character!  Had a long conversation with Motlube, chiefly on a charm for defending the town or for gun medicine.  They think I know it but will not impart the secret to them.  I used every form of expression to undeceive him, but to little purpose.  Their belief in medicine which will enable them to shoot well is very strong, and simple trust in an unseen Saviour to defend them against such enemies as the Matebele is too simple for them.  I asked if a little charcoal sewed up in a bag were a more feasible protector than He who made all things, and told them that one day they would laugh heartily at their own follies in bothering me so much for gun medicine.  A man who has never had to do with a raw heathen tribe has yet to learn the Missionary A B C.”

On the 8th he writes: 

“Our intentions are to go up the Leeba till we reach the falls, then send back the canoe and proceed in the country beyond as best we can.  Matiamvo is far beyond, but the Cassantse (probably Cassange) live on the west of the river.  May God in mercy permit me to do something for the cause of Christ in these dark places of the earth!  May He accept my children for his service, and sanctify them for it!  My blessing on my wife.  May God comfort her!  If my watch comes back after I am cut off, it belongs to Agnes.  If my sextant, it is Robert’s.  The Paris medal to Thomas.  Double-barreled gun to Zouga.  Be a Father to the fatherless, and a Husband to the widow, for Jesus’ sake.”

The probability of his falling was full in his view.  But the thought was ever in his mind, and ever finding expression in letters both to the Missionary and the Geographical Societies, and to all his friends,—­“Can the love of Christ not carry the missionary where the slave-trade carries the trader?” His wagon and goods were left with Sekeletu, and also the Journal from which these extracts are taken[39].  It was well for him that his conviction of duty was clear as noonday.  A year after, he wrote to his father-in-law: 

[Footnote 39:  This Journal is mentioned in the Missionary Travels as having been lost (p. 229).  It was afterward recovered.  It contains, among other things, some important notes on Natural History.]

I had fully made up my mind as to the path of duty before starting.  I wrote to my brother-in-law, Robert Moffat:  ’I shall open up a path into the interior, or perish.’  I never have had the shadow of a shade of doubt as to the propriety of my course, and wish only that my exertions may be honored so far that the gospel may be preached and believed in all this dark region.”

CHAPTER VIII.

FROM LINYANTI TO LOANDA.

A.D. 1853-1854.