+++  ’I beg your acceptance of the accompanying Bow & Arrows, it is the only curiosity this out of the way place affords.  ++  ’With kind remembrances to my cousin Dobson, I remain, Dear Uncle, yours very affectionately.’  ++  Writing to Uncle Edward, thinking of other members of his family, induced a nostalgic mood.  While deep in it, Hartnell wrote a letter to William Dobson still living in London, still visiting with childhood friends in familiar haunts:  ++  ’How willingly would I give five hundred dollars to be able to drink a pot of good old English porter, and eat a smoking welsh rabit [sic] with you tonight at the Dirty Dog & Camel; how gladly would I forfeit the half of my promising expectations to be able once more to breathe the air of my native country, to hear once more the voice of real friendship, to see once more those, the remembrance of whom alone makes life tolerable.  But alas! these pleasures are reserved for such as have been wise enough to stop at home, for such as ambition has not tempted, nor fortune obliged, to seek in other countries what they could not find in their own.  These my dear Coz are pleasures which you have every moment within your grasp, but which you will never know how to appreciate until (which heaven forbid should ever happen) you have been so long deprived of them as I have been.  ++  ’Notwithstanding this doleful apostrophe, I assure you I am a great deal more comfortably situated than I eighteen months ago had any right to expect; I was then a poor clerk, stretched upon a bed of sickness which by everyone who knew me was pronounced to be my death bed – I am now a partner in the most respectable house on this side of Cape Horn, enjoying better health than ever I did in my life, and universally looked upon here as the greatest personage in California.’  ++  By the ‘Bahia Packet,’ which carried the letters to Cousin Dobson and Uncle Edward, Hartnell sent a collection of Indian curiosities – beautifully designed and woven baskets, beadwork, and bows and arrows secured by Father Ripoll – for every member of the family and a few dear friends. … +++