And afterward of theology, in the University of Glasgow, attending lectures
in the winter, paying his expenses by working as a cotton-spinner
during the summer, without receiving a farthing of aid from any one.
His purpose was to go to China as a medical missionary,
and he would have accomplished his object solely by his own efforts
had not some friends advised him to join the London Missionary Society.
He offered himself, with a half hope that his application would be rejected,
for it was not quite agreeable to one accustomed to work his own way
to become dependent in a measure upon others.
By the time when his medical and theological studies were completed,
the Opium War had rendered it inexpedient to go to China,
and his destination was fixed for Southern Africa.
He reached his field of labor in 1840. Having tarried
for three months at the head station at Kuruman, and taken to wife
a daughter of the well-known missionary Mr. Moffat, he pushed still farther
into the country, and attached himself to the band of Sechele,
chief of the Bakwains, or "Alligators", a Bechuana tribe.
Here, cutting himself for six months wholly off from all European society,
he gained an insight into the language, laws, modes of life,
and habits of the Bechuanas, which proved of incalculable advantage
in all his subsequent intercourse with them.
