Some glimpses of Livingstone's musings at this time, showing, among other things, how much more he thought of his spiritual than his Highland ancestry, occur in a letter to his parents, written immediately after his return from his second visit to the lake (28th July, 1850). If they should carry out their project of emigration to America, they would have an interesting family gathering:
"One, however, will be 'over the hills and far away' from your happy meeting. The meeting which we hope will take place in Heaven will be unlike a happy one, in so far as earthly relationships are concerned. One will be so much taken up in looking at Jesus, I don't know when we shall be disposed to sit down and talk about the days of lang syne. And then there will be so many notables whom we should like to notice and shake hands with--Luke, for instance, the beloved physician, and Jeremiah, and old Job, and Noah, and Enoch, that if you are wise, you will make the most of your union while you are together, and not fail to write me fully, while you have the opportunity here....
"Charles thinks we are not the descendants of the Puritans. I don't know what you are, but I am. And if you dispute it, I shall stick to the answer of a poor little boy before a magistrate. M.--'Who were your parents?' Boy (rubbing his eyes with his jacket-sleeve)--'Never had none, sir.' Dr. Wardlaw says that the Scotch Independents are the descendants of the Puritans, and I suppose the pedigree is through Rowland Hill and Whitefield. But I was a member of the very church in which John Howe, the chaplain of Oliver Cromwell, preached, and exercised the pastorate. I was ordained, too, by English Independents. Moreover, I am a Doctor too. Agnes and Janet, get up this moment and curtsy to his Reverence! John and Charles, remember the dream of the sheaves! I descended from kilts and Donald Dhus? Na, na, I won't believe it.
"We have a difficult, difficult field to cultivate here. All I can say is, that I think knowledge is increasing. But for the belief that the Holy Spirit works, and will work for us, I should give up in despair. Remember us in your prayers, that we grow not weary in well-doing. It is hard to work for years with pure motives, and all the time be looked on by most of those to whom our lives are devoted, as having some sinister object in view. Disinterested labor--benevolence--is so out of their line of thought, that many look upon us as having some ulterior object in view. But He who died for us, and whom we ought to copy, did more for us than we can do for any one else. He endured the contradiction of sinners. May we have grace to follow in his steps!'
The third, and at last successful, effort to reach Sebituane was made in April, 1851. Livingstone was again accompanied by his family, and by Mr. Oswell. He left Kolobeng with the intention not to return, at least not immediately, but to settle with his family in such a spot as might be found advantageous, in the hilly region, of whose existence he was assured. They found the desert drier than ever, no rain having fallen throughout an immense extent of territory. To the kindness of Mr. Oswell the party was indebted for most valuable assistance in procuring water, wells having been dug or cleared by his people beforehand at various places, and at one place at the hazard of Mr. Oswell's life, under an attack from an infuriated lioness. In his private Journal, and in his letters to home, Livingstone again and again acknowledges with deepest gratitude the numberless acts of kindness done by Mr. Oswell to him and his family, and often adds the prayer that God would reward him, and of His grace give him the highest of all blessings. "Though I cannot repay, I may record with gratitude his kindness, so that, if spared to look upon these, my private memoranda, in future years, proper emotions may ascend to Him who inclined his heart to show so much friendship."
The party followed the old route, around the bed of the Zouga, then crossed a piece of the driest desert they had ever seen, with not an insect or a bird to break the stillness. On the third day a bird chirped in a bush, when the dog began to bark! Shobo, their guide, a Bushman, lost his way, and for four days they were absolutely without water. In his Missionary Travels, Livingstone records quietly, as was his wont his terrible anxiety about his children.
"The supply of water in the wagons had been wasted by one of our servants, and by the afternoon only a small portion remained for the children. This was a bitterly anxious night; and next morning, the less there was of water, the more thirsty the little rogues became. The idea of their perishing before our eyes was terrible; it would almost have been a relief to me to have been reproached with being the entire cause of the catastrophe, but not one syllable of upbraiding was uttered by their mother, though the tearful eye told the agony within. In the afternoon of the fifth day, to our inexpressible relief, some of the men returned with a supply of that fluid of which we had never before felt the true value."
"No one," he remarks in his Journal, "knows the value of water till be is deprived of it. We never need any spirits to qualify it, or prevent an immense draught of it from doing us harm. I have drunk water swarming with insects, thick with mud, putrid from other mixtures, and no stinted draughts of it either, yet never felt any inconvenience from it."
"My opinion is," he said on another occasion, "that the most severe labors and privations may be undergone without alcoholic stimulus, because those who have endured the most had nothing else but water, and not always enough of that."
One of the great charms of Livingstone's character, and one of the secrets of his power--his personal interest in each individual, however humble--appeared in connection with Shobo, the Bushman guide, who misled them and took the blunder so coolly. "What a wonderful people," he says in his Journal, "the Bushmen are! always merry and laughing, and never telling lies wantonly like the Bechuana. They have more of the appearance of worship than any of the Bechuana. When will these dwellers in the wilderness bow down before their Lord? No man seems to care for the Bushman's soul. I often wished I knew their language, but never more than when we traveled with our Bushman guide, Shobo."
Livingstone had given a fair trial to the experiment of traveling along with his family. In one of his letters at this time he speaks of the extraordinary pain caused by the mosquitoes of those parts, and of his children being so covered with their bites, that not a square inch of whole skin was to be found on their bodies. It is no wonder that he gave up the idea of carrying them with him in the more extended journey he was now contemplating. He could not leave them at Kolobeng, exposed to the raids of the Boers; to Kuruman there were also invincible objections; the only possible plan was to send them to England, though he hoped that when he got settled in some suitable part of Sebituane's dominions, with a free road to the sea, they would return to him, and help him to bring the people to Christ.
In the Missionary Travels Livingstone has given a full account of Sebituane, chief of the Makololo, "unquestionably the greatest man in all that country"--his remarkable career, his wonderful warlike exploits (for which he could always bring forward justifying reasons), his interesting and attractive character, and wide and powerful influence. In one thing Sebituane was very like Livingstone himself; he had the art of gaining the affections both of his own people and of strangers. When a party of poor men came to his town to sell hoes or skins, he would sit down among them, talk freely and pleasantly to them, and probably cause some lordly dish to be brought, and give them a feast on it, perhaps the first they had ever shared. Delighted beyond measure with his affability and liberality, they felt their hearts warm toward him; and as he never allowed a party of strangers to go away without giving every one of them--servants and all--a present, his praises were sounded far and wide. "He has a heart! he is wise!" were the usual expressions Livingstone heard before he saw him.
Sebituane received Livingstone with great kindness, for it had been one of the dreams of his life to have intercourse with the white man. He placed full confidence in him from the beginning, and was ready to give him everything he might need. On the first Sunday when the usual service was held he was present, and Livingstone was very thankful that he was there, for it turned out to be the only proclamation of the gospel he ever heard. For just after realizing what he had so long and ardently desired, he was seized with severe inflammation of the lungs, and died after a fortnight's illness. Livingstone, being a stranger, feared to prescribe, lest, in the event of his death, he should be accused of having caused it. On visiting him, and seeing that he was dying, he spoke a few words respecting hope after death. But being checked by the attendants for introducing the subject, he could only commend his soul to God. The last words of Sebituane were words of kindness to Livingstone's son: "Take him to Maunku (one of his wives) and tell her to give him some milk." Livingstone was deeply affected by his death. A deeper sense of brotherhood, a warmer glow of affection had been kindled in his heart toward Sebituane than had seemed possible. With his very tender conscience and deep sense of spiritual realities, Livingstone was afraid, as in the case of Sehamy eight years before, that he had not spoken to him so pointedly as he might have done. It is awfully affecting to follow him into the unseen world, of which he had heard for the first time just before he was called away. In his Journal, Livingstone gives way to his feelings as he very seldom allowed himself to do. His words bring to mind David's lament for Jonathan or for Absalom, although he had known Sebituane less than a month, and he was one of the race whom many Boers and slave-stealers regarded as having no souls:
"Poor Sebituane, my heart bleeds for thee; and what would I not do for thee now? I will weep for thee till the day of my death. Little didst thou think when, in the visit of the white man, thou sawest the long cherished desires of years accomplished, that the sentence of death had gone forth! Thou thoughtest that thou shouldest procure a weapon from the white man which would be a shield from the attacks of the fierce Matebele; but a more deadly dart than theirs was aimed at thee; and though, thou couldest well ward off a dart--none ever better--thou didst not see that of the king of terrors. I will weep for thee, my brother, and I will cast forth my sorrows in despair for thy condition! But I know that thou wilt receive no injustice whither thou art gone; 'Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?' I leave thee to Him. Alas! alas! Sebituane. I might have said more to him. God forgive me. Free me from blood-guiltiness. If I had said more of death I might have been suspected as having foreseen the event, and as guilty of bewitching him. I might have recommended Jesus and his great atonement more. It is, however, very difficult to break through the thick crust of ignorance which envelops their minds."