echele--Opposition of the Natives--Purchase Land
at Chonuane--Relations with the People--Their Intelligence--Prolonged
Drought--Consequent Trials--Rain-medicine--God's Word blamed--Native
Reasoning--Rain-maker--Dispute between Rain Doctor and Medical
Doctor--The Hunting Hopo--Salt or animal Food a necessary of
Life--Duties of a Missionary.

The general instructions I received from the Directors of the London
Missionary Society led me, as soon as I reached Kuruman or Lattakoo,
then, as it is now, their farthest inland station from the Cape, to turn
my attention to the north. Without waiting longer at Kuruman than was
necessary to recruit the oxen, which were pretty well tired by the long
journey from Algoa Bay, I proceeded, in company with another missionary,
to the Bakuena or Bakwain country, and found Sechele, with his tribe,
located at Shokuane. We shortly after retraced our steps to Kuruman; but
as the objects in view were by no means to be attained by a temporary
excursion of this sort, I determined to make a fresh start into the
interior as soon as possible. Accordingly, after resting three months at
Kuruman, which is a kind of head station in the country, I returned to
a spot about fifteen miles south of Shokuane, called Lepelole (now
Litubaruba). Here, in order to obtain an accurate knowledge of the
language, I cut myself off from all European society for about six
months, and gained by this ordeal an insight into the habits, ways of
thinking, laws, and language of that section of the Bechuanas called
Bakwains, which has proved of incalculable advantage in my intercourse
with them ever since.

In this second journey to Lepelole--so called from a cavern of that
name--I began preparations for a settlement, by making a canal to
irrigate gardens, from a stream then flowing copiously, but now quite
dry. When these preparations were well advanced, I went northward to
visit the Bakaa and Bamangwato, and the Makalaka, living between 22
Degrees and 23 Degrees south latitude. The Bakaa Mountains had been
visited before by a trader, who, with his people, all perished from
fever. In going round the northern part of these basaltic hills near
Letloche I was only ten days distant from the lower part of the Zouga,
which passed by the same name as Lake Ngami;* and I might then (in 1842)
have discovered that lake, had discovery alone been my object. Most part
of this journey beyond Shokuane was performed on foot, in consequen