CHAPTER 1.
The Bakwain Country--Study of the Language--Native Ideas regarding Comets--Mabotsa Station--A Lion Encounter--Virus of the Teeth of Lions--Names of the Bechuana Tribes--Sechele--His Ancestors--Obtains the Chieftainship--His Marriage and Government--The Kotla--First public Religious Services--Sechele's Questions--He Learns to Read--Novel mode for Converting his Tribe--Surprise at their Indifference-- Polygamy--Baptism of Sechele--Opposition of the Natives--Purchase Land at Chonuane--Relations with the People--Their Intelligence--Prolonged Drought--Consequent Trials--Rain-medicine--God's Word blamed--Native Reasoning--Rain-maker--Dispute between Rain Doctor and Medical Doctor--The Hunting Hopo--Salt or animal Food a necessary of Life--Duties of a Missionary.
The general instructions I received from the Directors of the London Missionary Society led me, as soon as I reached Kuruman or Lattakoo, then, as it is now, their farthest inland station from the Cape, to turn my attention to the north.

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.

We shortly after retraced our steps to Kuruman; but as the objects in view were by no means to be attained by a temporary excursion of this sort, I determined to make a fresh start into the interior as soon as possible.

Accordingly, after resting three months at Kuruman, which is a kind of head station in the country, I returned to a spot about fifteen miles south of Shokuane, called Lepelole (now Litubaruba).

Here, in order to obtain an accurate knowledge of the language, I cut myself off from all European society for about six months, and gained by this ordeal an insight into the habits, ways of thinking, laws, and language of that section of the Bechuanas called Bakwains, which has proved of incalculable advantage in my intercourse with them ever since.
In this second journey to Lepelole--so called from a cavern of that name--I began preparations for a settlement, by making a canal to irrigate gardens, from a stream then flowing copiously, but now quite dry.