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mir stets zur Seite, helfend und meine Zwecke fördernd, bis wir uns bei meiner Abreise von
Nelson trennten. 15
Haast, likewise, could not help but do the same as he remembered his long-time friend with deep
affection:
I had arrived in Auckland a day before the “Novara.” We soon met, understood each other, and
gradually we became linked together by the warmest friendship, never clouded for a single
moment, and only severed by death. I cannot help observing here that Hochstetter’s desire to
acknowledge the merits of other scientific men, and his total want of envy or jealousy, was so
great, that though his letters to me contain in many instances valuable contributions to the history
of geology and the cognate sciences for the last twenty-five years, he was so unassuming as to his
own work that he seldom spoke of it, and then only passed it over with a few remarks, while he
fully dilated upon the work of others with sincere praise. 16
This partnership produced many fruits not only in its scientific contributions to New Zealand, 17
but also its literary contribution to the image of the British colony.
As the official chronicler of the Novara expedition, Karl von Scherzer (1821-1903), 18 who
was also in charge of geography, economics and ethnology, had been granted permission to
peruse all the collected material of Commodore von Wüllerstorf-Urbair and his fellow naturalists,
and upon his return he set about compiling the three-volume ‘Beschreibender Theil’ of the
voyage under the title Reise der Oesterreichischen Fregatte Novara um die Erde, in den Jahren
1857, 1858, 1859, in which the first two volumes appeared at the end of 1861 and the last volume
the following year. 19 Further editions followed, including an expanded and enlarged two-volume
15 Ferdinand von Hochstetter, Neu-Seeland. Facsim. Ed. Turnhout, Belgium: Time-Life-Books, 1984, 14f. (All
further references to this work will be given in parentheses in the text.)
16 Haast, “In Memoriam”, 203.
17 The names of the two scientists have in many cases been permanently etched into New Zealand’s landscape in the
form of, for example, two Mount Haasts, Haast Range, Haast Ridge, Haast Glacier, Haast Pass, Haast River, Haast
Spit, Haast Road, the Haast township, Hochstetter Dome, Hochstetter Glacier, Lake Hochstetter, Mount Hochstetter
and Hochstetter Crater in the Southern Alps and Westland, and Hochstetter Cave in Nelson (most of which still
remain today), not to mention numerous species of fauna, including Haast’s eagle and Hochstetter’s frog. In recent
times they have also been commemorated in the annual Hochstetter Lecture by the Geological Society of New
Zealand, which has been running since 1974, and the Julius von Haast Fellowship Award, which was established by
the New Zealand Government in 2004 for German scholars and scientists to undertake research in New Zealand, and
is administered by the Royal Society of New Zealand.
18 See, for example, Dr. Karl Ritter von Scherzer: Eine biographische Skizze. Ed. Komitee zur Errichtung eines Dr.-
Karl-Ritter-Denkmales in Wien. Wien: Verlag des Scherzer-Denkmal-Komitees, 1907; Bernhard Münz, “Nekrolog:
Scherzer, Karl von”, in: Biographisches Jahrbuch und deutscher Nekrolog 8 (1903): 172-75; Roswitha Karpf,
“Scherzer, Karl Ritter von”, in: NDB 22, 706f.; Dietmar Henze, “Scherzer, Karl von”, in: EEEE 5, 32-34; “Karl von
Scherzer: Biographische Skizze”, in: WIDM 22:131 (1867): 511-14; “Dr. Karl Heinrich Scherzer”, in: Illustrirte
Zeitung 28:710 7 Feb (1857): 126-28.
19 Karl von Scherzer, Reise der Oesterreichischen Fregatte Novara um die Erde, in den Jahren 1857, 1858, 1859,
unter den Befehlen des Commodore B. von Wüllerstorf-Urbair. Beschreibender Theil. 3 Bde. Wien: Aus der
kaiserlich-königlichen Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, 1861-62.
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