302 DAVID LIVINGSTONE , THE BELOVED MISSIONARY 
On the 20th of November, in Albion Street Chapel, London, Liv¬ 
ingstone received his formal commission to preach the Word. Less 
than a month afterwards, he was sailing southward on the Atlantic, 
bound for the Cape of Good Hope. 
At this time Kuruman, about 700 miles northeast of Capetown, 
was the most northerly missionary station in South Africa. Kuru- 
man, in fact, was the only place for a hundred miles round where 
Europeans could settle and exist. And even at Kuruman the excessive 
droughts which are the curse of the greater part of South Africa were 
not unknown. Bechuanaland was essentially a dry country—so dry, 
indeed, that Livingstone has told us that needles could be left for 
months exposed to the outer air without rusting. To grow crops with 
success irrigation was necessary, and Moffat had won the confidence 
of the natives by his active exertions to procure by this means security 
for the harvest. 
When Livingstone arrived at Kuruman, he found affairs in a 
prosperous condition. From a few Hottentot servants the Christian 
congregation had increased to about a thousand, the mission-house 
and church had been rebuilt on a larger scale and of stone, the schools 
had become flourishing institutions, and the advance of civilization 
was marked by those of the natives who could afford it purchasing 
wagons and using oxen for labor in the place of women. “The gar¬ 
dens,” wrote Livingstone, “irrigated by the Kuruman rivulet, are well 
stocked with fruit trees and vines, and yield European vegetables and 
grain readily. The pleasantness cf the place is enhanced by the con¬ 
trast it presents to the surrounding scenery, and the fact that it owes 
all its beauty to the manual labor of the missionaries. Externally it 
presents a picture of civilized comfort to the adjacent tribes; and by 
its printing-press . . . the light of Christianity is gradually dif¬ 
fused in the surrounding region.” 
While awaiting the permission of the Society to erect a mission- 
station north of Kuruman, Livingstone was journeying up and down 
the whole Bechuana country. He visited the Bakwains—whose chief, 
Sechele, became a great friend—the Bamangwato, the Bakaa, and the 
Bakhatla in succession, studying their language and customs, and in 
every way equipping himself for useful effort among them. In the 
