rs shut up that field. A French
missionary, Mr. Fredoux, of Motito, tried to follow on my
trail to the Bamangwato, but was turned back by a party of
armed Boers. When we burst through the barrier on the north,
it appeared very plain that no mission could be successful
there, unless we could get a well-watered country leaving a
passage to the sea on either the east or west coast. This
project I am almost afraid to meet, but nothing else will do.
I intend (D.V.) to go in next year and remain a twelvemonth.
My wife, poor soul--I pity her!--proposed to let me go for
that time while she remained at Kolobeng. You will pray for
us both during that period."

A week later (August 24, 1850) he writes to the Directors that no
convenient access to the region can be obtained from the south, the lake
being 870 miles from Kuruman:

"We must have a passage to the sea on either the eastern or
western coast. I have hitherto been afraid to broach the
subject on which my perhaps dreamy imagination dwells. You at
home are accustomed to look on a project as half finished
when you have received the co-operation of the ladies. My
better half has promised me a twelvemonth's leave of absence
for mine. Without promising anything, I mean to follow a
useful motto in many circumstances, and _Try again_."

On returning to Kolobeng, Mrs. Livingstone was delivered of a
daughter--her fourth child. An epidemic was raging at the time, and the
child was seized and cut off, at the age of six weeks. The loss, or
rather the removal, of the child affected Livingstone greatly. "It was
the first death in our family," he says in his Journal, "but was just as
likely to have happened had we remained at home, and We have now one of
our number in heaven."

To his parents he writes (4th December, 1850):

"Our last child, a sweet little girl with blue eyes, was
taken from us to join the company of the redeemed, through
the merits of Him of whom she never heard. It is wonderful
how soon the affections twine round a little stranger. We
felt her loss keenly. She was attacked by the prevailing
sickness, which attacked many native children, and bore up
under it for a fortnight. We could not apply remedies to one
so young, except the simplest. She uttered a piercing cry
previous to expiring, and then went away to see the King in