GOB'S PROVIDENCE ILLUSTRATED. xix 



station among the Bak wains 1 . During this time the attack 

 is made on Sechele, and Dr Livingstone's property destroyed, 

 as detailed at page vi. of the Introduction. "We may con- 

 clude almost positively that the Boers would have killed 

 him, since they hated him with so cordial a hatred. Ponder 

 another instance. 



He has just compassed his ardent purpose of visiting 

 Sebituane 2 . This done, he proposes to settle with him. The 

 chief is quite as desirous for such a settlement as he. No. 

 " To every man his work." The chiefs is done : he dies. 

 Our traveller's plan of settlement is set aside ; once more 

 he is a wanderer, and soon afterwards in company with 

 Mr Oswell discovers the Zambesi, a full deep flowing river 

 as broad as the Thames at London bridge, 1500 miles inland. 

 Again, when at Linyanti he deliberates, like Abraham 

 and Lot, whether he shall turn to the right hand or to the 

 left. He knows himself to be in central South Africa, and 

 that the ocean is on both hands to the East and the West. 

 We may try to picture him in our mind's eye, thousands of 

 miles away from European civilization, in the midst of 

 African barbarism. God watches him there; not a hair 

 of his head shall be injured. By faith only is he able to 

 know this; sense and sight never can divine what a day 

 may bring forth; faith trusts and hopes. He deliberates 

 anxiously and prayerfully, then tries first to find a path to the 

 sea towards the West. It turns out in the event, after going 

 first from Linyanti to the West, and then from Loanda back 

 again across the continent almost to the Eastern Coast, that 

 had he first gone to the East he must inevitably have 

 1 See Travels, p. 118. 2 Ibid. p. 89. 



