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publication. 40 However, it is Hochstetter’s original Neu-Seeland which is predominantly the
subject of this chapter, not only due to its being the main source for later German-speaking
explorers and visitors to New Zealand, but, more importantly, because it reveals more material
and insights from the German perspective than the English edition, particularly on the Maori,
colonisation and the New Zealand Wars, which one feels were omitted partly due to reasons of
sensitivity towards the British public and Government. Furthermore, it is clear when one reads
Neu-Seeland, and even more so the English edition, that Haast also made various contributions to
the work, from supplying information on his latest researches and explorations in the Southern
Alps in the form of reports, letters and map-sketches to providing the basis of a chapter and an
appendix, and even translating a Maori poem. For that reason, in addition to his several articles
mentioned above, Haast’s contributions will also be examined, albeit to a lesser extent. Due to the
overlapping nature of the material, however, it will sometimes be necessary to link thematically
Haast’s writings to Hochstetter’s instead of separating the two.
Hochstetter’s Neu-Seeland
As the scientific results of his geological observations and conclusions were to appear as part of
the official Novara publications, Hochstetter’s intention was to produce a second comprehensive
single-volume work on New Zealand, one which was aimed at a more general German
readership, and included an account of his various expeditions and experiences, as well as sociopolitical
and cultural-historical information, and a selection of chapters devoted to various
branches of natural science. Thus, Hochstetter’s Neu-Seeland is more than just an updated version
of Dieffenbach’s Travels in New Zealand. And while he refers to the latter’s work as “[n]och
40 H. von Haast, Life and Times, 400-4. “The English edition, as now presented, is not a mere translation of the
German original. A great portion of the matter in the German work, such as the chapter on the History of the
Colonisation, on the Maori War, on the Maori poetry, and on the statistics of New Zealand, was intended exclusively
for German readers, to whom the numerous English works on New Zealand, treating at length upon these subjects,
are often inaccessible. In these chapters I could have offered nothing new to the English public. I have therefore
entirely omitted them in the English edition, and have instead rewritten and enlarged the chapters on the Physical
Geography and Geology. In the same way, also, the chapter on the Southern Alps had, in consequence of the
discoveries and explorations of the latter years, to be entirely rewritten, and likewise in the other chapters additions
up to the year 1866 have been made. Also the sequence of the chapters has been altered in the English edition. Thus,
the first part of the book contains now the general matter, whilst the second part, beginning chapter XI, consists of
accounts of travels and descriptions of single districts and landscapes on both Islands. A number of the former
illustrations have likewise been replaced here by new ones” (Hochstetter, New Zealand, vi-vii). Hochstetter adds in
another note: “Wir leben der Ueberzeugung daß dieselbe wesentlich zur Verbreitung des Ruhmes des Verfassers,
sowie der Kenntnis Neuseelands in jenen meist außereuropäischen Kreisen beitragen wird wo die deutsche Sprache
des Originals ein Hemmniß gewesen” (Ferdinand von Hochstetter, “Hochstetters Werk über Neuseeland in englischer
Ausgabe”, in: Ausland 41:8 20 Feb (1868): 191).
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