94 DA VID LIVINGSTONE. [chap. v. 



Medical practice was certainly not made easier by 

 what happened to some of his packages from England. 

 Writing to his father-in-law, Mr. Moffat (18th January 

 1849), he says : — 



" Most of our boxes which come to us from England are opened, 

 and usually lightened of their contents. You will perhaps remember 

 one in which Sechede's cloak was. It contained, on leaving Glasgow, 

 besides the articles which came here, a parcel of surgical instruments 

 which I ordered, and of course paid for. One of these was a valuable 

 cupping apparatus. The value at which the instruments were pur- 

 chased for me was £4, 12s., their real value much more. 



" The box which you kindly packed for us and despatched to 

 Glasgow has, we hear, been gutted by the Custom-House thieves, and 

 only a very few plain karosses left in it. When we see a box which 

 has been opened we have not half the pleasure which we otherwise 

 should in unpacking it. . . . Can you give me any information how 

 these annoyances may be prevented 1 Or must we submit to it as one 

 of the crooked things of this life, which Solomon says cannot be made 

 straight V 



Not only in these scenes of active missionary labour, 

 but everywhere else, Livingstone was in the habit of 

 preaching to the natives, and conversing seriously with 

 them on religion, his favourite topics being the love of 

 Christ, the Fatherhood of God, the resurrection, and the 

 last judgment. His preaching to them, in Dr. Moffat's 

 judgment, was highly effective. It was simple, scrip- 

 tural, conversational, went straight to the point, was well 

 fitted to arrest the attention, and remarkably adapted to 

 the capacity of the people. To his father he writes (5th 

 July 1848) : " For a long time I felt much depressed after 

 preaching the unsearchable riches of Christ to apparently 

 insensible hearts ; but now I like to dwell on the love of 

 the great Mediator, for it always warms my own heart, 

 and I know that the gospel is the power of God — the 

 great means which He employs for the regeneration of 

 our ruined world." 



In the beginning of 1849 Livingstone made the first 

 of a series of journeys to the north, in the hope of 

 planting native missionaries among the people. Not to 



