ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the relationship between the director of the Berlin Zoological Museum from 1813 until 1857, Hinrich Lichtenstein – himself an enthusiastic collector at the Batavian-ruled Cape during the first decade of the nineteenth century – and his long-time Cape collector, Ludwig Krebs. Under Lichtenstein's directorship, the museum expanded rapidly, both in terms of the overall number of specimens which it held and in size. As museum director, Lichtenstein thus emphasised commercial imperatives above scientific research. Krebs followed Lichtenstein's advice to establish his base on the then less frequently explored eastern edge of the Cape Colony, where he took up residence, first in Uitenhage, then on a farm on the Baviaans River near present-day Bedford. The collection of human remains was relatively commonplace at the early nineteenth-century Cape, as Patrick Harries has shown in his article on 'Warfare, Commerce and Science: Racial Biology in South Africa'.
