“A more salubrious climate must exist farther up to the north, and that the country is higher, seems evident from the fact mentioned by the Bakoba, that the water of the Teoge, the river that falls into the ’Ngami at the northwest point of it, flows with great rapidity.  Canoes ascending, punt all the way, and the men must hold on by reeds in order to prevent their being carried down by the current.  Large trees, spring-bucks and other antelopes are sometimes brought down by it.  Do you wonder at my pressing on in the way we have done?  The Bechuana mission has been carried on in a cul-de-sac. I tried to break through by going among the Eastern tribes, but the Boers shut up that field.  A French missionary, Mr. Fredoux, of Motito, tried to follow on my trail to the Bamangwato, but was turned back by a party of armed Boers.  When we burst through the barrier on the north, it appeared very plain that no mission could be successful there, unless we could get a well-watered country leaving a passage to the sea on either the east or west coast.  This project I am almost afraid to meet, but nothing else will do.  I intend (D.V.) to go in next year and remain a twelvemonth.  My wife, poor soul—­I pity her!—­proposed to let me go for that time while she remained at Kolobeng.  You will pray for us both during that period.”

A week later (August 24, 1850) he writes to the Directors that no convenient access to the region can be obtained from the south, the lake being 870 miles from Kuruman: 

“We must have a passage to the sea on either the eastern or western coast.  I have hitherto been afraid to broach the subject on which my perhaps dreamy imagination dwells.  You at home are accustomed to look on a project as half finished when you have received the co-operation of the ladies.  My better half has promised me a twelvemonth’s leave of absence for mine.  Without promising anything, I mean to follow a useful motto in many circumstances, and Try again.”

On returning to Kolobeng, Mrs. Livingstone was delivered of a daughter—­her fourth child.  An epidemic was raging at the time, and the child was seized and cut off, at the age of six weeks.  The loss, or rather the removal, of the child affected Livingstone greatly.  “It was the first death in our family,” he says in his Journal, “but was just as likely to have happened had we remained at home, and We have now one of our number in heaven.”

To his parents he writes (4th December, 1850): 

“Our last child, a sweet little girl with blue eyes, was taken from us to join the company of the redeemed, through the merits of Him of whom she never heard.  It is wonderful how soon the affections twine round a little stranger.  We felt her loss keenly.  She was attacked by the prevailing sickness, which attacked many native children, and bore up under it for a fortnight.  We could not apply remedies to one so young,