interest shown by Sechele — Journeys 

 eastward — The Boers and the Transvaal — Their occupation of the country, 

 and treatment of the natives — Work among the Bakwains — Livingstone's 

 desire to move on — Theological conflict at home — His view of it — His scientific 

 labours and miscellaneous employments. 



Describing what was to be his new home to his friend 

 Watt from Kuruman, 27th September 1843, Livingstone 

 says : — " The Bakhatla have cheerfully offered to remove 

 to a more favourable position than they at present occupy. 

 We have fixed upon a most delightful valley, which we 

 hope to make the centre of our sphere of operations in 

 the interior. It is situated in what j>oetical gents like 

 you would call almost an amphitheatre of mountains. 

 The mountain range immediately in the rear of the spot 

 where we have fixed our residence is called Mabotsa, or a 

 marriage-feast. May the Lord lift upon us the light 

 of His countenance, so that by our feeble instrument- 

 ality many may thence be admitted to the marriage-feast 

 of the Lamb. The people are as raw as may well be 

 imagined ; they have not the least desire but for the 

 things of the earth, and it must be a long time ere we 

 can gain their attention to the things which are above." 



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