xt day. When about 150 miles from
home we came to a large village. The chief had sore eyes; I
doctored them, and he fed us pretty well with milk and beans,
and sent a fine buck after me as a present. When we had got
about ten or twelve miles on the way, a little girl about
eleven or twelve years of age came up and sat down under my
wagon, having run away for the purpose of coming with us to
Kuruman. She had lived with a sister whom she had lately lost
by death. Another family took possession of her for the
purpose of selling her as soon as she was old enough for a
wife. But not liking this, she determined to run away from
them and come to some friends near Kuruman. With this
intention she came, and thought of walking all the way behind
my wagon. I was pleased with the determination of the little
creature, and gave her some food. But before we had remained
long there, I heard her sobbing violently, as if her heart
would break. On looking round, I observed the cause. A man
with a gun had been sent after her, and he had just arrived.
I did not know well what to do now, but I was not in
perplexity long, for Pomare, a native convert who accompanied
us, started up and defended her cause. He being the son of a
chief, and possessed of some little authority, managed the
matter nicely. She had been loaded with beads to render her
more attractive, and fetch a higher price. These she stripped
off and gave to the man, and desired him to go away. I
afterward took measures for hiding her, and though fifty men
had come for her, they would not have got her."

The story reads like an allegory or a prophecy. In the person of the
little maid, oppressed and enslaved Africa comes to the good Doctor for
protection; instinctively she knows she may trust him; his heart opens
at once, his ingenuity contrives a way of protection and deliverance,
and he will never give her up. It is a little picture of
Livingstone's life.

In fulfillment of a promise made to the natives in the interior that he
would return to them, Livingstone set out on a second tour into the
interior of the Bechuana country on 10th February, 1842. His objects
were, first, to acquire the native language more perfectly, and second,
by suspending his medical practice, which had become inconveniently
large at Kuruman, to give his undivided attention to