Draft of a letter from Edward Burnett Tylor to Robert Hanley Hall, 14 December 1899

Draft, or copy, of a letter sent from Oxford by Professor Edward Burnett Tylor to Robert Hanley Hall of the Hudson’s Bay Company in Victoria, dated 14 December 1899.

Transcript of letter (4 pages): ‘Dear Sir/ Referring to our correspondence early this year about the purchase of a totem-pole from Masset, may I ask you to let me know whether the transaction is// going on satisfactorily. I am hoping to hear that your Agent has been able to obtain a fine one and that it has been shipped or is going to be, but I quite understand that there may be difficulties[.]// I trust that my letters made clear my wish to carry out the arrangement only subject to the [Hudson’s Bay] Company’s Agent being satisfied with the good quality of the pole he wrote about, & that it was carved all down.// I must apologize for giving so much trouble, but there is a place in this Museum exactly suited to a fine pole of 40 f[ee]t or even more, and I am much set on getting one.’ (Transcription by Philip Grover.)