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send back detailed reports on this young colony, particularly regarding the environment and its
inhabitants. As it was thought that these accounts could not be published elsewhere, Boll took it
upon himself to publish extracts from Krull’s 1859 and 1862 letters in the appendix of the Archiv
des Vereins der Freunde der Naturgeschichte in Mecklenburg of the same years. 21 His
justification for this is as follows:
Dieselben sind so anspruchslos und doch so lebendig geschrieben, und geben ein so vielseitiges
und anschauliches Bild der dortigen Zustände, - welches um so mehr festgehalten zu werden
verdient, da dieselben bei der schnellen Entwicklung der Colonie vielleicht schon binnen wenigen
Jahren zu den gänzlich verschollenen gehören werden, - daß der Inhalt dieser Briefe mit Recht
auch wohl in weiteren Kreisen Interesse erwecken dürfte. 22
Even though this contribution cannot compare in scholarship to the work of Forster and
Dieffenbach, the result is an interesting series of letters which give as complete a picture of New
Zealand as possible through detailed accounts of his experiences and observations, despite some
inadequacies with scientific nomenclature. 23 As Krull wrote them specifically to his mother on
the understanding that they could later, at least in part, be published in a Mecklenburg journal of
natural history, his views and perceptions would logically be fresher and more immediate
following his various experiences, yet at the same time it also implies that the content and subject
matter were also moulded to meet the expectations of both his mother and the Mecklenburg
public, or at least the likely readership of the journal. A revised and updated version of his early
travels also appeared anonymously in Das Ausland as “Mittheilungen aus Neuseeland” in January
1860, albeit in a more condensed and generalised form. 24 Given the wider reception of the latter
journal, this contribution would have been the most read and more scholarly of the two, yet it has
also clearly been edited to conform to a more popular, informative and reader-friendly format.
While the original is less edited and offers far more detailed and impressionable descriptions, it is
at times necessary to quote from the revised version when similar content overlaps due to the
quality of the comments and material at hand.
21
Friedrich August Krull, “Briefe aus Neuseeland”, in: Von Mecklenburg nach Neuseeland, 102-48. (All further
references to these letters will be given in parentheses in the text.)
22
Boll, ibid., 102.
23
Boll does stress Krull’s lack of expertise in certain areas, such as the naming of plants: “[…] leider ist F.K. in den
Naturwissenschaften sehr wenig bewandert, und daher lassen nach dieser Richtung hin seine Berichte noch manches
zu wünschen übrig” (ibid., 102).
24
Friedrich August Krull, “Mittheilungen aus Neuseeland”, in: Ausland 33:4 22 Jan (1860): 87-89; 33:5 29 Jan
(1860): 102-6.
118