Third Station--Kolobeng.
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 Sechéle--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 Sechéle: "I desire," he said, "to build a house for God, the defender of my town, and that you be at no expense for it whatever." Two hundred of his people were employed in this work.
Livingstone had hardly had time to forget his building troubles at Mabotsa and Chonuane, when he began this new enterprise. But he was in much better spirits, much more hopeful than he had been. Writing to Mr. Watt on 13th February, 1848, he says:--
"All our meetings are good compared to those we had at Mabotsa, and some of them admit of no comparison whatever. Ever since we moved, we have been incessantly engaged in manual labor. We have endeavored, as far as possible, to carry on systematic instruction at the same time, but have felt it very hard pressure on our energies.... Our daily labors are in the following sort of order:
"We get up as soon as we can, generally with the sun in summer, then have family worship, breakfast, and school; and as soon as these are over we begin the manual operations needed, sowing, ploughing, smithy work, and every other sort of work by turns as required. My better-half is employed all the morning in culinary or other work; and feeling pretty well tired by dinner-time, we take about two hours' rest then; but more frequently, without the respite I try to secure for myself, she goes off to hold infant-school, and this, I am happy to say, is very popular with the youngsters. She sometimes has eighty, but the average may be sixty. My manual labors are continued till about five o'clock. I then go into the town to give lessons and talk to any one who may be disposed for it. As soon as the cows are milked we have a meeting, and this is followed by a prayer-meeting in Sechéles house, which brings me home about half-past eight, and generally tired enough, too fatigued to think of any mental exertion. I do not enumerate these duties by way of telling how much we do, but to let you know a cause of sorrow I have that so little of my time is devoted to real missionary work."