13 
and acquaintances, and lived after the good old home-fashion; the 
language we spoke was our mother-tongue; — only the scenery 
changed during our travels; and even among people of different 
complexion , and on the most distant shores did 1 feel at home as 
long as the Novara lay in the harbour. Hence my travels in for- 
eign countries , and among strange people might truly be said to 
date from now. I was alone and left to shift for myself. 
Such were my thoughts, when I wrote in my diary: 
“ Alone among the Antipodes !” 
Sojourn. Now, after having returned to my native hemi- 
sphere, when I recall the pleasant times spent in the Antipodes, I 
may well say , that I had every reason to be satisfied with my fate. 
New Zealand was altogether an extremely remunerative field of ex- 
ploration for me. In a geological point of view, every step was 
attended with new results, which, whether in accordance with or 
adverse to the sanguine expectations of the colonists, were generally 
connected with questions of material and practical value for the 
young colony. I had thus the satisfaction of finding the whole 
population taking a lively interest in my labours. This cheering 
and truly honouring sympathy was to me the most welcome reward 
for the many privations and hardships , which had to be necessarily 
incurred. The kind and valuable sendees rendered me by word 
and deed, wherever my scientific peregrinations led me; the num- 
erous and attentive audience in Auckland and Nelson at my even- 
ing lectures on the geology of New Zealand; the honours and 
distinctions, with which 1 was overwhelmed at my departure, — 
all this imparted to me the soothing- consciousness and the cheering 
certainty, that I had not laboured only for myself or for a few 
initiated in the science, but happily for a whole nation, who 
with their lively interest and national energy participated in the 
results of geological and geographical researches, and most vigorously 
endeavoured to turn them to account. Perhaps T have also aroused 
a dormant taste for natural sciences in many a distant friend, and 
