70 DAVID LIVINGSTONE. [chap. iv. 



new illustration to the name Mabotsa. Till this year 

 (1844) he had steadily repudiated all thoughts of mar- 

 riage, thinking it better to be independent. Nor indeed 

 had he met with any one to induce him to change his 

 mind. Writing in the end of 1843 to his friend Watt, 

 he had said : " There 's no outlet for me when I begin to 

 think of getting married but that of sending home an 

 advertisement to the Evangelical Magazine, and if I get 

 very old, it must be for some decent sort of widow. In 

 the meantime I am too busy to think of anything of the 

 kind." But soon after the Moffats came back from 

 England to Kuruman, their eldest daughter, Mary, 

 rapidly effected a revolution in Livingstone's ideas of 

 matrimony. They became engaged. In announcing his 

 approaching marriage to the Directors, he makes it plain 

 that he had carefully considered the bearing which this 

 step might have on his usefulness as a missionary. No 

 doubt if he had foreseen the very extraordinary work to 

 which he was afterwards to be called, he might have 

 come to a different conclusion. But now, apparently, he 

 was fixed and settled. Mabotsa would become a centre 

 from which native missionary agents would radiate over 

 a large circumference. His own life-work would resemble 

 Mr. Moffat's. For influencing the women and children 

 of such a place, a Christian lady was indispensable, and 

 who so likely to do it well as one born in Africa, the 

 daughter of an eminent and honoured missionary, herself 

 familiar with missionary life, and gifted with the win- 

 ning manner and the ready helping hand that were so 

 peculiarly adapted for this work ? The case was as clear 

 as possible, and Livingstone was very happy. 



On his way home from Kuruman, after the engage- 

 ment, he writes to her cheerily from Motito, on 1st 

 August 1844, chiefly about the household they were soon 

 to get up ; asking her to get her father to order some 

 necessary articles, and to write to Colesberg about the 



