irrigate
the adjacent lands. This suggestion was immediately adopted, and soon
the whole tribe was on the move to the Kolobeng, a stream about forty
miles distant. The experiment succeeded admirably during the first
year. The Bakwains made the canal and dam in exchange for my labor in
assisting to build a square house for their chief. They also built their
own school under my superintendence. Our house at the River Kolobeng,
which gave a name to the settlement, was the third which I had reared
with my own hands. A native smith taught me to weld iron; and having
improved by scraps of information in that line from Mr. Moffat, and also
in carpentering and gardening, I was becoming handy at almost any trade,
besides doctoring and preaching; and as my wife could make candles,
soap, and clothes, we came nearly up to what may be considered as
indispensable in the accomplishments of a missionary family in Central
Africa, namely, the husband to be a jack-of-all-trades without doors,
and the wife a maid-of-all-work within. But in our second year again no
rain fell. In the third the same extraordinary drought followed. Indeed,
not ten inches of water fell during these two years, and the Kolobeng
ran dry; so many fish were killed that the hyaenas from the whole
country round collected to the feast, and were unable to finish the
putrid masses. A large old alligator, which had never been known to
commit any depredations, was found left high and dry in the mud among
the victims. The fourth year was equally unpropitious, the fall of rain
being insufficient to bring the grain to maturity. Nothing could be more
trying. We dug down in the bed of the river deeper and deeper as the
water receded, striving to get a little to keep the fruit-trees alive
for better times, but in vain. Needles lying out of doors for months did
not rust; and a mixture of sulphuric acid and water, used in a galvanic
battery, parted with all its water to the air, instead of imbibing more
from it, as it would have done in England. The leaves of indigenous
trees were all drooping, soft, and shriveled, though not dead; and those
of the mimosae were closed at midday, the same as they are at night.
In the midst of this dreary drought, it was wonderful to see those tiny
creatures, the ants, running about with their accustomed vivacity. I put
the bulb of a thermometer three inches under the soil, in the sun, at
midday, and found the mercury to stand at 132 Deg. to 134 Deg.