him, and who saved his life by diverting the lion when his paw was on his head, was the teacher whom Mrs. M’Robert’s twelve pounds had enabled him to employ.  Little did the good woman think that this offering would indirectly be the means of preserving the life of Livingstone for the wonderful work of the next thirty years!  When, on being attacked by Mebalwe, the lion left Livingstone, and sprang upon him, he bit his thigh, then dashed toward another man, and caught him by the shoulder, when in a moment, the previous shots taking effect, he fell down dead.  Sir Bartle Frere, in his obituary notice of Livingstone read to the Royal Geographical Society, remarked:  “For thirty years afterward all his labors and adventures, entailing such exertion and fatigue, were undertaken with a limb so maimed that it was painful for him to raise a fowling-piece, or in fact to place the left arm in any position above the level of the shoulder.”

[Footnote 21:  He did not speak of it spontaneously, and sometimes he gave unexpected answers to questions put to him about it.  To one person who asked very earnestly what were his thoughts when the lion was above him, he answered, “I was thinking what part of me he would eat first”—­a grotesque thought, which some persons considered strange in so good a man, but which was quite in accordance with human experience in similar circumstances.]

[Footnote 22:  The false joint in the crushed arm was the mark by which the body of Livingstone was identified when brought home by his followers in 1873.]

In his Missionary Travels Livingstone says that but for the importunities of his friends, he meant to have kept this story in store to tell his children in his dotage.  How little he made of it at the time will be seen from the following allusion to it in a letter to his father, dated 27th July, 1844.  After telling how the attacks of the lions drew the people of Mabotsa away from the irrigating operations he was engaged in, he says: 

“At last, one of the lions destroyed nine sheep in broad daylight on a hill just opposite our house.  All the people immediately ran over to it, and, contrary to my custom, I imprudently went with them, in order to see how they acted, and encourage them to destroy him.  They surrounded him several times, but he managed to break through the circle.  I then got tired.  In coming home I had to come near to the end of the hill.  They were then close upon the lion and had wounded him.  He rushed out from the bushes which concealed him from view, and bit me on the arm so as to break the bone.  It is now nearly well, however, feeling weak only from having been confined in one position so long; and I ought to praise Him who delivered me from so great a danger.  I hope I shall never forget his mercy.  You need not be sorry for me, for long before this reaches you it will be quite as strong as ever it was.  Gratitude is the only feeling we ought to have in remembering the event.  Do not mention this to any one.  I do not like to be talked about.”

In a letter to the Directors, Livingstone briefly adverts to Mebalwe’s service on this occasion, but makes it a peg on which to hang some strong remarks on that favorite topic—­the employment of native agency: