DAVID LIVINGSTONE , THE BELOVED MISSIONARY 303 
meanwhile he was taking careful notes of the adaptability of the 
country to agriculture, inquiring into the causes of its intense dryness, 
and making up his mind even at this early date as to the right method 
of evangelizing Africa. 
It was not until late in the year 1843 that Livingstone was able 
to move northward, and establish his first station in Africa in a pleas¬ 
ant valley leading from a mountain range, which the Bakhatla called 
Mabotsa. By this name also the station came to be known. 
Shortly after his arrival, he met with that encounter with a lion 
which is perhaps one of the most familiar events of his life. Struck 
to the ground by the beast in his spring, his flesh torn and the upper 
bone of his arm crunched in the lion's mouth, Livingstone was only 
saved from death by the courageous conduct of a faithful servant, who 
was also a native deacon. In his attempt to rescue his master, 
Mebalwe nearly lost his own life; for the lion quitted his hold of Liv¬ 
ingstone's arm, dashed blindly at Mebalwe, biting him on the thigh, 
and then, while in the act of attacking another native, fell dead from 
the bullets he had received. Livingstone's comment on this is charac¬ 
teristic: “But for the importunities of friends, I meant to have kept 
(this story) in store to tell my children when in my dotage." 
As soon as his arm was healed, he set about building the mission- 
house and school-house, and in converting the ground adjacent into 
a garden. Before long he found cause for enlarging his house, for in 
one of his visits to Kuruman he capped a fond attachment to Mary, 
the eldest child of the Moffats, by proposing marriage and being 
accepted. Mary Moffat soon afterwards became Mary Livingstone, 
and the two settled down to a busy life among the Bakhatla. 
The life before the Doctor appeared to him to be projected on 
similar lines to that which the veteran Moffat had been leading for sq 
many years, though somewhat extended in usefulness and influence, 
perhaps, by his greater medical skill. He was, moreover, determined 
to put into practice his cherished theory of training natives for the 
ministry, for on this point he was always very decided; and it is not 
surprising, considering the havoc fever had played with the Euro¬ 
peans, and the difficulty of procuring them in sufficient numbers to 
grapple with the vast population of the interior. But neither this nor 
