Livingstone has given ample details of his progress in the Missionary Travels, dwelling especially on his joy when he reached the beautiful river Zouga, whose waters flowed from ’Ngami.  Providence frustrated an attempt to rouse ill-feeling against him on the part of two men who had been sent by Sekomi, apparently to help him, but who now went before him and circulated a report that the object of the travelers was to plunder all the tribes living on the river and the lake.  Half-way up, the principal man was attacked by fever, and died; the natives thought it a judgment, and seeing through Sekomi’s reason for wishing the expedition not to succeed, they by and by became quite friendly, under Livingstone’s fair and kind treatment.

A matter of great significance in his future history occurred at the junction of the rivers Tamanak’le and Zouga: 

“I inquired,” he says, “whence the Tamanak’le came.  ’Oh! from a country full of rivers,—­so many, no one can tell their number, and full of large trees.’  This was the first confirmation of statements I had heard from the Bakwains who had been with Sebituane, that the country beyond was not the ‘large sandy plateau’ of the philosophers.  The prospect of a highway, capable of being traversed by boats to an entirely unexplored and very populous region, grew from that time forward stronger and stronger in my mind; so much so, that when we actually came to the lake, this idea occupied such a large portion of my mental vision, that the actual discovery seemed of but little importance.  I find I wrote, when the emotions caused by the magnificent prospects of the new country were first awakened in my breast, that they might subject me to the charge of enthusiasm, a charge which I deserved, as nothing good or great had ever been accomplished in the world without it[29].’”

[Footnote 29:  Missionary Travels, p. 65.]

Twelve days after, the travelers came to the northeast end of Lake ’Ngami, and it was on 1st August, 1849, that this fine sheet of water was beheld for the first time by Europeans.  It was of such magnitude that they could not see the farther shore, and they could only guess its size from the reports of the natives that it took three days to go round it.

Lechulatebe, the chief who had sent him the invitation, was quite a young man, and his reception by no means corresponded to what the invitation implied.  He had no idea of Livingstone going on to Sebituane, who lived two hundred miles farther north, and perhaps supplying him with fire-arms which would make him a more dangerous neighbor.  He therefore refused Livingstone guides to Sebituane, and sent men to prevent him from crossing the river.  Livingstone was not to be baulked, and worked many hours in the river trying to make a raft out of some rotten wood,—­at the imminent risk of his life, as he afterward found, for the Zouga abounds with alligators.  The season was now far advanced, and as Mr. Oswell volunteered to go down to the Cape and bring up a boat next year, the expedition was abandoned for the time.