50 . LIFE OF DA VID LIVINGSTONE, LL.D. 



The Boers had broken up and sacked several mission stations, and 

 conquered the tribes which gave them shelter, carrying away men and women 

 as slaves. But the friendly Bakwains escaped for a time, and they did not dare 

 to attack them until Livingstone was absent on his first journey to Lake Ngami, 

 when four hundred armed Boers attacked Sechele's town, and slaughtered a con- 

 siderable number of adults, and carried away over two hundred children as 

 captives. The Bakwains defended themselves bravely until nightfall, killing 

 eight of the Boers, when they retreated to the mountains. Under the pretext 

 that Livingstone had taught them to defend themselves, and was consequently 

 responsible for the slaughter of their fellows, his house was plundered ; his 

 books and stock of medicines destroyed ; his furniture and clothing, and large 

 quantities of stores left by English gentlemen, who had gone northwards to 

 hunt, were carried off and sold to pay the expenses of their lawless raid. 

 The reason so few of the Boers were slain in this as in other similar expedi- 

 tions in which they indulged, was, because they compelled natives they had 

 conquered and enslaved to take their places in the front, while they fired 

 upon the people over their heads in comparative safety. In speaking of the 

 determined opposition of the Boers, Livingstone says, " The Boers resolved 

 to shut up the interior, and I determined to open the country ; and we shall 

 see who has been most successful in resolution, — they or I." 



During the continuance of the drought, the Bakwains suffered great 

 privations, which Livingstone and his wife shared. The wild animals leave 

 a district in such circumstances, and the domestic animals that are not killed 

 and eaten to sustain life, die of hunger and thirst. Everything that would 

 sell was disposed of to tribes more favourably situated, in exchange for corn 

 and other necessities. The country round was scoured by women and 

 children for the numerous bulbous plants which could sustain life, while the 

 men hunted for wild animals in the neighbourhood of the infrequent fountains, 

 where they came to slake their thirst in their wanderings over the arid and 

 sun-dried country. 



Sometimes when a herd of antelopes, zebras, quaggas, etc., were dis- 

 covered in the neighbourhood, they were surrounded, and driven with shouts 

 into a V shaped enclosure, at the end of which a huge pit was dug, into which 

 they fell and were despatched with spears. The meat was equally divided 

 among the people, Livingstone coming in for his share with the rest. But 

 for the frequent recurrence of such lucky hauls as this, the sufferings of 

 the people from an exclusive and scanty vegetable diet must have been 

 extreme. 



Livingstone was mainly dependent upon his friends at Kuruman for 

 supplies of corn during this trying period, and on one occasion they were 

 reduced to use bran as a substitute, which required three labourers' grinding 

 powers to render it fit for baking into cakes. Supplies of all kinds were so 



