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Mobile Culture Studies. The Journal 6 2o20 (Travel) Sandra Vlasta | Enlightening report versus enlightened traveller 29 limited extent. The images he added to the German version of the text counterbalanced this (at least in part). Forster added what he had seen with his own two eyes and what he had sub- sequently drawn. Thus, his readers could perceive the objects through the ‘small apertures’ of their pupils as well, perhaps experiencing something that came closer to the Forsters’ original experience. At times, the references to the images serve other purposes, such as referring to personal relations between the Forsters and Captain Cook or correlating Georg’s travelogue to Cook’s. The very first plate, for instance, an image of a New Zealand myrtle, is given quite a lot of attention in a material sense, even in the English account, which reads: A plant, which might be of service to future navigators, deserved to be drawn, in order that they might know it again. We have therefore very readily permitted Captain Cook to make use of our drawing of it, from which a plate has been engraved by order of the Admiralty, intended to accom- pany his own account of this voyage. (Forster 1777: 129) This passage reveals several things about the expedition. First, Georg Forster refers to his and his father’s tasks as naturalists. They gathered information about hitherto unknown plants, collected specimens, and produced sketches of them. Second, the passage casts personal relati- ons during the expedition, in particular with the famous Captain Cook, in a favourable light. The readers are told that the Forsters generously handed over the engraving of the sketch of the myrtle to Captain Cook, whose account was more likely to be read by other voyagers for whom the visual information on the plant would be useful, if not vital.12 This might be read as an explanation of why the image is missing in their own text. The truth, of course, was slightly different: most likely, the Admiralty had restricted the use of the plate to Cook’s official report of the expedition. In the German version of the account, the sketch is not only referred to but also printed; in any case, Forster again refers to the fact that it can be found in Cook’s description: Da diese Pflanze künftigen Seefahrern sehr nützlich werden kann, so verdiente sie bekannter und folglich gezeichnet zu werden. Wir haben daher dem Capitain Cook sehr gern erlaubt, von unsrer Zeichnung Gebrauch zu machen; und sie ist auf Befehl der Admiralität gestochen und seiner Reise- beschreibung beygefügt. Auch in gegenwärtiger deutschen [sic] Ausgabe unsrer Reisegeschichte wird sie der naturkundige Leser, hoffentlich mit Vergnügen, antreffen. [A plant, which might be of service to future navigators (… see English version above). In the present German edition of our travelogue the reader interested in nature will find it too, hopefully to their enjoyment. (Forster 1983: 140; Fors- ter 1777: 129, and my translation)] Again, Forster refers to their loaning the image to Cook and underscores the usefulness of his sketch to future seamen. Furthermore, especially in the German version, the passage is interesting in light of the competitive relation between Forster’s and Cook’s travelogues. As Alison Martin (2008b) and Johannes Görbert (2014) have shown, Forster presents the German version of his text as comprising the most important passages of Cook’s, thus casting the latter as superfluous for the German reader. This is expressed most explicitly when Forster writes the following in the preface added to the German version: 12 In fact, Cook’s account contained fifty-one engravings based on sketches by Georg Forster (Bredekamp 2020: 28).