ound many
indications of a much larger supply of water in a former age. He
ascribed the desiccation to the gradual elevation of the western part of
the country. He found traces of a very large ancient river which flowed
nearly north and south to a large lake, including the bed of the present
Orange River; in fact, he believed that the whole country south of Lake
'Ngami presented in ancient times very much the same appearance as the
basin north of that lake does now, and that the southern lake
disappeared when a fissure was made in the ridge through which the
Orange River now proceeds to the sea. He could even indicate the spot
where the river and the lake met, for some hills there had caused an
eddy in which was found a mound of calcareous tufa and travertine, full
of fossil bones. These fossils he was most eager to examine, in order to
determine the time of the change; but on his first visit he had no time,
and when he returned, he was suddenly called away to visit a
missionary's child, a hundred miles off. It happened that he was never
in the same locality again, and had therefore no opportunity to complete
his investigation.

[Footnote 20: See Journal, vol. xxvii. p. 356.]

Dr. Livingstone's mind had that wonderful power which belongs to some
men of the highest gifts, of passing with the utmost rapidity, not only
from subject to subject, but from one mood or key to another entirely
different. In a letter to his family, written about this time, we have a
characteristic instance. On one side of the sheet is a prolonged
outburst of tender Christian love and lamentation over a young attendant
who had died of fever suddenly; on the other side, he gives a map of the
Bakhatla country with its rivers and mountains, and is quite at home in
the geographical details, crowning his description with some sentimental
and half-ludicrous lines of poetry. No reasonable man will fancy that in
the wailings of his heart there was any levity or want of sincerity.
What we are about to copy merits careful consideration: first, as
evincing the depth and tenderness of his love for these black savages;
next, as showing that it was pre-eminently Christian love, intensified
by his vivid view of the eternal world, and belief in Christ as the only
Saviour; and, lastly, as revealing the secret of the affection which
these poor fellows bore to him in return. The intensity of the scrutiny
which he directs on his heart, and the severity of the judgme