Perhaps before we set out on this new journey, we may quote from Livingstone himself two passages illustrative of the secret of his influence. In the first he says, “No one ever gains much influence in this country without purity and uprightness. The acts of a stranger are keenly scrutinised by both old and young, and seldom is the judgment pronounced even by a heathen unfair or uncharitable. I have heard women speaking in admiration of a white man because he was pure, and never was guilty of any secret immorality. Had he been, they would have known it, and, untutored heathen though they be, would have despised him in consequence.” This illustrates Livingstone’s favourite doctrine that it is the missionary’s life that is the most powerful sermon. That his teaching was partially understood may be gathered from the story of Mamire, Sekeletu’s stepfather, who on coming to say good-bye, used words like these: “You are now going among people who cannot be trusted, because we have used them badly, but you go with a different message from any they ever heard before, and Jesus will be with you, and help you, though among enemies.” It was a gracious and discerning God-speed. The route selected led Livingstone across what we know to-day as Rhodesia, and which would have been much more appropriately named Livingstonia. It passed to the north of the land inhabited by the formidable and dreaded Matabele. The tribes bordering on the Makololo country had no reason to love their oppressive neighbours; and this fact had inspired the fears expressed in Mamire’s words. It was on the 3rd of November, 1855, that the final departure from Linyanti was made; and Sekeletu accompanied the expedition along the first stage. He took the opportunity of showing Livingstone an extraordinary kindness, for the journey began in a terrific tropical thunderstorm. Livingstone’s clothing had gone on, and there was nothing for it but to sleep on the cold ground. Sekeletu, however, took his own blanket and wrapped it about the missionary, lying himself uncovered through the chill night. “I was much affected,” writes Livingstone, “by this little act of genuine kindness. If such men must perish by the advance of civilisation, as certain races of animals do before others, it is a pity.”