Mr. Livingstone's strictly missionary life among the Bakwains lasted eight or nine years. The family arose early, and, after prayers and breakfast, went to the school-room, where men, women, and children were assembled. School was over at eleven, when the husband set about his work as gardener, smith, or carpenter, while his wife busied herself with domestic matters--baking bread, a hollow in a deserted ant-hill serving for an oven; churning butter in an earthen jar; running candles; making soap from ashes containing so little alkaline matter that the ley had to be kept boiling for a month or six weeks before it was strong enough for use. The wife was maid-of-all-work in doors, while the husband was Jack-at-all-trades outside. Three several times the tribe removed their place of residence, and he was so many times compelled to build for himself a house, every stick and brick of which was put in place by his own hands. The heat of the day past, and dinner over, the wife betook herself to the infant and sewing schools, while the husband walked down to the village to talk with the natives. Three nights in the week, after the cows had been milked, public meetings were held for instruction in religious and secular matters. All these multifarious duties were diversified 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 putrid masses. The rain-makers tried their 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.
The people behaved wonderfully well, though the scarcity amounted almost to famine. The women sold their ornaments to buy corn from the more fortunate tribes around; the children scoured the country for edible roots; the men betook themselves to hunting. They constructed great traps, called 'hopos', consisting of two 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--buffaloes, 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 are given to us for an inheritance." Of this inheritance they proceeded to make the most. They compelled the natives to work for them without pay, in consideration of the privilege of living in "their country". They made regular 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, till the enemy fled in despair, leaving their women, children, and cattle as a prey.
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 Bechuanas. Sechele's tribe procured no less than five muskets. The Boers were alarmed, and determined to drive missionaries and traders 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.