d 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. Sechele 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 Sechele 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 lib