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ideas of a paradisical climate and lifestyle for German-speaking immigrants. While working
conditions proved more important for Krull, emphasising the suitability of Germans in an attempt
to attract them to the colony through communicating success stories of those who had emigrated
was often more central to Haast’s aims than to inform the reader of the conditions and effort
involved. Importantly, Haast was often restricted to relaying a narrative on Hochstetter and the
locations that they traversed, meaning that, apart from when he forces the issue at the start, by the
time of his Allgemeine Zeitung article he simply conveys the narrative and describes the
environment, and he only focuses on the positive image of German immigration specifically
when later visiting the German colony of Sarau. Instead he finds value in praising the efforts and
successes of the notable German influence Hochstetter has on the colony before he too takes his
rightful place alongside him. The strength of the prevailing image of New Zealand as a German
immigrant’s paradise can additionally be seen in his adopting of the colony as his home, in
conjunction with his continued promotion of its resources and scientific community even after the
emphasis on German immigration subsided from his writings. His portrayal of the Maori, on the
other hand, is less detailed and less original in places, but full of colourful non-scientific
comments in order to entertain the reader rather than merely inform, and therefore also offers in
general less of an outright German perspective or useful insights. Even so, he includes the same
conventional stereotypes and general observations of Dieffenbach and Hochstetter without
overdoing Greco-Roman or Romantic imagery, and emphasises the Maori respect for British law
and peaceful relations instead of focusing on the rising conflict which would soon lead to the
wars of 1860-61. While both explorers’ depictions at times lack the same sense of objectivity that
is apparent in much of Dieffenbach’s work, on account of their more favourable treatment and the
state of progress of the colony, in conjunction with the obvious differences in text and target
audience, it will be shown in the following chapters that it was these images of New Zealand and
its people which proved influential for the likes of Reischek and other German-speaking visitors
to the country.
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