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Lendenfeld wrote numerous scientific contributions on New Zealand, especially
concerning the Southern Alps and glacial theories, as early as mid-1883. 209 However, it was not
until 1889 that a more popular narrative of his arrival in New Zealand and subsequent expeditions
appeared in both Das Ausland and Zeitschrift des Deutschen und Oesterreichischen Alpenvereins
under the titles “In den Alpen Neuseelands” and “Die Alpen Neuseelands” respectively, 210 before
being revised with additional material in the mostly reader-friendly works Australische Reise
(1892) and Neuseeland (1900), the latter of which offer the best sources for his general
perceptions of New Zealand. After devoting nearly two decades on and off to the study of New
Zealand, in Neuseeland he attempted to produce an all-encompassing work, with the aid of
various updated secondary sources, in a mould similar to that of Dieffenbach and Hochstetter,
which included sections on land and people, flora and fauna, climate and geology, economics and
trade, as well as colonisation and cultural and socio-political history. Although he failed to deliver
as successful or influential a work as Hochstetter’s Neu-Seeland, his desire to produce a work of
this format, albeit much shorter than his predecessors, is, nonetheless, commendable.
Lendenfeld’s initial assessment of the colony in Australische Reise is very positive despite
the burden of debt which had piled up over the last few decades, one reason being the
construction of the rail network in the South Island which had provided important trade routes
through unpopulated areas: 211
Heute gibt es kein zivilisierteres Land wie Neuseeland[.] Prächtige Bauten, großartige Museen und
Universitäten schmücken die Städte. Ausgedehnte Eisenbahnen und Dampftramways vermitteln
den Verkehr. Es gibt mehr Zeitungen – im Verhältnis zur Bevölkerungszahl – wie in irgend einem
anderen Lande auf der Erde und in den zahlreichen Städten einen Komfort und eine Eleganz,
welche sehr gut den Vergleich mit europäischen Städten gleicher Größe aushalten würden. Doch
209 These include, for example, his initial contribution in the Oesterreichische Alpen-Zeitung in 1883 entitled “Erste
Ersteigung des Hochstetter Dom, ca. 3600 M. (Neu-Seeländer Alpen)”, his July paper at the Canterbury
Philosophical Institute published that same year in the New Zealand Journal of Science as “An Expedition to the
Central Part of the Southern Alps”, his official scientific report on the Southern Alps entitled “Der Tasman-Gletscher
und seine Umgebung” which was published in Dr A. Petermanns Mitteilungen aus Justus Perthes’ Geographischer
Anstalt in 1884, followed shortly by “Eine Expedition nach dem Zentralstocke der Neuseeländischen Alpen” in the
Oesterreichische Alpen-Zeitung, as well as a number of generally short but well-illustrated contributions in Globus
(1888-89, 1891, 1896), and a fairly substantial section on the Southern Alps in Die Hochgebirge der Erde (1899).
210 Robert von Lendenfeld, “In den Alpen Neuseelands”, in: Das Ausland 62:40 7 Oct (1889): 781-84; 62:41 14 Oct
(1889): 816-20; 62:42 21 Oct (1889): 838-40; 62:43 28 Oct (1889): 856-59; 62:44 4 Nov (1889): 877-80; 62:45 12
Nov (1889): 897-900; 62:46 18 Nov (1889): 904-8; 62:47 25 Nov (1889): 927-30; 62:48 2 Dec (1889): 958-60; 62:49
9 Dec (1889): 967-71; 62:50 16 Dec (1889): 995-99; Robert von Lendenfeld, “Die Alpen Neuseelands”, in:
Zeitschrift des Deutschen und Oesterreichischen Alpenvereins 20 (1889): 470-503.
211 Lendenfeld, Australische Reise, 200. Unfortunately, New Zealand trains only offered basic facilities for the
traveller: “Die erste Classe gleicht unserer dritten Classe, sowohl was Ausstattung der Waggons als auch was das
Aussehen der Passagiere anbelangt” (Robert von Lendenfeld, “Eine Expedition nach dem Zentralstocke der
Neuseeländischen Alpen”, in: Oesterreichische Alpen-Zeitung 6:146 8 Aug (1884): 202).
328