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Zealand, but a curious European pleasure-seeker looking for adventure and wonder. To this last
category belongs our next visitor. Max Joseph August Heinrich Markus Buchner, perhaps better
known for his exploits in Africa 1878-82 and 1884-85, held the position of Director of the
Ethnological Museum in Munich from 1887 after his promotion from curator of the ethnological
collections. Buchner’s early desire to see the world saw him travel as ship’s surgeon seven times
from 1872 on the Europe-America route before setting off in 1875 on a voyage to the South
Pacific as “Surgeon Superintendent” on board the Terpsichore, 31 which carried close to 400
predominantly German and Scandinavian immigrant passengers to New Zealand. 32 After setting
sail from Hamburg on the night of 15 November 1875, they did not reach Wellington, however,
until 12 May 1876 after 55 days in quarantine on Somes Island following their arrival on 18
March due to a typhus outbreak. 33 During his seven-week stay he travelled to the Hot Lake
district, Ohinemutu and Tauranga, before heading north to Auckland and departing on the City of
San Francisco on 3 July. 34 On his return to Hamburg following a stay of several months among
the Pacific Islands and stopovers in America and England, he compiled a popular account of his
travels in 1878 entitled Reise durch den Stillen Ozean, in which he devoted roughly a quarter of
the work to his stay in New Zealand. 35
After having to first adjust to the overcrowded and uncomfortable conditions of
quarantine life, Buchner’s impressions of the colony begin in Wellington, which against his
expectations, presents itself as a very un-American city:
Es fehlte vor Allem jenes Charakteristikum amerikanischer Städte, welches in der Lotterigkeit und
Unreinlichkeit der Strassen, in einem gewissen Bombast der Architektur und in der bunten
Farbenmenge der Aufschriften besteht. Die Häuser von Wellington sind klein, bescheiden und
31
Buchner refers to the ship as the Euphrosyne, but it has been identified as the Terpsichore (fMS-Papers-2226,
ATL).
32
See, for example, Max Buchners Reise nach Zentralafrika 1878 - 1882: Briefe, Berichte, Studien. Ed. Beatrix
Heintze. Köln: Köppe, 1999, 10-13; Dietmar Henze, “Buchner, Max”, in: EEEE 1, 387f.; Otto Maull, “Buchner, Max
Joseph August Heinrich Markus, Forschungsreisender”, in: NDB 2, 705f.; Max Buchner, Reise durch den Stillen
Ozean. Breslau: Kern, 1878, 1-5; “Wanderungen im Stillen Ocean I. Auf Neuseeland. Zum Taupo-See”, in: Ausland
52:1 6 Jan (1879): 14-17; “Wanderungen im Stillen Ocean II. Auf Neuseeland. Vom Taupo-See nach Auckland”, in:
Ausland 52:2 13 Jan (1879): 34-37.
33
Buchner, Reise durch den Stillen Ozean, 70-86. The Times refers to a total of eight deaths from typhus fever (five
adults, three children) at the time of their arrival, with another eleven out of 390 immigrants also being treated (The
New Zealand Times 20 March (1876): 2).
34
Buchner, Reise durch den Stillen Ozean, 189; NZH 4 July (1876): 4.
35
A translation of the New Zealand section by Margery Walton (fMS-Papers-2226) and a retranslation of the
quarantine period on Somes Island by Margaret Fitzgerald (MS-Papers-5630) are held in the ATL.
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