74 KOLOBENG HOME LIFE. 



ermen, and eat what they catch. They make nets ; strangely 

 enough, too, their nets are not unlike our own. They show 

 great dexterity in harpooning the hippopotamus. When once 

 their barbed blade has fixed itself in their victim, he has only 

 one of two things to do — the boat must be smashed or he must 

 surrender. 



Returning thus, as they went, Dr. Livingstone and his party 

 reached Kolobeng, Mr. Oswell having gone on toward the Cape. 

 The journey had been accomplished ; white men had looked 

 on the water about which untangible accounts had made them 

 so curious. There had been hardships, but humanity had been 

 served. The way was opened for Christianity. The inquiring 

 and generous sympathizers with the ignorant and degraded in 

 those dark forests had received new inspiration. The news of 

 this discovery had kindled a new interest in Africa. The hardy 

 missionary decided to spend the winter with his family in Kolo- 

 beng. But it was not lost time. His hands were full. People 

 generally have a poor idea of the real life of those noble few 

 whom God calls to forsake the leisure and comfort of civiliza- 

 tion for the toils and responsibilities of a foreign field. While 

 this noble man is waiting on the winter rains, we may look in 

 upon the home which he has made. 



About the only facilities which Africa offers the architect who 

 works on the models of civilized life is material. The house 

 which he builds must be dearly bought with many days of hard 

 work. This was emphatically so of a home among the Bak- 

 wains ; because they, however willing, have a queer inability to 

 put things square. Dr. Livingstone had to place every brick 

 and beam with his own hand. After the house comes the living 

 in it. The romance of hardship becomes very real in years. It 

 must be true benevolence which finds pleasure in the want of all 

 the conveniences of early experience. We smile quite seriously 

 to see Mrs. Livingstone going out with a large batch of dough 

 and depositing it in a great hole which the doctor has scooped 

 out in a great ant-hill, the only accessible oven. It makes one 

 tired even to think of the weariness and worry of improvising 

 everything ; of manufacturing soap and candles and butter about 

 as Selkirk might have done in his loneliness. The city pastor, 

 imagining himself run to death with the duties of his position, 



