any
other interesting points of information are followed up by the
significant question--

"Who will penetrate through Africa?"

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
Sechele--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 Sechele: "I desire