In the matter of Brentham, I think a private letter to you might meet
the case better than an exchange of cables or an official dispatch.
I quite understand your Department is annoyed at the questions put in
Parliament last month after the news about the deaths at the Mission
station at Hangodi. But I cannot help thinking the Department is
disposed to be too hard on Brentham, as though it were prejudiced from
some other quarter than me. I admit when I first came out here I jibbed
a little at his cocksureness, his assumption that no one knew anything
about Ungujan affairs to compare with his own knowledge; and it seemed
to me he made rather a parade about the number of languages he had
acquired, which contrasted unfavourably with my acquaintance--then--with
only three (I have tried since to learn Swahili). And so on and so on.
I moved easier and got my bearings better when I had sent him over to
his proper sphere, the mainland. I also thought his contempt for the
Bazzards a little too marked, though I must admit subsequently my wife
and I have found that a little of Mrs. B. goes a long way. But I hate
writing disagreeable things about anybody--a climate like this excuses
hair-dye, face-powder, irritability and even a moderate degree of
illicit love (don't treat this as official!) ... But about Brentham: if
his mission to the missionaries--telling them to clear out before the
Arab danger--_was_ a failure, in that in most places there was no
danger, _your_ apprehensions and _my_ instructions were to blame for
starting Brentham off on his wild-goose chase. The missionaries in
Usagara seem to cut up rough because they weren't attacked, were
"quittes pour la peur." But that was hardly Brentham's fault.
The Hangodi business is a different matter. There is little doubt in my
mind that B. was a little spoony on Mrs. Baines--They had travelled out
together, and it seems she comes from near his part of the world in
Berkshire-Hampshire--Jolly district, near the Carnarvons and the
Silchesters.--Ever go there to shoot? But Mrs. Baines had been ill from
one of these confinements that Missionary ladies--married, of
course--have so regularly, and her husband seems really to have wished
his wife to go away with Brentham. To make it all right and proper he
packed off at the same time the other woman at their station, a
strong-minded female named Jamblin. (She figures very much in the
dispatches I sent home last mail.) Well: according to Brentham, this
Jamblin woman, when they had done a few marches and stopped at another
Mission station, insisted, positively _insisted_ on going back to
Hangodi, and equally insisted on _his_ taking Mrs. Baines to the coast.
He oughtn't to have agreed. That's where he was weak. He ought to have
returned to Hangodi and helped to beat off the attack--if it came, as it
did--and then have refused to take the ladies away unless the men came
too. Instead of that, Brentham, having found some missionaries of whom
he was in search, hung about their place until the news of the attack on
Hangodi and the death of Mrs. Baines's husband reached him. After that
he made for the coast by the northern route, the only one open to him at
that time without fighting. Even on this route they had some most
extraordinary adventures and spent a devil of a time before they got
back to civilization--as we call ourselves by contrast.
The general opinion among the missionaries, I know, is unfavourable to
Mrs. Baines, and in consequence to Brentham. But Brentham swears to me
on his honour--_and I believe him_--there was nothing "wrong" between
them. Jennie--my wife--says he's as straight as a die; though never
having seen a "die," I can't say. At any rate, Jennie, on whose
judgment I always rely, has taken a great liking to Brentham. So she
has also to the young party with whom he has become involved, this Mrs.
John Baines. The poor girl--she doesn't look her age--26--was stranded
here at their Mission Depot, and Jennie, after hearing about her, went
over in her impulsive way and brought her to the Agency. This has put a
stopper on local gossip, which has thus been deprived of a rare morsel
that would otherwise have acted as a real tonic on a fever-stricken
community. Now Jennie says that although there's never been anything
between them but what was right and proper, they ought to marry as soon
as six months is up from the death of the first husband--which we
presume took place on October 29th, from the accounts of that masterful
person who now calls herself Ann Anderson. Jennie had but to make the
suggestion and they both consented, so the civil marriage--the only
legal one here--is fixed for March 31. Whether Archdeacon Gravening
will consent to marry them at the Cathedral in addition, I cannot say.
He is thinking it over. The matter has been speeded up by your
intimation that the F.O. intends to recall Brentham. If he went back
and didn't marry her, things would go hardly with Mrs. Baines. (I
really have taken a liking to her, and I could imagine when she gets to
a good climate she might be quite pretty. She is very quiet, and in a
quiet way is rather entertaining in her accounts of what they went
through in their wild journey to the coast.)
Well: when the wedding is over, I propose breaking to him the F.O.
instructions to return and give an account of himself. I must give him
just enough time to go over to the mainland and try to settle things at
his Consulate there. The Spencer Bazzards--who have a down on
him--report that an utter muddle followed his departure for the interior
last September, and accuse his Indian clerk of embezzling Consular
funds, and, worse still, of selling the office cipher code to the
Germans. This, if true, is a confounded nuisance, as it will oblige us
to make changes all round. Fortunately it is only Cipher Q.
I suppose you know Captain Wissmann has arrived at Medina at the head of
a force of over a thousand picked men to fight the Arabs to a finish?
Other German officers have met him there with further contingents--Zulus
and Makua. Wissmann's people are mainly Sudanese. I suppose we have
done right in enabling him to raise this force on what is practically
British territory--British or Portuguese? I like Wissmann personally.
After all--as Brentham says--if we hadn't the pluck to take all East
Africa for ourselves at the time we were first challenged by Bismarck,
it is better that the German share should be properly controlled and not
fall back into a state of anarchy and slave-raiding. But, of course,
what ties our hands in all these matters is the intense desire of France
to raise the Egyptian question to our disadvantage.--Therefore, don't
think I am girding at the Office for irresolution. The French here make
my life a burden to me with their intrigues....
* * * * *
Yours sincerely,
GODFREY DEWBURN.
_From Lucy Brentham to Mrs. Albert Josling, Church
Farm, Aldermaston._
Mbweni,
Unguja,
_April_ 2, 1889.