As time passed onward, Robert Moffat felt more than ever the importance of completing the work he had undertaken—­the translation of the entire Bible into Sechwana.  Every minute that could be devoted to the task was eagerly embraced, his labours often extending far into the night.  Numerous interruptions made the work more difficult.  “Many, many are the times I have sat down and got my thoughts somewhat in order,” he writes, “with pen in hand to write a verse, the correct rendering of which I had just arrived at, after wading through other translations and lexicons, when one enters my study with some complaint he has to make, or counsel to ask, or medical advice and medicine to boot, a tooth to be extracted, a subscription to the auxiliary to be measured or counted; or one calls to say he is going to the Colony, and wishes something like a passport; anon strangers from other towns, and visitors from the interior arrive, who all seem to claim a right to my attentions.”

This incessant application was making inroads upon his health, and the strong powerful frame and iron constitution of the Scotch missionary began to show signs that could not be neglected.  A peculiar affection of the head troubled him—­a constant roaring noise like the falling of a cataract, and a buzzing as of a boiling up of waters.  It never ceased day and night, and he lost much sleep in consequence of it.  His only relief seemed to be in study and preaching, when the malady was not noticed; but immediately these occupations were over it was found to be there, and reasserted itself in full force.

In 1851 the rebellion of the Kat River Hottentots occurred, which, for a long time, brought obloquy upon the missionaries of South Africa and the Mission cause.

In 1852 Mr. Hamilton was gathered to his rest, after having been the faithful coadjutor of Robert Moffat, and a missionary at the Kuruman for thirty-four years; the next year tidings reached Mary Moffat that her beloved father had ended his pilgrimage at the ripe age of ninety years.

A short time previous a letter had been received from the Directors of the London Missionary Society, urging Robert Moffat to take sick leave and visit the Cape, or to return to England, but, as rest and change were absolutely essential, Moffat determined to find the needed relaxation in visiting his old native friend, Moselekatse.  He was also in doubt as to the fate of his son-in-law, Livingstone, who had started long before for the tribes on the Zambesi.

Carrying supplies for that missionary, in hope of being able to succour him, in May, 1854, Moffat once again bade his faithful partner farewell, and started for a journey to a comparatively unknown country, seven or eight hundred miles away.  The son of Mr. Edwards, the missionary who for some time had laboured with Moffat at Kuruman, and a young man named James Chapman accompanied him, for purposes of trade.  After journeying for several days through a desert country,