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.
Sechele gave a ready ear to the missionary's instructions.
"Did your forefathers know of a future judgment?" he asked.
"They knew of it," replied the missionary, who proceeded to describe
the scenes of the last great day.
"You startle me: these words make all my bones to shake;
I have no more strength in me. But my forefathers were living
at the same time yours were; and how is it that they did not send them word
about these terrible things? They all passed away into darkness
without knowing whither they were going."
Mr. Moffat had translated the Bible into the Bechuana language,
which he had reduced to writing, and Sechele set himself to learn to read,
with so much assiduity that he began to grow corpulent
from lack of his accustomed exercise. His great favorite was Isaiah.
"He was a fine man, that Isaiah; he knew how to speak," he was wont to say,
using the very words applied by the Glasgow Professor to the Apostle Paul.
Having become convinced of the truth of Christianity, he wished his people
also to become Christians. "I will call them together," he said, "and with
our rhinoceros-skin whips we will soon make them all believe together."
Livingstone, mindful, perhaps, of the ill success of his worthy father
in the matter of Wilberforce on "Practical Christianity",
did not favor the proposed line of argument. He was, in fact,
in no great haste to urge Sechele to make a full profession of faith
by receiving the ordinance of baptism; for the chief had,
in accordance with the customs of his people, taken a number of wives,
of whom he must, in this case, put away all except one.
The head-wife was a greasy old jade, who was in the habit of attending church
without her gown, and when her husband sent her home to make her toilet,
she would pout out her thick lips in unutterable disgust
at his new-fangled notions, while some of the other wives
were the best scholars in the school. After a while Sechele took the matter
into his own hands, sent his supernumerary wives back to their friends
- not empty-handed - and was baptized.
Mr. Livingstone's station was in the region since rendered famous
by the hunting exploits of Gordon Cumming. He vouches for the truth
of the wonderful stories told by that redoubtable Nimrod,
who visited him during each of his excursions. He himself, indeed,
had an adventure with a lion quite equal to any thing narrated
by Cumming or Andersson, the result of which was one dead lion, two Bechuanas
fearfully wounded, his own arm marked with eleven distinct teeth-marks,
the bone crunched to splinters, and the formation of a false joint,
which marred his shooting ever after.
Mr. Livingstone has a republican contempt for the "King of Beasts".
He is nothing better than an overgrown hulking dog, not a match,
in fair fight, for a buffalo. If a traveler encounter him by daylight,
he turns tail and sneaks out of sight like a scared greyhound.
All the talk about his majestic roar is sheer twaddle. It takes a keen ear
to distinguish the voice of the lion from that of the silly ostrich.
When he is gorged he falls asleep, and a couple of natives approach him
without fear. One discharges an arrow, the point of which has been anointed
with a subtle poison, made of the dried entrails of a species of caterpillar,
while the other flings his skin cloak over his head. The beast
bolts away incontinently, but soon dies, howling and biting the ground
in agony. In the dark, or at all hours when breeding,
the lion is an ugly enough customer; but if a man will stay at home by night,
and does not go out of his way to attack him, he runs less risk in Africa
of being devoured by a lion than he does in our cities of being run over
by an omnibus - so says Mr. Livingstone.
When the lion grows old he leads a miserable life. Unable to master
the larger game, he prowls about the villages in the hope of picking up
a stray goat. A woman of child venturing out at night does not then
come amiss. When the natives hear of one prowling about the villages,
they say, "His teeth are worn; he will soon kill men,"
and thereupon turn out to kill him.
