The Personal Life of David Livingstone/CHAPTER V
CHAPTER V.
Third Station--Kolobeng.
A.D. 1847-1852.
Want of rain at Chonuane--Removal to Kolobeng--House-building and public works--Hopeful prospects--Letters to Mr. Watt, his sister, and Dr. Bennett--The church at Kolobeng--Pure communion--Conversion of Sechéle--Letter from his brother Charles--His history--Livingstone's relations with the Boers--He cannot get native teachers planted in the East--Resolves to explore northwards--Extracts from Journal--Scarcity of water--Wild animals and other risks--Custom-house robberies and annoyances--Visit from Secretary of London Missionary Society--Manifold employments of Livingstone--Studies in Sichuana--His reflection on this period of his life while detained at Manyuema in 1870.
The residence of the Livingstones at Chonuane was of short continuance.
The want of rain was fatal to agriculture, and about equally fatal to
the mission. It was necessary to remove to a neighborhood where water
could be obtained. The new locality chosen was on the banks of the river
Kolobeng, about forty miles distant from Chonuane. In a letter to the
Royal Geographical Society, his early and warm friend and
fellow-traveler, Mr. Oswell, thus describes Kolobeng: "The town stands
in naked 'deformity on the side of and under a ridge of red ironstone;
the mission-house on a little rocky eminence over the river Kolobeng."
Livingstone had pointed out to the chief that the only feasible way of
watering the gardens was to select some good never-failing river, make a
canal, and irrigate the adjacent lands. The wonderful influence which he
had acquired was apparent from the fact that the very morning after he
told them of his intention to move to the Kolobeng, the whole tribe was
in motion for the "flitting." Livingstone had to set to work at his old
business--building a house--the third which he had reared with his own
hands. It was a mere hut--for a permanent house he had to wait a year.
The natives, of course, had their huts to rear and their gardens to
prepare; but, besides this, Livingstone set them to public works. For
irrigating their gardens, a dam had to be dug and a water-course scooped
out; sixty-five of the younger men dug the dam, and forty of the older
made the water-course. The erection of the school was undertaken by the
chief Sechéle: "I desire," he said, "to build a house for God, the
defender of my town, and that you be at no expense for it whatever." Two
hundred of his people were employed in this work.
Livingstone had hardly had time to forget his building troubles at Mabotsa and Chonuane, when he began this new enterprise. But he was in much better spirits, much more hopeful than he had been. Writing to Mr. Watt on 13th February, 1848, he says:--
"All our meetings are good compared to those we had at
Mabotsa, and some of them admit of no comparison whatever.
Ever since we moved, we have been incessantly engaged in
manual labor. We have endeavored, as far as possible, to
carry on systematic instruction at the same time, but have
felt it very hard pressure on our energies.... Our daily
labors are in the following sort of order:
"We get up as soon as we can, generally with the sun in
summer, then have family worship, breakfast, and school; and
as soon as these are over we begin the manual operations
needed, sowing, ploughing, smithy work, and every other sort
of work by turns as required. My better-half is employed all
the morning in culinary or other work; and feeling pretty
well tired by dinner-time, we take about two hours' rest
then; but more frequently, without the respite I try to
secure for myself, she goes off to hold infant-school, and
this, I am happy to say, is very popular with the youngsters.
She sometimes has eighty, but the average may be sixty. My
manual labors are continued till about five o'clock. I then
go into the town to give lessons and talk to any one who may
be disposed for it. As soon as the cows are milked we have a
meeting, and this is followed by a prayer-meeting in Sechéles
house, which brings me home about half-past eight, and
generally tired enough, too fatigued to think of any mental
exertion. I do not enumerate these duties by way of telling
how much we do, but to let you know a cause of sorrow I have
that so little of my time is devoted to real missionary
work."
First there was a temporary house to be built, then a permanent one, and Livingstone was not exempted from the casualties of mechanics. Once he found himself dangling from a beam by his weak arm. Another time he had a fall from the roof. A third time he cut himself severely with an axe. Working on the roof in the sun, his lips got all scabbed and broken. If he mentions such things to Dr. Bennett or other friend, it is either in the way of illustrating some medical point or to explain how he had never found time to take the latitude of his station till he was stopped working by one of these accidents. At best it was weary work. "Two days ago," he writes to his sister Janet (5th July, 1848), "we entered our new house. What a mercy to be in a house again! A year in a little hut through which the wind blew our candles into glorious icicles (as a poet would say) by night, and in which crowds of flies continually settled on the eyes of our poor little brats by day, makes us value our present castle. Oh, Janet, know thou, if thou art given to building castles in the air, that that is easy work to erecting cottages on the ground." He could not quite forget that it was unfair treatment that had driven him from Mabotsa, and involved him in these labors. "I often think," he writes to Dr. Bennett, "I have forgiven, as I hope to be forgiven; but the remembrance of slander often comes boiling up, although I hate to think of it. You must remember me in your prayers, that more of the spirit of Christ may be imparted to me. All my plans of mental culture have been broken through by manual labor. I shall soon, however, be obliged to give my son and daughter a jog along the path to learning.... Your family increases, very fast, and I fear we follow in your wake. I cannot realize the idea of your sitting with four around you, and I can scarcely believe myself to be so far advanced as to be the father of two."
Livingstone never expected the work of real Christianity to advance rapidly among the Bakwains. They were a slow people and took long to move. But it was not his desire to have a large church of nominal adherents. "Nothing," he writes, "will induce me to form an impure church. Fifty added to the church sounds fine at home, but if only five of these are genuine, what will it profit in the Great Day? I have felt more than ever lately that the great object of our exertions ought to be conversion." There was no subject on which Livingstone had stronger feelings than on purity of communion. For two whole years he allowed no dispensation of the Lord's Supper, because he did not deem the professing Christians to be living consistently. Here was a crowning proof of his hatred of all sham and false pretense, and his intense love of solid, thorough, finished work.
Hardly were things begun to be settled at Kolobeng, when, by way of relaxation, Livingstone (January, 1848) again moved eastward. He would have gone sooner, but "a mad sort of Scotchman[26]," having wandered past them shooting elephants, and lost all his cattle by the bite of the tsetse-fly, Livingstone had to go to his help; and moreover the dam, having burst, required to be repaired. Sechéle set out to accompany him, and intended to go with him the whole way; but some friends having come to visit his tribe, he had to return, or at least did return, leaving Livingstone four gallons of porridge, and two servants to act in his stead. "He is about the only individual," says Livingstone, "who possesses distinct, consistent views on the subject of our mission. He is bound by his wives: has a curious idea--would like to go to another country for three or four years in order to study, with the hope that probably his wives would have married others in the meantime. He would then return, and be admitted to the Lord's Supper, and teach his people the knowledge he has acquired, He seems incapable of putting them away. He feels so attached to them, and indeed we, too, feel much attached to most of them. They are our best scholars, our constant friends. We earnestly pray that they, too, may be enlightened by the Spirit of God."
[Footnote 26: Mr. Gordon Cumming.]
The prayer regarding Sechéle was answered soon. Reviewing the year 1844 in a letter to the Directors, Livingstone says: "An event that excited more open enmity than any other was the profession of faith and subsequent reception of the chief into the church."
During the first years at Kolobeng he received a long letter from his younger brother Charles, then in the United States, requesting him to use his influence with the London Missionary Society that he might be sent as a missionary to China. In writing to the Directors about his brother, in reply to this request, Livingstone disclaimed all idea of influencing them except in so far as he might be able to tell them facts. His brother's history was very interesting. In 1839, when David Livingstone was in England, Charles became earnest about religion, influenced partly by the thought that as his brother, to whom he was most warmly attached, was going abroad, he might never see him again in this world, and therefore he would prepare to meet him in the next. A strong desire sprang up in his mind to obtain a liberal education. Not having the means to get this at home, he was advised by David to go to America, and endeavor to obtain admission to one of the colleges there where the students support themselves by manual labor. To help him in this, David sent him five pounds, which he had just received from the Society, being the whole of his quarter's allowance in London. On landing at New York, after selling his box and bed, Charles found his whole stock of cash to amount to £2, 13s. 6d. Purchasing a loaf and a piece of cheese as _viaticum_, he started for a college at Oberlin, seven hundred miles off, where Dr. Finney was President. He contrived to get to the college without having ever begged. In the third year he entered on a theological course, with the view of becoming a missionary. He did not wish, and could never agree, as a missionary, to hold an appointment from an American Society, on account of the relation of the American Churches to slavery; therefore he applied to the London Missionary Society. David had suggested to his father that if Charles was to be a missionary, he ought to direct his attention to China. Livingstone's first missionary love had not become cold, and much though he might have wished to have his brother in Africa, he acted consistently on his old conviction that there were enough of English missionaries there, and that China had much more need.
The Directors declined to appoint Charles Livingstone without a personal visit, which he could not afford to make. This circumstance led him to accept a pastorate in New England, where he remained until 1857, when he came to this country and joined his brother in the Zambesi Expedition. Afterward he was appointed H. M. Consul at Fernando Po, but being always delicate, he succumbed to the climate of the country, and died a few months after his brother, on his way home, in October, 1873. Sir Bartle Frere, as President of the Royal Geographical Society, paid a deserved tribute to his affectionate and earnest nature, his consistent Christian life, and his valuable help to Christian missions and the African cause generally[27].
[Footnote 27: Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, 1874, p. cxxviii.]
Livingstone's relations with the Boers did not improve. He has gone so fully into this subject in his _Missionary Travels_ that a very slight reference to it is all that is needed here. It was at first very difficult for him to comprehend how the most flagrant injustice and inhumanity to the black race could be combined, as he found it to be, with kindness and general respectability, and even with the profession of piety. He only came to comprehend this when, after more experience, he understood the demoralization which the slave-system produces. It was necessary for the Boers to possess themselves of children for servants, and believing or fancying that in some tribe an insurrection was plotting, they would fall on that tribe and bring off a number of the children. The most foul massacres were justified on the ground that they were necessary to subdue the troublesome tendencies of the people, and therefore essential to permanent peace. Livingstone felt keenly that the Boers who came to live among the Bakwains made no distinction between them and the Caffres, although the Bechuanas were noted for honesty, and never attacked either Boers or English. On the principle of elevating vague rumors into alarming facts, the Boers of the Cashan Mountains, having heard that Sechéle was possessed of fire-arms (the number of his muskets was five!) multiplied the number by a hundred, and threatened him with an invasion. Livingstone, who was accused of supplying these arms, went to the commandant Krieger, and prevailed upon him to defer the expedition, but refused point-blank to comply with Krieger's wish that he should act as a spy on the Bakwains. Threatening messages continued to be sent to Sechéle, ordering him to surrender himself, and to prevent English traders from passing through his country, or selling fire-arms to his people. On one occasion Livingstone was told by Mr. Potgeiter, a leading Dutchman, that he would attack any tribe that might receive a native teacher. Livingstone was so thoroughly identified with the natives that it became the desire of the colonists to get rid of him and all his belongings, and complaints were made of him to the Colonial Government as a dangerous person that ought not to be let alone.
All this made it very clear to Livingstone that his favorite plan of planting native teachers to the eastward could not be carried into effect, at least for the present. His disappointment in this was only another link in the chain of causes that gave to the latter part of his life so unlooked-for but glorious a destination. It set him to inquire whether in some other direction he might not find a sphere for planting native teachers which the jealousy of the Boers prevented in the east.
Before we set out with him on the northward journeys, to which he was led partly by the hostility of the Boers in the east, and partly by the very distressing failure of rain at Kolobeng, a few extracts may be given from a record of the period entitled "A portion of a Journal lost in the destruction of Kolobeng (September, 1853) by the Boers of Pretorius." Livingstone appears to have kept journals from an early period of his life with characteristic care and neatness; but that ruthless and most atrocious raid of the Boers, which we shall have to notice hereafter, deprived him of all them up to that date. The treatment of his books on that occasion was one of the most exasperating of his trials. Had they been burned or carried off he would have minded it less; but it was unspeakably provoking to hear of them lying about with handfuls of leaves torn out of them, or otherwise mutilated and destroyed. From the wreck of his journals the only part saved was a few pages containing notes of some occurrences in 1848-49:
"_May_ 20, 1848.--Spoke to Sechéle of the evil of trusting in
medicines instead of God. He felt afraid to dispute on the
subject, and said he would give up all medicine if I only
told him to do so. I was gratified to see symptoms of tender
conscience. May God enlighten him!
"_July 10th_.--Entered new house on 4th curt. A great mercy.
Hope it may be more a house of prayer than any we have yet
inhabited.
"_Sunday, August_ 6.--Sechéle remained as a spectator at the
celebration of the Lord's Supper, and when we retired he
asked me how he ought to act with reference to his
superfluous wives, as he greatly desired to conform to the
will of Christ, be baptized, and observe his ordinances.
Advised him to do according to what he saw written in God's
Book, but to treat them gently, for they had sinned in
ignorance, and if driven away hastily might be lost
eternally.
"_Sept_. 1.--Much opposition, but none manifested to us as
individuals. Some, however, say it was a pity the lion did
not kill me at Mabotsa. They curse the chief (Sechéle) with
very bitter curses, and these come from the mouths of those
whom Sechéle would formerly have destroyed for a single
disrespectful word. The truth will, by the aid of the Spirit
of God, ultimately prevail.
"_Oct_. 1.--Sechéle baptized; also Setefano.
"_Nov_.--Long for rains. Everything languishes during the
intense heat; and successive droughts having only occurred
since the Gospel came to the Bakwains, I fear the effect will
be detrimental. There is abundance of rain all around us. And
yet we, who have our chief at our head in attachment to the
Gospel, receive not a drop. Has Satan power over the course
of the winds and clouds? Feel afraid he will obtain an
advantage over us, but must be resigned entirely to the
Divine will.
"_Nov_. 27.--O Devil! Prince of the power of the air, art
thou hindering us? Greater is He who is for us than all who
can be against us. I intend to proceed with Paul to
Mokhatla's. He feels much pleased with the prospect of
forming a new station. May God Almighty bless the poor
unworthy effort! Mebalwe's house finished. Preparing woodwork
for Paul's house.
"_Dec._ 16.--Passed by invitation to Hendrick Potgeiter.
Opposed to building a school.... Told him if he hindered the
Gospel the blood of these people would be required at his
hand. He became much excited at this.
"_Dec._ 17.--Met Dr. Robertson, of Swellendam. Very friendly.
Boers very violently opposed.... Went to Pilanies. Had large
attentive audiences at two villages when on the way home.
Paul and I looked for a ford in a dry river. Found we had got
a she black rhinoceros between us and the wagon, which was
only twenty yards off. She had calved during the night--a
little red beast like a dog. She charged the wagon, split a
spoke and a felloe with her horn, and then left. Paul and I
jumped into a rut, as the guns were in the wagon."
The black rhinoceros is one of the most dangerous of the wild beasts of Africa, and travelers stand in great awe of it. The courage of Dr. Livingstone in exposing himself to the risk of such animals on this missionary tour was none the less that he himself says not a word regarding it; but such courage was constantly shown by him. The following instances are given on the authority of Dr. Moffat as samples of what was habitual to Dr. Livingstone in the performance of his duty.
In going through a wood, a party of hunters were startled by the appearance of a black rhinoceros. The furious beast dashed at the wagon, and drove his horn into the bowels of the driver, inflicting a frightful wound. A messenger was despatched in the greatest haste for Dr. Livingstone, whose house was eight or ten miles distant. The messenger in his eagerness ran the whole way. Livingstone's friends were horror-struck at the idea of his riding through the wood at night, exposed to the rhinoceros and other deadly beasts. "No, no; you must not think of it, Livingstone; it is certain death." Livingstone believed it was a Christian duty to try to save the poor fellow's life, and he resolved to go, happen what might. Mounting his horse, he rode to the scene of the accident. The man had died, and the wagon had left, so that there was nothing for Livingstone but to return and run the risk of the forest anew, without even the hope that he might be useful in saving life.
Another time, when he and a brother missionary were on a tour a long way from home, a messenger came to tell his companion that one of his children was alarmingly ill. It was but natural for him to desire Livingstone to go back with him. The way lay over a road infested by lions. Livingstone's life would be in danger; moreover, as we have seen, he was intensely desirous to examine the fossil bones at the place. But when his friend expressed the desire for him to go, he went without hesitation. His firm belief in Providence sustained him in these as in so many other dangers.
Medical practice was certainly not made easier by what happened to some of his packages from England. Writing to his father-in-law, Mr. Moffat (18th January, 1849), he says:
"Most of our boxes which come to us from England are opened,
and usually lightened of their contents. You will perhaps
remember one in which Sechéle's cloak was. It contained, on
leaving Glasgow, besides the articles which came here, a
parcel of surgical instruments which I ordered, and of course
paid for. One of these was a valuable cupping apparatus. The
value at which the instruments were purchased for me was £4,
12s., their real value much more.
"The box which you kindly packed for us and despatched to
Glasgow has, we hear, been gutted by the Custom-House
thieves, and only a very few plain karosses left in it. When
we see a box which has been opened we have not half the
pleasure which we otherwise should in unpacking it.... Can
you give me any information how these annoyances may be
prevented? Or must we submit to it as one of the crooked
things of this life, which Solomon says cannot be made
straight?"
Not only in these scenes of active missionary labor, but everywhere else, Livingstone was in the habit of preaching to the natives, and conversing seriously with them on religion, his favorite topics being the love of Christ, the Fatherhood of God, the resurrection, and the last judgment. His preaching to them, in Dr. Moffat's judgment, was highly effective. It was simple, scriptural, conversational, went straight to the point, was well fitted to arrest the attention, and remarkably adapted to the capacity of the people. To his father he writes (5th July, 1848): "For a long time I felt much depressed after preaching the unsearchable riches of Christ to apparently insensible hearts; but now I like to dwell on the love of the great Mediator, for it always warms my own heart, and I know that the gospel is the power of God--the great means which He employs for the regeneration of our ruined world."
In the beginning of 1849 Livingstone made the first of a series of journeys to the north, in the hope of planting native missionaries among the people. Not to interrupt the continuous account of these journeys, we may advert here to a visit paid to him at Kolobeng, on his return from the first of them, in the end of the year, by Mr. Freeman of the London Missionary Society, who was at that time visiting the African stations. Mr. Freeman, to Livingstone's regret, was in favor of keeping up all Colonial stations, because the London Society alone paid attention to the black population. He was not much in sympathy with Livingstone.
"Mr. Freeman," he writes confidentially to Mr. Watt, "gave us
no hope to expect any new field to be taken up. 'Expenditure
to be reduced in Africa' was the word, when I proposed the
new region beyond us, and there is nobody willing to go
except Mr. Moffat and myself. Six hundred miles additional
land-carriage, mosquitoes in myriads, sparrows by the
million, an epidemic frequently fatal, don't look well in a
picture. I am 270 miles from Kuruman; land-carriage for all
that we use makes a fearful inroad into the £100 of salary,
and then 600 miles beyond this makes one think unutterable
things, for nobody likes to call for more salary. I think the
Indian salary ought to be given to those who go into the
tropics. I have a very strong desire to go and reduce the new
language to writing, but I cannot perform impossibilities. I
don't think it quite fair for the Churches to expect their
messenger to live, as if he were the Prodigal Son, on the
husks that the swine do eat, but I should be ashamed to say
so to any one but yourself."
"I cannot perform impossibilities," said Livingstone; but few men could come so near doing it. His activity of mind and body at this outskirt of civilization was wonderful. A Jack-of-all-trades, he is building houses and schools, cultivating gardens, scheming in every manner of way how to get water, which in the remarkable drought of the season becomes scarcer and scarcer; as a missionary he is holding meetings every other night, preaching on Sundays, and taking such other opportunities as he can find to gain the people to Christ; as a medical man he is dealing with the more difficult cases of disease, those which baffle the native doctors; as a man of science he is taking observations, collecting specimens, thinking out geographical, geological, meteorological, and other problems bearing on the structure and condition of the continent; as a missionary statesman he is planning how the actual force might be disposed of to most advantage, and is looking round in this direction and in that, over hundreds of miles, for openings for native agents; and to promote these objects he is writing long letters to the Directors, to the _Missionary Chronicle_ to the _British Banner_, to private friends, to any one likely to take an interest in his plans.
But this does not exhaust his labors. He is deeply interested in philological studies, and is writing on the Sichuana language:
"I have been hatching a grammar of the Sichuana language," he
writes to Mr. Watt. "It is different in structure from any
other language, except the ancient Egyptian. Most of the
changes are effected by means of prefixes or affixes, the
radical remaining unchanged. Attempts have been made to form
grammars, but all have gone on the principle of establishing
a resemblance between Sichuana, Latin, and Greek; mine is on
the principle of analysing the language without reference to
any others. Grammatical terms are only used when I cannot
express my meaning in any other way. The analysis renders the
whole language very simple, and I believe the principle
elicited extends to most of the languages between this and
Egypt. I wish to know whether I could get 20 or 30 copies
printed for private distribution at an expense not beyond my
means. It would be a mere tract, and about the size of this
letter when folded, 40 or 50 pages perhaps[28]. Will you
ascertain the cost, and tell me whether, in the event of my
continuing hot on the subject half a year hence, you would be
the corrector of the press?... Will you examine catalogues to
find whether there is any dictionary of ancient Egyptian
within my means, so that I might purchase and compare? I
should not grudge two or three pounds for it. Professor Vater
has written on it, but I do not know what dictionary he
consulted. One Tattam has written a Coptic grammar; perhaps
that has a vocabulary, and might serve my purpose. I see
Tattam advertised by John Russell Smith, 4 Old Compton
Street, Soho, London,--'Tattam (H.), _Lexicon
Egyptiaco-Latinum e veteribus linguae Egyptiacae monumentis;
_ thick 8vo, bds., 10s., Oxf., 1835.' Will you purchase the
above for me?"
[Footnote 28: This gives a correct idea of the length of many of his letters.]
At Mabotsa and Chonuane the Livingstones had spent but a little time; Kolobeng may be said to have been the only permanent home they ever had. During these years several of their children were born, and it was the only considerable period of their lives when both had their children about them. Looking back afterward on this period, and its manifold occupations, whilst detained in Manyuema, in the year 1870, Dr. Livingstone wrote the following striking words:
The heart that felt this one regret in looking back to this busy time
must have been true indeed to the instincts of a parent. But
Livingstone's case was no exception to that mysterious law of our life
in this world, by which, in so many things, we learn how to correct our
errors only after the opportunity is gone. Of all the crooks in his lot,
that which gave him so short an opportunity of securing the affections
and moulding the character of his children seems to have been the
hardest to bear. His long detention at Manyuema appears, as we shall see
hereafter, to have been spent by him in learning more completely the
lesson of submission to the will of God; and the hard trial of
separation from his family, entailing on them what seemed irreparable
loss, was among the last of his sorrows over which he was able to write
the words with which he closes the account of his wife's death in the
_Zambesi and its Tributaries_,--"FIAT, DOMINE, VOLUNTUS TUA!"