From Arthur Mellersh   25 January 1872

My dear Darwin,

Sulivan sent me Phil. Kings Photo. and asked me to send it on to you.¹ It is a capital picture though if he were to come over here as a “Claimant” I don’t think I could swear to him, and I daresay if he had the Attorney General on his side I should be called some very hard names.² It is now nearly ten years since Wickham Sulivan and I spent a pleasant evening at your house.³ One of the three is gone, and in the world what mighty events have happened! probably they will be surpassed by what will be done in the next ten. Sulivan tells me there is a mission established in Tierra del Fuego, I hope it will succeed in preventing the poor people from being “improved” off the face of the earth.⁴ I feel a strange longing to wander in those lands again, but 60 years, and rheumatic-gouty fingers will I fear keep me at home.

With compliments to M^rs. Darwin, I am my Dear Darwin | Yours very truly | A. Mellersh