Before that time came, however, he had laid the foundations of his fame as an explorer by crossing the Kalahari Desert, and discovering Lake Ngami. The circumstances that gave rise to this journey are easily detailed. The drought continued at Kolobeng as pitilessly as at Chonuane. Only the power of Livingstone’s personality sufficed to retain the faith and loyalty of the tribes. He writes that they were always treated with “respectful kindness” and never had an enemy among the natives. His enemies were among the “dirty whites,” who knew that he was the most dangerous obstacle to the slave-raids, and who objected to his policy of training Christian native teachers to be evangelists among their own kinsfolk. But though the tribes remained loyal, the fact remained that Livingstone had led a migration which had not resulted in a permanent settlement; neither could he command the rain as their own rainmakers professed to be able to do. The heathen superstition that hostile doctors had put their country under an evil charm so that no rain should fall on it, prevailed even against their faith in the missionary. Sechele’s more enlightened mind found it difficult to understand why Livingstone’s God did not answer the prayer for rain. Yet the work went forward at Kolobeng. The chief Sechele, after long hesitation on Livingstone’s part, was baptised and entered into communion with the little church. Trouble followed when he “went home, gave each of his superfluous wives new clothing, and all his own goods, which they had been accustomed to keep in their huts for him, and sent them to their parents with an intimation that he had no fault to find with them, but that in parting with them he wished to follow the will of God.” It was his solution of a social problem that can never be satisfactorily solved, and it was both courageous and generous, but the result was seen in the fiercer resentment of the relatives of the women; and while little or none of this fell upon Livingstone, it served seriously to prejudice the religion which was responsible for Sechele’s action. On every count, it was desirable to find the new and permanent station, where that central training-ground for native missionaries could be established which Livingstone had constantly in view, and where the water supply would be less likely to fail. But where to go? In the south, the field was well supplied with missionaries. To the east were the unfriendly Dutch, bent on making mischief. To the north lay the Kalahari desert, which Sechele had pronounced to be an impassable barrier to the progress of Christianity. “It is utterly impossible even to us black men,” he said. But the word “impossible” was not in Livingstone’s dictionary.