[28 May 1866]
I am ill in and out of the bed. I trust it will not be the last letter you may get from me. [...]1
Unknown amount of text missing. Following the quotation Thwaites wrote: 'So I fear the poor fellow must be very unwell. I was so grieved that the unexpected very early arrival of the Suez Mail balked me of writing to him in reply, as I am usually able to do the day I receive a letter from him & this is the first break in the regularity of our correspondence.'
M complained of ill-health in other letters of this period: see, for example, M to J. McCulloch, 10 March 1866 (in this edition as 66-03-10a), and M to E. Henderson, 30 June 1866.
Letter not found. The quotation used here is given in G. Thwaites to J. Hooker, 24 June 1866 (RBG Kew, Directors' letters, vol. 162, ff. 261-2). Thwaites introduced the quotation with 'I received a letter from Mueller a few days ago, dated 28th of May, in which he writes ...'. Hooker passed on the news to Henry Barkly, then Governor of Mauritius: 'I hear through Thwaites of Ceylon that poor Mueller is very ill', postscript to J. Hooker to H. Barkly, 18 August 1866 (RBG Kew, archives, Letters from Joseph Hooker vol. Ada-Bar, ff. 161-2).
Please cite as “FVM-66-05-28c,” in Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller, edited by R.W. Home, Thomas A. Darragh, A.M. Lucas, Sara Maroske, D.M. Sinkora†, J.H. Voigt† and Monika Wells accessed on