The Royal Geographical Society owe their President—Lord Curzon—a deep debt
for having persuaded Mr. Rudyard Kipling to lecture to them on " Travel " at the Queen's Hall on Tuesday. His address proved a fascinating study of the psychology of travel, the moods and emotions of "moving bodies under strain," though Mr. Kipling was careful to note that experiences such as his own were on the eve of being superseded; that the time was near when men would receive their normal impressions of a new country suddenly and in plan, not slowly and in perspective; when, in short, the word "inaccessible," as applied to any given spot on the earth's surface, would cease to have any meaning. The hazards of exploration, urged Mr. Kipling, had never hindered men from leading or following. "Nearly all that could be accomplished by the old means of exploration had been won. The old mechanism was scrapped ; the moods and emotions that went with it followed. Only the spirit of man carried on, unaltered and unappeasable." Risks would arise as cruel as any that Hudson or Scott faced, and the men of the present had begun the discovery of the new world with the earns devoutly careless passion as their predecessors com- pleted the discovery of the old.
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