s country.
Again and again have I been pained at heart to hear the
question put, Where will these new brethren find fields of
labor in this country? Because I know that in India or China
there are fields large enough for all their energies. I am
very far from undervaluing the success which has attended the
labors of missionaries in this land. No! I gratefully
acknowledge the wonders God hath wrought, and I feel that the
salvation of one soul is of more value than all the effort
that has been expended; but we are to seek the field where
there is a possibility that most souls will be converted, and
it is this consideration which makes me earnestly call the
attention of the Directors to the subject of statistics. If
these were actually returned--and there would be very little
difficulty in doing so--it might, perhaps, be found that
there is not a country better supplied with missionaries in
the world, and that in proportion to the number of agents
compared to the amount of population, the success may be
inferior to most other countries where efforts have been
made."

Finding that a brother missionary was willing to accompany him to the
station he had fixed on among the Bakhatlas, and enable him to set to
work with the necessary arrangements, Livingstone set out with him in
the beginning of August, 1843, and arrived at his destination after a
fortnight's journey. Writing to his family, "in sight of the hills of
Bakhatla," August 21st, 1843, he says: "We are in company with a party
of three hunters: one of them from the West Indies, and two from
India--Mr. Pringle from Tinnevelly, and Captain Steel of the Coldstream
Guards, aide-de-camp to the Governor of Madras.... The Captain is the
politest of the whole, well versed in the classics, and possessed of
much general knowledge." Captain Steele, now General Sir Thomas Steele,
proved one of Livingstone's best and most constant friends. In one
respect the society of gentlemen who came to hunt would not have been
sought by Livingstone, their aims and pursuits being so different from
his; but he got on with them wonderfully. In some instances these
strangers were thoroughly sympathetic, but not in all. When they were
not sympathetic on religion, he had a strong conviction that his first
duty as a servant of Christ was to commend his religion by his life and
spirit--by integrity, civilit