He was able to give his father a very encouraging report of the mission work (July 13, 1842): "The work of God goes on here notwithstanding all our infirmities. Souls are gathered in continually, and sometimes from among those you would never have expected to see turning to the Lord. Twenty-four were added to the Church last month, and there are several inquirers. At Motito, a French station about thirty-three miles northeast of this, there has been an awakening, and I hope much good will result. I have good news, too, from Rio de Janeiro. The Bibles that have been distributed are beginning to cause a stir."
The state of the country continued so disturbed that it was not till February, 1843, that he was able to set out for the village where Sebehwe had taken up his residence with the remains of his tribe. This visit he undertook at great personal risk. Though looking at first very ill-pleased, Sebehwe treated him in a short time in a most friendly way, and on the Sunday after his arrival, sent a herald to proclaim that on that day nothing should be done but pray to God and listen to the words of the foreigner. He himself listened with great attention while Livingstone told him of Jesus and the resurrection, and the missionary was often interrupted by the questions of the chief. Here, then, was another chief pacified, and brought under the preaching of the gospel.
Livingstone then passed on to the country of the Bakhatla, where he had purposed to erect his mission-station. The country was fertile, and the people industrious, and among other industries was an iron manufactory, to which as a bachelor he got admission, whereas married men were wont to be excluded, through fear that they would bewitch the iron! When he asked the chief if he would like him to come and be his missionary, he held up his hands and said, "Oh, I shall dance if you do; I shall collect all my people to hoe for you a garden, and you will get more sweet reed and corn than myself." The cautious Directors at home, however, had sent no instructions as to Livingstone's station, and he could only say to the chief that he would tell them of his desire for a missionary.
At a distance of five days' journey beyond the Bakhatla was situated the village of Sechéle, chief of the Bakwains, afterward one of Livingstone's greatest friends. Sechéle had been enraged at him for not visiting him the year before, and threatened him with mischief. It happened that his only child was ill when the missionary arrived, and also the child of one of his principal men. Livingstone's treatment of both was successful, and Sechéle had not an angry word. Some of his questions struck the heart of the missionary:
"'Since it is true that all who die unforgiven are lost forever, why did your nation not come to tell us of it before now? My ancestors are all gone, and none of them knew anything of what you tell me. How is this?' I thought immediately," says Livingstone, "of the guilt of the Church, but did not confess. I told him multitudes in our own country were like himself, so much in love with their sins. My ancestors had spent a great deal of time in trying to persuade them, and yet after all many of them by refusing were lost. We now wish to tell all the world about a Saviour, and if men did not believe, the guilt would be entirely theirs. Sechéle has been driven from another part of his country from that in which he was located last year, and so has Bubi, so that the prospects I had of benefiting them by native teachers are for the present darkened."
Among other things that Livingstone found time for in these wanderings among strange people, was translating hymns into the Sichuana language. Writing to his father (Bakwain Country, 21st March, 1843), he says:
"Janet may be pleased to learn that I am become a poet, or rather a poetaster, in Sichuana. Half a dozen of my hymns were lately printed in a collection of the French brethren. One of them is a translation of 'There is a fountain filled with blood;' another, 'Jesus shall reign where'er the sun;' others are on 'The earth being filled with the glory of the Lord,' 'Self-dedication,' 'Invitation to Sinners,' 'The soul that loves God finds him everywhere.' Janet may try to make English ones on these latter subjects if she can, and Agnes will doubtless set them to music on the same condition. I do not boast of having done this, but only mention it to let you know that I am getting a little better fitted for the great work of a missionary, that your hearts may be drawn out to more prayer for the success of the gospel proclaimed by my feeble lips."
Livingstone was bent on advancing in the direction of the country of the Matebele and their chief Mosilikatse, but the dread of that terrible warrior prevented him from getting Bakwains to accompany him, and being thus unable to rig out a wagon, he was obliged to travel on oxback. In a letter to Dr. Risdon Bennett (30th June, 1843), he gives a lively description of this mode of traveling: "It is rough traveling, as you can conceive. The skin is so loose there is no getting one's great-coat, which has to serve both as saddle and blanket, to stick on; and then the long horns in front, with which he can give one a punch in the abdomen if he likes, make us sit as bolt upright as dragoons. In this manner I traveled more than 400 miles." Visits to some of the villages of the Bakalahari gave him much pleasure. He was listened to with great attention, and while sitting by their fires and listening to their traditionary tales, he intermingled the story of the Cross with their conversation, and it was by far the happiest portion of his journey. The people were a poor, degraded, enslaved race, who hunted for other tribes to procure them skins; they were far from wells, and had their gardens far from their houses, in order to have their produce safe from the chiefs who visited them.
Coming on to his old friends the Bakaa, he found them out of humor with him, accusing him of having given poison to a native who had been seized with fever on occasion of his former visit. Consequently he could get little or nothing to eat, and had to content himself, as he wrote to his friends, with the sumptuous feasts of his imagination. With his usual habit of discovering good in all his troubles, however, he found cause for thankfulness at their stinginess, for in coming down a steep pass, absorbed with the questions which the people were putting to him, he forgot where he was, lost his footing, and, striking his hand between a rock and his Bible which he was carrying, he suffered a compound fracture of his finger. His involuntary low diet saved him from taking fever, and the finger was healing favorably, when a sudden visit in the middle of the night from a lion, that threw them all into consternation, made him, without thinking, discharge his revolver at the visitor, and the recoil hurt him more than the shot did the lion. It rebroke his finger, and the second fracture was worse than the first. "The Bakwains," he says, "who were most attentive to my wants during the whole journey of more than 400 miles, tried to comfort me when they saw the blood again flowing, by saying, 'You have hurt yourself, but you have redeemed us: henceforth we will only swear by you.' Poor creatures," he writes to Dr. Bennett, "I wished they had felt gratitude for the blood that was shed for their precious souls."
Returning to Kuruman from this journey, in June, 1843, Livingstone was delighted to find at length a letter from the Directors of the Society authorizing the formation of a settlement in the regions beyond. He found another letter that greatly cheered him, from a Mrs. M'Robert, the wife of art Independent minister at Cambuslang (near Blantyre), who had collected and now sent him £12 for a native agent, and was willing, on the part of some young friends, to send presents of clothing for the converts. In acknowledging this letter, Livingstone poured out his very heart, so full was he of gratitude and delight. He entreated the givers to consider Mebalwe as their own agent, and to concentrate their prayers upon him, for prayer, he thought, was always more efficacious when it could be said, "One thing have I desired of the Lord." As to the present of clothing, he simply entreated his friends to send nothing of the kind; such things demoralized the recipients, and bred endless jealousies. If he were allowed to charge something for the clothes, he would be pleased to have them, but on no other terms.