78 DAVID LIVINGSTONE. [chap. iv. 



he had got involved in heathen customs, and now did 

 not know what to do with his wives. At one time he 

 expressed himself quite willing to convert all his people 

 to Christianity by the litupa, i.e. whips of rhinoceros 

 hide ; but when he came to understand better, he 

 lamented that while he could make his people do any- 

 thing else he liked, he could not get one of them to 

 believe. He began family worship, and Livingstone was 

 surprised to hear how well he conducted prayer in his 

 own simple and beautiful style. When he was baptized, 

 after a profession of three years, he sent away his 

 superfluous wives in a kindly and generous way ; but all 

 their connections became active and bitter enemies of 

 the gospel, and the conversion of Sechele, instead of 

 increasing the congregation, reduced it so much that 

 sometimes the chief and his family were almost the only 

 persons present. A bell-man of a somewhat peculiar 

 order was once employed to collect the people for service, 

 — a tall gaunt fellow. " Up he jumped on a sort of plat- 

 form, and shouted at the top of his voice, ' Knock that 

 woman down over there. Strike her, she is putting on 

 her pot ! Do you see that one hiding herself ? Give her 

 a good blow. There she is — see, see, knock her down ! ' 

 All the women ran to the place of meeting in no time, 

 for each thought herself meant. But, though a most 

 efficient bell-man, we did not like to employ him." 



While residing at Chonuane, Livingstone performed 

 two journeys eastward, in order to attempt the removal 

 of certain obstacles to the establishment of at least one 

 of his native teachers in that direction. This brought 

 him into connection with the Dutch Boers of the Cashan 

 mountains, otherwise called Magaliesberg. The Boers 

 were emigrants from the Cape, who had been dissatisfied 

 with the British rule, and especially with the emancipa- 

 tion of their Hottentot slaves, and had created for them- 

 selves a republic in the north (the Transvaal), in order 



