Ernst Dieffenbach - Travels in New Zealand with contributions to the geography, geology, botany, and natural history of that country, Vol. I

“Let the reader imagine a deep lake of a blue colour, surrounded by verdant hills; in the lake several islets, some showing the bare rock, others covered with shrubs, while on all of them steam issued from a hundred openings between the green foliage without impairing its freshness: on the opposite side a flight of broad steps of the colour of white marble with a rosy tint, and a cascade of boiling water falling over them into the lake!”

Such is Ernest Dieffenbach’s description of his first glance of the White Terraces in Lake Rotomahana, see cover image.

Johann Karl Ernst Dieffenbach (aka Ernest) traveled to New Zealand between 1839 and 1841 employed by the New Zealand Company as naturalist. He traveled in the Marlborough Sounds at the top of the South Island and extensively throughout the North Island at an early time in European settlement. In Volume I of “Travels in New Zealand” he describes his travels, integrating his observations of the natural world with the progress of colonisation, and a humane account of the Māori people that he met and their culture, settlements and inter-tribal politics. He made an important contribution to the early knowledge of the New Zealand flora and fauna, with his collections eventually being lodged in the British Museum and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

Note: Māori words have been pronounced as spelled in the text, which is occasionally different to modern spelling and pronunciation.
(summary by Gail Timmerman-Vaughan)