Dear Captain Brentham,—
Mrs. Stott and I, we thank you very heartily for your kind remembrances of us. The generous present of tea you sent us as soon as you got back to England reached our good friend Callaway a little while ago and I found it here waiting for us when I arrived from the interior.
Captain Wissmann has had a wonderful series of victories over the Arabs and Wangwana, which in the good providence of God have cleared the way between Ugogo and the coast. I heard something of this in the Happy Valley last April; so, as we were running terribly short of supplies and as we felt “seed time was come” and that the Lord desired us to reopen our Burungi Station, and establish his tabernacle strongly in this glorious place—Manyara—“ripe unto harvest”—I felt my way cautiously up the Valley and through the Irangi country to Burungi. The place was not any worse treated than when you left it—you made a great impression on the Wagogo—so, as their elders begged me to rebuild the station I left some of our trained workers to do so. Besides that, Captain Wissmann, whom we met near-by, has lent us two German sergeants—biddable men and clever with their hands. They’d been sick, and wounded in the legs and he said it would do them good to have a spell of quiet sedentary life. He also put under their orders a guard of five Sudanese soldiers to guard the station whilst it is being rebuilt. So here I am at the coast, chopping yarns with Mr. Callaway, and laying in great supplies which I have been able to buy out of the price of that ivory you shot for us.
Captain Brentham, you don’t know what a mine of wealth the Happy Valley is, and the cliffs and mountains on the western side (Iraku and Ilamba). I am an Australian, and before I found Christ I had a course of instruction as a mining engineer. The rocks in and about the Happy Valley tell me at first sight more than they would an ordinary Englishman. I suppose some one will have to find out this, sooner or later. I’d much sooner it were you. You may yet get it taken over by Great Britain. At any rate, if you came out here and prospected you would see what I mean. What did you do with the specimens you took away with you for analysis? Did you lose them on your way to the coast? Maybe if the Happy Valley is to come under the Germans they would give you a concession. This Captain Wissmann seems to like you, and he said it was far from his Government’s intention to drive away English missionaries or English capital. He likes the English very much and speaks English very well.
I only write this because they say here you are not coming back as Consul. I am sorry. Why not then come out on your own? I’ve opened your letter to Mrs. Stott, which came with the tea, and right glad I was to hear—and so will she be—that you’d married poor Lucy Baines. Right glad. Bring her out here with you, and Mrs. Stott shall look after her whilst you go round prospecting and staking out your claims. We may not see eye to eye over the Lord’s work. The Lord hasn’t revealed himself to you yet as He has to us. He will in His own good time. But you’ve got the root of the matter in you. I never yet met an unbeliever who was so reverent and so tender of other people’s beliefs… You’re a good man, if you’ll forgive my saying so. You wouldn’t ever interfere with our work here, I know. It’s getting on grand. We baptized the Chief of the Wambugwe and fifty of his men in the Lake at Manyara just before you left, and please God, we’ve saved the whole valley from Islam.
Mrs. Stott had always a first-class opinion of you, though you weren’t of our way of thinking in religion. She is sure you’ll always stand up for the natives and protect their rights. I hope I haven’t been taking a liberty, writing this letter. If you don’t like to come out yourself, any one you sent we should trust to do the right thing and would show him round. Otherwise, we have been careful to say nothing about the Happy Valley, and so far no Arabs and no Germans have troubled us.
May God’s blessing rest on you and on your sorely tried wife. I feel sure there are happier days in store for her.
Your sincere friend—if you’ll allow me to say so.