Before long, David began to suspect that the guides were actually leading them away from water. Although the Kalahari did not appear to have rivers or streams, there was water to be found if a person knew where to look. In places, the rainwater collected about five or six feet underground on top of “pans” of limestone. If a person dug very carefully in the right spot, he could find these pools of underground water. Since David had no idea where to dig for this water, the party wasted many hours each day digging furiously with spades and turtle shell scoops. Sometimes they found a little water, but it was never enough for all the people and animals. They whipped the oxen mercilessly to keep them moving, but no amount of whipping could induce the animals to walk for more than six hours a day over the burning hot desert.
The situation became desperate by the time they had been traveling for a month. They were 120 miles into the desert and too exhausted to turn back. They had to find a good supply of water—and fast. As David contemplated their desperate situation, something caught his eye. It was a small, naked figure running silently into the nearby bushes.
“Quick, over there!” David yelled to Cotton Oswell, who was riding a horse. “I think I saw someone over there.”
Cotton Oswell turned his horse in the direction David was pointing and clicked his stirrups. Five minutes passed before he returned, walking his horse. A woman from a bushman tribe was trotting alongside him.
“Thank goodness you found someone!” David exclaimed. “I just wish we had some way to talk to her. I can’t say a word in the dialect the bushmen speak. It’s all clicks and popping noises. Very difficult, really,” he muttered as he climbed into the back of the wagon. He emerged a moment later with a string of glass beads and a leg of cooked gemsbok, which he held out to the woman, who smiled and grabbed them.
“She understood that all right,” grinned Cotton Oswell. “Now, if we can just get her to tell us where to find water.”
The two men did a pantomime, scooping up imaginary water with their hands and drinking it slowly.
The woman smiled again and pointed to the north.
“I think she understands!” said Cotton Oswell. “Come on. Let’s swing the wagons around and see if she will lead us.”
David nodded. “It’s our only hope,” he said. Then he added glumly, “I hope she isn’t tricking us like those Bamangwatos we had to send back.”
The expedition followed the bushwoman on late into the afternoon.
“Keep your eyes on her. We don’t want her to disappear on us!” David cautioned his Bakwain helpers. He need not have been concerned. Suddenly the oxen and horses became excited, kicking and lunging forward.
“Water,” said Cotton Oswell. “They must smell water!”
Sure enough, just ahead of them was a large spring surrounded by low bushes. While several men stood guard watching for lions, the oxen were unyoked and led down to the cool, clear water.
“It’s wonderful,” laughed David, splashing around in the water. When he turned to thank the bushwoman for leading them to the spring, the woman was gone. As he scoured the horizon for some sight of her, David thought he saw something—not the woman but something else. He squinted and looked harder into the distance. Could it be true, or was he seeing things? Far in the distance was a ribbon of shimmering water lined with large trees.
“Look over there,” he called to Cotton Oswell. “Do you see anything?”
Cotton Oswell shaded his eyes against the setting sun and stared hard. His eyes widened with amazement, and his mouth dropped open. “A river! I see a river!”
David nodded with relief and excitement. He had been worried it was just a mirage. The next day, July 4, 1849, however, the river was still there, lying tantalizingly in the distance. With plenty of water in their bellies, the oxen didn’t take long to cross the distance to the river. By midafternoon, the members of the expedition were standing on the edge of the Zouga River—the most beautiful sight David had ever seen. Stretching to the north and south on either side of the river was a line of lush trees that shaded the sparkling clear water.
David took readings with his sextant and carefully recorded the spot on his map. He felt exhilarated. No white man knew about this river, and here he was standing at the edge of it. David felt sure that if they followed the river north, it would lead them to Lake Ngami. He was right. Twenty-seven days later and two hundred eighty miles farther north, the river broadened into a large, shallow lake. On August 1, 1849, two months to the day since he had left Kolobeng, David, along with Cotton Oswell and Mungo Murray, was standing on the banks of Lake Ngami. This was one of the greatest moments of his life.
David estimated the broad and shallow lake to be about seventy miles in circumference and no more than chest deep at its deepest point. The lake swarmed with all kinds of animal life. Large herds of elephants and buffalo trampled the vegetation on the shoreline, dainty antelopes darted about, and crocodiles bobbed their heads in and out of the still water. What seemed like a million different birds flew overhead or waded among the reeds at the water’s edge. David was charmed by it all, but most of all he was inspired with thoughts of a mission station on the lake edge. He could hardly wait to get back to Kolobeng to write to the London Missionary Society to inform them of his wonderful find.
The trip back was much less taxing. The men retraced their steps, following the Zouga River south for three hundred miles and then heading off into the Kalahari. This time, though, they had David’s map to guide them. On his map, David had marked all the spots where they had been able to find at least some water on the trip north, and once again they stopped at these spots.
Chief Sekomi was astonished to see the members of the expedition alive and well. He had been certain they would perish in the desert, and the two guides he had sent with them had tried their hardest to make sure that happened. But the men hadn’t perished. They had made it all the way to Lake Ngami and back.
On the trip, Cotton Oswell had shot an enormous bull elephant with tusks weighing over one hundred pounds apiece. The Bakwains had killed some smaller elephants and collected the tusks to sell to ivory traders on the coast. Everyone returned from the trip happy.
David’s family was glad to see David. It had been four months and nine days since David had left. Agnes, aged two and a half, was now chattering ceaselessly, and even baby Thomas dazzled his father by giving him a broad smile from his crib.
Upon his return to Kolobeng, David wrote letters to his family in Scotland and to Thomas Steele in India. He also wrote to Arthur Tidman at the London Missionary Society office in London. After describing his adventure, he ended the letter by saying, “I hope to be permitted to work as long as I live beyond other men’s line of things, and plant the seed of the gospel where others have not planted.”
In contrast to the success of the trip to discover Lake Ngami was a visit to Kolobeng by the Reverend John Freeman, a director of the London Missionary Society. The Reverend Freeman was visiting all the LMS missions in southern Africa. The last mission he visited was Kolobeng to see David Livingstone. The Reverend Freeman did not say much about what he saw there, but what he did say was depressing. He was surprised at how few converts David had to show for his eight years of missionary work, and he did not feel that the school was being run as well as it should be. The Reverend Freeman thought that David had neglected his missionary work and told him as much. David tried to explain that it was not easy converting natives and that he thought that an important part of his work was finding a safe area for the Bakwains to live in as well as opening up new areas for missionaries to work in.
By the time the Reverend Freeman had left, David realized he had a serious decision to make. He had to admit he was not a very good stay-in-one-place missionary. His heart was in traveling, in spending a day or a week or a month with an unknown tribe, and beginning the process of helping them to understand the gospel message. The question was, How could he arrange things so that he could do this? Where would the money come from to do it? And, most important, what would his family do while he was away in unmapped and unexplored areas?
Chapter 13
Chief Sebitoane
Now that David had settled in his mind that he was meant to be a pioneer missionary and not a settler, he itched to head north again into the Kalahari Desert. Chief Sechele had told him about a great chief, Sebitoane, who lived beyond the Zouga River. Chief Sechele was convinced that Chief Sebitoane would be key to opening the northern regions of the Kalahari to the gospel message. As a result, David was anxious to go in search of him.
“Mary, I must go north again and find Chief Sebitoane,” David said at dinner one night.
Young Agnes looked forlornly at him. “But Papa, you were away all last winter, and you promised to help me in my little garden this time.”
David glanced around the table at his wife and three children while Mary let out a deep sigh.
“How long will you be gone?” asked Robert, his eyes shining with thoughts of adventure. “Can we come with you?”
Mary patted Robert’s arm. “You know that’s not possible, Robert. Your father has important work to do.”
Mary then turned to David. “What are we going to do while you’re away, and how long will you be gone?” she asked, tears dancing at the edges of her eyes.
David felt terrible. If only there were some way for the family to go along with him. Suddenly his mind started whirling. “Why couldn’t you come?” he blurted.
Mary stared at him. “You can’t be serious, not with me expecting another baby.”
David laid down his knife. “But why not? If you need a doctor, I’m the only one from here to Port Elizabeth. And what if I leave you here? It’s only a matter of time before the Boers attack. They have made their intentions plain enough. And think of it, Mary. If Chief Sebitoane were to ask me to stay and preach the gospel, you would be right there at my side. I wouldn’t have to return here for you before I could do that.” David took another bite of tough rhinoceros meat, amazed that he had not thought of this before.
“Do you mean it?” asked Robert. “We could really go with you on a wagon?”
“We only travel in the mornings and evenings, Mary,” David added gently, sensing his wife’s hesitation. “And if you or the children needed to camp for a day, we could do that, too. It will be so much easier than last time. I have maps of the area now. I know where to dig for the water holes. Besides, once we get to the Zouga River, we won’t have a worry. There will be plenty of water. What do you think?”
Mary nodded slowly. “It does make a lot of sense. I am worried about how we would be protected while you’re gone.” She reached over to cut up Agnes’s meat. “Let’s think about it for a day or two and see what happens.”
It took a week, but in the end Mary agreed that the family should go with David. Whatever happened, they would stick together.
The Livingstones left in high spirits early in July 1850. This time, Chief Sechele, Mebalwe, and twenty Bakwains journeyed with them. David made his wife as comfortable in the wagon as he could. Mary kept Thomas with her while David often took the older two children with him. Robert and Agnes loved to ride tucked together in front of their father on his horse.
Everything went much as David had expected, right up until the time his two oldest children became sick with malaria. By then, they had reached the Zouga River, but David had been unable to locate Chief Sebitoane or any members of his tribe, the Makalolo. David had been warned that there were many tsetse flies in the area he wanted to explore. Little was known about the tsetse fly except that its bite slowly killed cattle, horses, and dogs, and David could not risk losing his oxen. As disappointed as he was, he had no choice but to get his children home as quickly as possible so that he could nurse them back to health.
