earthen jar; running candles; making soap times compelled to build for himself a house, from ashes containing so little alkaline matter every stick and brick of which was put in place that the ley had to be kept boiling for a month by his own hands. The heat of the day past, or six weeks before it was strong enough for and dinner over, the wife betook herself to the use. The wife was maid-of-all-work in doors, infant and sewing schools, while the husband while the husband was Jack-at-all-trades out- walked down to the village to talk with the naside. Three several times the tribe removed tives. Three nights in the week, after the cows their place of residence, and he was so many had been milked, public meetings were held for

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instruction in religious and secular matters. | till the enemy fled in despair, leaving their woAll these multifarious duties were diversified men, children, and cattle as a prey.

by attendance upon the sick, and in various ways aiding the poor and wretched. Being in so many ways helpful to them, and having, besides, shown from the first that he could knock them up at hard work or traveling, we can not wonder that Livingstone was popular among the Bakwains, though conversions seem to have been of the rarest. Indeed, we are not sure but Sechele's was the only case.

A great drought set in the very first year of his residence among them, which increased year by year. The river ran dry; the canals which he had induced them to dig for the purpose of irrigating their gardens were useless; the fish died in such numbers that the congregated hyenas of the country were unable to devour the The rain-makers tried their putrid masses. spells in vain. The clouds sometimes gathered promisingly overhead, but only to roll away without discharging a drop upon the scorched plains. The people began to suspect some connection between the new religion and the drought. "We like you," they said, "but we wish you would give up this everlasting preaching and praying. You see that we never get any rain, while the tribes who never pray have an abundance." Livingstone could not deny the fact, and he was sometimes disposed to attribute it to the malevolence of the "Prince of the Power of the Air," eager to frustrate the good work.

So long as fire-arms could be kept from the
natives the Boers were sure of having it all their
own way. But traders came in the train of the
missionaries, and sold guns and powder to the
Sechele's tribe procured no less
Bechuanas.

than five muskets. The Boers were alarmed,
and determined to drive missionaries and tra-
ders from the country.

In course of time Mr. Livingstone became convinced that Bibles and preaching were not all that was necessary. Civilization must accompany Christianization; and commerce was essential to civilization; for commerce, more speedily than any thing else, would break down the isolation of the tribes, by making them mutually dependent upon and serviceable to each other.

It was well known that northward, beyond the desert, lay a great lake, in the midst of a country rich in ivory and other articles of commerce. In former years, when rains had been more abundant, the natives had frequently crossed this desert; and somewhere near the lake dwelt a famous chief, named Sebituane, who had once lived on friendly terms in the neighborhood of Sechele, who was anxious to renew the old acquaintance. Mr. Livingstone determined to open intercourse with this region, in spite of the threats and opposition of the Boers.

So the missionary became a traveler and exThe people behaved wonderfully well, though plorer. While laying his plans and gathering the scarcity amounted almost to famine. The information, the opportune arrival of Messrs. women sold their ornaments to buy corn from Oswell and Murray, two wealthy Englishmen the more fortunate tribes around; the children who had become enamored with African huntscoured the country for edible roots; the mening, enabled him to undertake the proposed exbetook themselves to hunting. They construct-pedition, Mr. Oswell agreeing to pay the guides, ed great traps, called hopos, consisting of two who were furnished by Sechele. lines of hedges, a mile long, far apart at the extremities, but converging like the sides of the letter V, with a deep pit at the narrow end. Then forming a circuit for miles around, they drove the game-buffalos, zebras, gnus, antelopes, and the like-into the mouth of the hopo, and along its narrowing lane, until they plunged pell-mell in one confused, writhing, struggling mass into the pit, where they were speared at leisure.

The precarious mode of life occasioned by the long drought interfered sadly with the labors of the mission. Still worse was the conduct of Boers who had pushed their way into the Bechuana country. Their theory was very simple: "We are the people of God, and the heathen Of this are given to us for an inheritance." inheritance they proceeded to make the most. They compelled the natives to work for them without pay, in consideration of the privilege They made regof living in "their country." ular forays, carrying off the women and children as slaves. They were cowardly as well as brutal, compelling friendly tribes to accompany them on their excursions, putting them in front as a shield, and coolly firing over their heads,

This expedition, which resulted in the discovery of Lake Ngami, set out from the missionary station at Kolobeng on the 1st of June, 1849.

This

The way lay across the great Kalahari desert, seven hundred miles in breadth. is a singular region. Though it has no running streams, and few and scanty wells, it abounds in animal and vegetable life. Men, animals, Grass is abundant, and plants accommodate themselves singularly to the scarcity of water. growing in tufts; bulbous plants abound, among which are the leroshua, which sends up a slender stalk not larger than a crow quill, with a tuber, a foot or more below the surface, as large as a child's head, consisting of a mass of cellular tissue filled with a cool and refreshing fluid; and the mokuri, which deposits under ground, within a circle of a yard from its stem, a mass of tubers of the size of a man's head. During years when the rains are unusually abundant, the Kalahari is covered with the kengwe, a species of water-melon. Animals and men rejoice in the rich supply; antelopes, lions, hyenas, jackals, mice, and men devour it with equal avidity.

The people of the desert conceal their wells

somehow seem to get along very well without any moisture, except that contained in the grass which they eat. They appear to live for months without drinking; but whenever rhinoceroses, buffaloes, or gnus are seen, it is held to be certain proof that water exists within a few miles.

This insect-the Glossina moritans of the naturalists-deserves a special paragraph. It is a brown insect about as large as our common house-fly, with three or four yellow bars across its hinder part. A lively, buzzing, harmlesslooking fellow is the tsetse. Its bite produces a slight itching similar to that caused by the mosquito, and in the case of men and some species of animals no further ill effects follow. But woe to the horse, the ox, and the dog, when once bitten by the tsetse. No immediate harmi appears; the animal is not startled as by the

The passage of the Kalahari was effected, not without considerable difficulty, in two months, the expedition reaching Lake Ngami on the 1st of August. As they approached it, they came upon a considerable river. "Whence does this come?" asked Living-gad-fly; but in a few days the eyes and the

stone.

"From a country full of rivers," was the reply; "so many that no man can tell their number, and full of large trees."

This was the first actual confirmation of the report of the Bakwains that the country beyond was not the large "sandy plateau" of geographers. The prospect of a highway capable of being traversed by boats to an unexplored fertile region so filled the mind of Livingstone that, when he came to the lake, this discovery seemed of comparatively little importance. To us, indeed, whose ideas of a lake are formed from Superior and Huron, the Ngami seems but an insignificant affair. Its circumference may be seventy or a hundred miles, and its mean depth is but a few feet. It lies two thousand feet above the level of the sea, and as much below the southern border of the Kalahari, which slopes gradually toward the interior.

nose begin to run; the jaws and navel swell; the animal grazes for a while as usual, but grows emaciated and weak, and dies, it may be, weeks or months after. When dissected, the cellular tissue seems injected with air, the fat is green and oily, the muscles are flabby, the heart is so soft that the finger may be pushed through it. The antelope and buffalo, the zebra and goat, are not affected by its bite; while to the ox, the horse, and the dog it is certain death. The mule and donkey are not troubled by it, nor are sucking calves, while dogs, though fed upon milk, perish. Such different effects produced upon animals whose nature is similar, constitute one of the most curious phenomena in natural history.

Sebituane, who had heard of the approach of his visitors, came more than a hundred miles to meet them. He was a tall, wiry, coffee-andmilk colored man, of five-and-forty. His origTheir desire to visit Sebituane, whose resi- inal home was a thousand miles to the south, dence was considerably farther in the interior, in the Bakwain country, whence he had been was frustrated by the jealousy of Lechulatebe, a driven by the Griquas a quarter of a century chief near the lake, and the expedition return- before. He fled northward, fighting his way, ed to the station at Kolobeng. The attempt sometimes reduced to the utmost straits, but was renewed the following year. Mrs. Living- still keeping his people together. At length he stone, their three children, and Sechele accom- crossed the desert, and conquered the country panied him. The lake was reached. Lechu- around Lake Ngami; then having heard of latebe, propitiated by the present of a valuable white men living on the west coast, he passed gun, agreed to furnish guides to Sebituane's southwestward into the desert, hoping to be country; but the children and servants fell able to open intercourse with them. There sufill, and the attempt was for the time aban-fering from the thirst, he came to a small well; doned. the water was not sufficient for his men and his

A third expedition was successful, although cattle; one or the other must perish; he orderthe whole party came near perishing for wanted the men to drink, for if they survived they of water, and their cattle, which had been bitten by the Tsetse, died.

O THE TSETSE (MAGNIFIED.

could fight for more cattle. In the morning his cattle were all gone, and he returned to the north. Here a long course of warfare awaited him, but in the end he triumphed over his enemies, and established himself for a time on the great river Zambesi. Haunted with a longing for intercourse with the whites, he proposed to descend the river to the eastern coast. He was dissuaded from this purpose by the warnings of a native prophet. "The gods say, Go not thither!" he cried; then turning to the west,. "I see a city and a nation of black men-men of the water; their cattle are red; thine own tribe are perishing, and will all be consumed; thou wilt govern black men, and when thy warriors have captured the red cattle, let not their owners be killed; they are thy future tribe; let them be spared to cause thee to build." So