From the collection of the R. H. Mathews Papers (MS 1606/1, Item 10), Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, Canberra.
Hassall Street, Parramatta
N. S. Wales
April 21st 1911
My dear von Leonhardi,
By this mail I am sending you, under separate cover, a few new articles written by me since I last had the pleasure of addressing you, which I trust will be found of some interest to you in your valuable ethnological studies.
You were kind enough to send me Mr. Strehlow’s work, in 3 parts, all of which reached me safely at different times. I think I wrote thanking for them when they were received. I do not know if you published more of the same book after the issue of Part III. If you did publish any further Parts of Mr. Strehlow’s researches, may I ask if you will be so kind as to present such to me, so as to make my copies complete.
I intend to get the 3 parts of the work bound in one volume. Perhaps you have some spare title pages used when binding the 3 PartMich may follow it.
I suppose you read in the newspapers about a year ago that Professor A. R. Brown had been appointed to lead an expedition into Western Australia to study the aborigines and the zoology of the country. I have not heard how the work is progressing, but it must be nearly completed by this time.
A Swedish scientific expedition into Western Australia is also doing somewhat similar work to Mr Brown’s expedition, but I have not learnt how it is getting on.
I am writing this letter to you on my birthday, 21st April. I am just 70 (seventy) years old today, having been born in 1841 in New South Wales.
Please write to me when you get this letter, stating if the packet of ‘separates’[1] has reached you. Also kindly send me any of your own works which you may think proper to give me. Remember the title page to Strehlow’s work, if you have one.
Very kind regards and good wishes from yours faithfully,
R. H. Mathews