Was obliged to set out anew to look for a suitable locality
for a mission station.
In going north again, a comet blazed on our sight, exciting the wonder
of every tribe we visited. That of 1816 had been followed
by an irruption of the Matebele, the most cruel enemies
the Bechuanas ever knew, and this they thought might portend something as bad,
or it might only foreshadow the death of some great chief.
On this subject of comets I knew little more than they did themselves,
but I had that confidence in a kind, overruling Providence,
which makes such a difference between Christians and both
the ancient and modern heathen.
As some of the Bamangwato people had accompanied me to Kuruman,
I was obliged to restore them and their goods to their chief Sekomi.
This made a journey to the residence of that chief again necessary,
and, for the first time, I performed a distance of some hundred miles
on ox-back.
Returning toward Kuruman, I selected the beautiful valley of Mabotsa
(lat. 25d 14' south, long. 26d 30'?) as the site of a missionary station,
and thither I removed in 1843. Here an occurrence took place
concerning which I have frequently been questioned in England,
and which, but for the importunities of friends, I meant to have kept in store
to tell my children when in my dotage.
