136 DAVID LIVINGSTONE. [chap. vn. 



my better-half were of considerable value. Of all I am now lightened, 

 and they want to ease me of my head. . . . The Boers kill the blacks 

 without compunction, and without provocation, because they believe 

 they have no souls. . . . Viewing the dispensation apart from the 

 extreme wickedness of the Boers, it seemed a judgment on the blacks 

 for their rejection of the gospel. They have .verily done despite unto 

 the Spirit of grace. . . . Their enmity was not manifested to us, but 

 to the gospel. I am grieved for them, and still hope that the good 

 seed will yet vegetate." Y 



But while lie could relax playfully at the thought of 

 the desolation at Kolobeng, he knew how to make it the 

 occasion likewise of high resolves. The Boers, as he 

 wrote the Directors, were resolved to shut up the interior. 

 He was determined, with God's help, to open the country. 

 Time would show which would be most successful in 

 resolution, — they or he. To his brother-in-law he wrote 

 that he would open a path through the country, or perish. 



As for the contest with the Boers,, we may smile at 

 their impotent wrath. It is a singular fact that while 

 Sechele still retains the position of an independent chief, 

 the republic of the Boers has passed away. It is now 

 part of the British Empire. 



The country was so unsettled that for a long time 

 Dr. Livingstone could not get guides at Kuruman to go 

 with him to Sebituane's. At length, however, he suc- 

 ceeded, and leaving Kuruman finally about the end of 



1 This letter to Mr. Moore contains a trait of Livingstone, very trifling in 

 the occasion out of which it arose, but showing vividly the nature of the man. 

 He had promised to send Mr. Moore's little son some curiosities, but had for- 

 gotten when his family went to England. Being reminded of his promise in a post- 

 script the little fellow had added to a letter from his father, Livingstone is ' ' over- 

 whelmed with shame and confusion of face. " He feels he has disappointed the 

 boy and forgotten his promise. Again and again Livingstone returns to the 

 subject, and feels assured that his young friend would forgive him if he knew 

 how much he suffered for his fault. That in the midst of his own overwhelming 

 troubles he should feel so much for the disappointment of a little heart in England 

 shows how terrible a thing it was to him to cause needless pain, and how pro- 

 foundly it distressed him to seem forgetful of a promise. Years afterwards he 

 wrote that he had brought an elephant's tail for Henry, but one of the men stole 

 all the hairs and sold them. He had still a tusk of a hippopotamus for him, and 

 a tooth for his brother, but he had brought no curiosities, for he could scarcely 

 get along himself. 



