He sailed for the Cape of Good Hope on the
eighth of December.
Arrived in Africa, the new recruit immediately turned his steps toward the
interior, where there were real things to do. After a brief stop at
Kuruman, the home of the Moffats, he spent six months alone among the
Bakwains, acquainting himself with their language, laws, and customs. In
that time he gained not only these points, but the good will and affection
of the natives as well. His door of opportunity had opened, and from the
Bakwains he pressed farther north, until, within the first three years of
his service in the Dark Continent, he was giving the gospel to heathen far
beyond any point before visited by white men.
Both Livingstone and his wife learned early the secret of power that comes
from living _with_ the heathen, rather than merely living _among_ them. He
possessed a certain indefinable power of discipline over the native mind,
which made for orderly, thorough, and effective service. The natives knew
him for their friend as well as their teacher. Under his loving care,
heathen chiefs became Christian leaders of their own people; Christian
customs replaced heathen practises; and peace settled down where trouble
had been rife.
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