86 DA VID LIVINGSTONE. |_ CHAP - v - 



I do not enumerate these duties by way of telling how much we do, 

 but to let you know a cause of sorrow I have that so little of my time 

 is devoted to real missionary work." 



First there was a temporary house to be built, then a 

 permanent one, and Livingstone was not exempted from 

 the casualties of mechanics. Once he found himself 

 dangling from a beam by his weak arm. Another time 

 he had a fall from the roof. A third time he cut himself 

 severely with an axe. Working on the roof in the sun, 

 his lips got all scabbed and broken. If he mentions such 

 things to Dr. Bennett or other friend, it is either in the 

 way of illustrating some medical point or to explain how 

 he had never found time to take the latitude of his station 

 till he was stopped working by one of these accidents. At 

 best it was weary work. " Two days ago," he writes to his 

 sister Janet (5th July 1848), " we entered our new house. 

 What a mercy to be in a house again ! A year in a little 

 hut through which the wind blew our candles into 

 glorious icicles (as a poet would say) by night, and in 

 which crowds of flies continually settled on the eyes of 

 our poor little brats by day, makes us value our present 

 castle. Oh, Janet, know thou, if thou art given to build- 

 ing castles in the air, that that is easy work to erecting 

 cottages on the ground." He could not quite forget that 

 it was unfair treatment that had driven him from 

 Mabotsa, and involved him hi these labours. " I often 

 think," he writes to Dr. Bennett, " I have forgiven, as I 

 hope to be forgiven ; but the remembrance of slander 

 often comes boiling up, although I hate to think of it. 

 You must remember me in your prayers that more of the 

 spirit of Christ may be imparted to me. All my plans of 

 mental culture have been broken through by manual 

 labour. I shall soon, however, be obliged to give my son 

 and daughter a jog along the path to learning. . . . 

 Your family increases very fast, and I fear we follow in 

 your wake. I cannot realise the idea of your sitting with 



