ANDREAS REISCHEK.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20650, 23 August 1930, Page 1 (Supplement)

ANDREAS REISCHEK.

A NOTABLE PIONEER.

BY KOTAHE,

A month or two ngo a prominent British seaman gave us.an admirable picture of a hitherto unrecorded, but exceedingly important, aspect of our earlier colonial history. Ho mado the days of the emigrant ships livo again. Another blank in the literary record has been even mor; interestingly filled by the translation into English of Andreas Reischek's " Rterbende Welt," which was published in Leipsig six years ago. The German title, " A Dying World," has been wisely discarded; the English subslituto is a littlo moro definite, but something more suggestive of its rich treasures might havo been devised than the sentimentalised " Yesterdays in Maoriland." My first impression when I read the new titlo was that I had dropped across another volume of pretty poems by some ardent feminine admirer of our scenery. Andreas lteischek's book is brimful of adventure. Ho writes as ho must have talked: eager, a lover of movement and action, a passionate devotee of science, and a worshipper of beauty in the ultimate fibres of him. The translator has caught his spirit exactly. You will not find many books that aro so easy to read and that give throughout tho impression of a wise, sane enthusiast talking to you from the other side of a study fire. Xou are in touch all the time with the man himself, and an unusually charming companion he is. Beginnings.

Reischek was born in a Danube town in 1845. He began life as a baker, but managed through the complacency of his employer to gratify his enthusiasm for a first-hand study of nature. He was a born observer, and he acquired in his offhours a considerable amount of scientific knowledge. He served for a time in the Austrian army and then settled in Vienna as taxidermist. He was thus, brought into touch with Hochstetter, who had visited New Zealand in the Novara, and has left his name writ largo in our scientific history and on the map of the South Island.

Hochstetter was director of the Vienna Imperial Natural History Museum. Christchurch had launched out into a scheme to develop a museum which would be worthy of tho magnificent opportunities New Zealand offered to tho collector and would preserve for posterity tho many things that wero passing and would not come again. Sir Julius von Haast was in chai-ge at Christchurch and he needed a capnblc man to arrange and display the exhibits. Ho wrote to his friend Hochstetter, who performed an excellent service, both to Austria and New Zealand, by sending Reischek.

By the way, Beischek mentions that the Maoris called Hochstettcr Hokiteka. That sounds suspiciously like Hokitika. I wonder if that is the origin of the Westland capital's name. Reischek had the museum arranged in time for the opening; I suppose much of his work still stands as ho left it 53 years ago. But. the town could never hold him for long. It was tho wido spaces for him, the mountain and the bush. Whenever ho had saved a little money ho was off exploring on his ceaseless quest for more knowledge of the flora and fauna and tho native life of New Zealand.

Bullor, who was engaged on his monumental work on New Zealand birds, gave him a sort of roving commission to gather information. He was always on the watch for new specimens for the Christehurch Museum. Hochstetter had authorised him to collect for the Vienna Museum, and one judges from the book that his choicest trophies found their way to Austria. The German edition gives pictures of tho leading groups of tho Reischek exhibit in Vienna; Ihey certainly seem moro complete than anything I have seen in Now Zealand. The Enthusiast. But tho ultimate destination of his treasures did not unduly concern him. It was the thrill of the hunt that fascinated him. Ho made friends easily. He was essentially a simple man whose palpable sincerity and enthusiasm seem to have made everybody willingly collaborate. Ho disarmed suspicion, not by his subtlety, but by his straightforwardness. Sometimes ho had to use guile, as when he found somo perfect mummies in tho King Country, and had to circumvent Maori suspicions and certain hostility if they knew what ho was after, by shifting his treasures little by little to tho border and then over it. But hero it was obviously his scientific fervour that overcame for the timo his simple love of frankness and openness. In tho early eighties he came to Auckland. He spent many happy days ro)ind Kaipara Harbour, in the islands in the Gulf, and at Whangarei. Ho investigated tho kiwi at close range in the Waitakeres. Ho was several times at tho Little Barrier, chiefly to secure specimens of tho almost extinct ti-roa. "At last, after months and months of patient search, after traversing evory part of this rugged island and climbing up and down ranges 2000 ft. above tho level of the sea, in the deep and silent recesses of tho Hauturu bush, it suddenly appeared before mo like the blue flower of Romance which at length crowns tho efforts of the belioving seeker." In Auckland. He was for a considerable timo in tho Auckland district. When funds ran out, as they did very often, ho came to tho city and worked in tha local museum. Mr. Cheeseman made use of his talents to put his zoological section into shape. And there were private commissions that kept tho pot boiling. Everywhere ho found generous hospitality. Farmhouses were always open to him. Ho was tho first white man to bo welcomed into the King Country after the Maori war. His picture of conditions during that tragic period of resentment and ill-will tho best I have ever read. Ho knew and loved tho Maori and ho presents the Maori view as it was unfolded to him by Tawhiao and other famous chiefs round many a camp fire. Hero is a historic document of first-rate value. It should bo read in conjunction with tho recently-published Grace diaries. This is tho Maori soul unveiled with sympathy and understanding, in all its gleanta and glooms, as it faced the difficult future with tho bitterness of failure and injustice, still warped by the primitive fervours of the dying Hauhauism. There is always something of the poet in him. Ho never ,loses it in his keenest collecting. Occasionally, the poet breaks through. "In this primeval paradise I felt tho windows of my soul were opened. Nature's wonderful mantle lay spread out before me. As never before I realised the spiritual kinship between all living things, tho connection and coherence of tho manifold works of God. That night, lying there, I experienced a sense of shame, which thoso who swear by civilisation will certainly fail to understand, that civilised man can bo the worst vermin of tho whole earth. For whorover ho comes be destroys tho equipoise of Nature, and much as ho bothers himself with his so-called arts, ho is not oven capable of repairing tho damage he causes."