128 DAVID LIVINGSTONE. [chap. vi. 



and he had one in his miod on the religion of the 

 Bechuanas, presenting a view which differed somewhat 

 from that of Mr. Moffat. Writing to Mr. Watt from 

 Linyanti (3d October 1853), on printing one of his 

 papers, he says : — 



" But the expense, my dear man. What a mess I am in, writing 

 papers which cannot pay their own way ! Pauper papers, in fact, 

 which must go to the workhouse for support. Ugh ! Has the Caffre 

 War paper shared the same fate 1 and the Language paper too ? Here 

 I have two hy me, which I will keep in their native obscurity. One 

 is oh the South African Boers and slavery, in which I show that their 

 church is, and always has been, the great bulwark of slavery, cattle- 

 lifting, and Caffre-marauding ; and I correct the mistaken views of 

 some writers who describe the Boers as all that is good, and of others 

 who describe them as all that is bad, by showing who are the good 

 and who are the bad. The other, which I rather admire — what father 

 doesn't his own progeny ] — is on the missionary work, and designed to 

 aid young men of piety to form a more correct idea of it than is to be 

 had from much of the missionary biography of ' sacrifices.' I magnify 

 the enterprise, exult in the future, etc., etc. It was written in coming 

 across the desert, and if it never does aught else, it imparted comfort 

 and encouragement to myself. 1 ... I feel almost inclined to send it. 

 ... If the Caffre War one is rejected, then farewell to spouting in 

 Be views." 



If he had met with more encouragement from editors 

 he would have written more. But the editorial cold 

 shoulder was beyond even his power of endurance. He 

 laid aside his pen in a kind of disgust, and this doubt- 

 less was one of the reasons that made him unwilling to 

 resume it on his return to England. Editors were wiser 

 then : and the offer from one London Magazine of £400 

 for four articles, and from Good Words of £1000 for a 

 number of papers to be fixed afterwards — offers which, 

 however, were not accepted finally, — showed how the 

 tide had turned. 



1 For extracts from the paper on " Missionary Sacrifices," see Appendix No. I., 

 p. 473. For part of the paper on the Boers, see Catholic Presbyterian, December 

 1879 (London, Nisbet and Co.). 



