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Updated: June 6, 2025
The circle of huts immediately around the kotla of the chief is composed of the huts of his wives and those of his blood relations. He attaches the under-chiefs to himself and his government by marrying, as Sechele did, their daughters, or inducing his brothers to do so. They are fond of the relationship to great families.
Sechele proceeded as far as the Cape; but his resources being there expended, he was obliged to return to his own country, one thousand miles distant, without accomplishing the object of his journey. On his return he adopted a mode of punishment which he had seen in the colony, namely, making criminals work on the public roads.
Sechele married the daughters of three of his under-chiefs, who had, on account of their blood relationship, stood by him in his adversity. This is one of the modes adopted for cementing the allegiance of a tribe. The government is patriarchal, each man being, by virtue of paternity, chief of his own children.
Without waiting longer at Kuruman than was necessary to recruit the oxen, which were pretty well tired by the long journey from Algoa Bay, I proceeded, in company with another missionary, to the Bakuena or Bakwain country, and found Sechele, with his tribe, located at Shokuane.
"Do you think," said Sechele, "you can make my people believe by talking to them? I can make them do nothing except by thrashing them, and if you like I shall call my headman, and with our whips of rhinoceros hide we will soon make them all believe together!" Like all missionaries, Livingstone was doomed to suffer disappointments.
And again, when enabled to reach Loanda, the resolution to do my duty by going back to Linyanti probably saved me from the fate of my papers in the "Forerunner". And then, last of all, this new country is partially opened to the sympathies of Christendom, and I find that Sechele himself has, though unbidden by man, been teaching his own people.
Sechele had, by right of chieftainship, the breast of every animal slaughtered either at home or abroad, and he most obligingly sent us a liberal share during the whole period of our sojourn. But these supplies were necessarily so irregular that we were sometimes fain to accept a dish of locusts.
Their desire to visit Sebituane, whose residence was considerably farther in the interior, was frustrated by the jealousy of Lechulatebe, a chief near the lake, and the expedition returned to the station at Kolobeng. The attempt was renewed the following year. Mrs. Livingstone, their three children, and Sechele accompanied him. The lake was reached.
After taking leave of Sechele he travelled several hundred miles to the territory of Sebituane. On the road Livingstone and his family had a terribly anxious time. The water in the waggons was all but finished, they were passing through a desert land, their guide had left them.
Reasserting my belief in the words of Christ, we parted; and it will be seen farther on that Sechele himself assisted me in crossing that desert which had previously proved an insurmountable barrier to so many adventurers.
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