Moffat's kind foresight for the continuance of good health. "When visitors arrive at most mission stations, the best of everything is provided for them; but having heard that some graceless fellows, who had been feasted, went back to the colony, saying, "These missionaries live like fighting cocks,"we never made any change in our fare even for our friends.
I have spent the sixteen years from 1840 to 1856 in medical and missionary labours in Africa, and my life has not been favourable to literary pursuits. This has made composition irksome to me, and I think I would rather cross the African continent again than compose another book. It is far easier to travel than to write. I intended on going abroad to continue my studies; but as I could not brook the idea of entering into other men's labours, I undertook, in addition to teaching, building and other handicraft work, which left me generally as much exhausted and unfit for study in the evenings as when I was a cotton-spinner. The want of time for self-improvement was the only regret I experienced during my African career. The reader remembering this will make allowances for the deficiencies of a student who has the vanity to think himself "not vet too old to learn."
CHAPTER I.
Residence at Kuruman, Lepelole, and Kolobeng. — Sketch of career of Sechele, chief of the Bakwains, and notices of his tribe.
The instructions I received from the Directors of the London Missionary Society led me, as soon as I reached Kuruman or Lattakoo, their farthest inland station from the Cape, to turn my attention to the north. Without waiting longer than was necessary to recruit the oxen, which were pretty well tired hy the long journey from Algoa Bay, I proceeded, in company •with another missionary, to the Bakuena or Bakwains, who are a section of the people called Bechuanas.
The Bechuanas are divided into numerous tribes, named
