iS 4 3-47-] FIRST TWO STATIONS. 77 



Livingstone had been disappointed with the result of 

 his work among the Bakhatlas. No doubt much good 

 had been done ; he had prevented several wars ; but 

 where were the conversions ? l On leaving he found that 

 he had made more impression on them than he had 

 supposed. They were most unwilling to lose him, 

 offered to do anything in their power for his comfort, 

 and even when his oxen were "inspanned" and he was 

 on the point of moving, they offered to build a new house 

 without expense to him in some other place, if only he 

 would not leave them. In a financial point of view, the 

 removal to Chonuane was a serious undertaking'. He 

 had to apply to the Directors at home for a building- 

 grant — only thirty pounds, but there were not wanting 

 objectors even to that small sum. It was only in self- 

 vindication that he was constrained to tell of the hard- 

 ships which his family had borne : — 



" We endured for a long while, using a wretched infusion of native 

 corn for coffee, but when our corn was done, we were fairly obliged to 

 go to Kuruman for supplies. I can bear what other Europeans would 

 consider hunger and thirst without any inconvenience, but when we 

 arrived, to hear the old women who had seen my wife depart about 

 two years before, exclaiming before the door, ' Bless me ! how lean 

 she is ! Has he starved her 1 Is there no food in the country to 

 which she has been 1 ' was more than I could well bear." 



From the first, Sechele showed an intelligent interest 

 in Livingstone's preaching. He became a great reader, 

 especially of the Bible, and lamented very bitterly that 



1 When some of Livingstone's "new light" friends heard that there were so 

 few conversions, they seem to have thought that he was too much of an old 

 Calvinist, and wrote to him to preach that the remedy was as extensive as the 

 disease — Christ loved you, and gave himself for you. "You may think me 

 heretical," replied he, "but we don't need to make the extent of the atone- 

 ment the main topic of our preaching. We preach to men who don't know but 

 they are beasts, who have no idea of God as a personal agent, or of sin as evil, 

 otherwise than as an offence against each other, which may or may not be punished 

 by the party offended. . . . Their consciences are seared, and moral perceptions 

 blunted. Their memories retain scarcely anything we teach them, and so low 

 have they sunk that the plainest text in the whole Bible cannot be understood 

 by them." 



