28 MAY 1892, Page 3

At the dinner in the evening, the chief guest was

Mr. Edward Whymper, the explorer of the Andes, who made an extremely amusing speech. When he was cheered, he said that he was not accustomed to those marks of approbation, and that they carried back his memory to scenes now forty years behind him, when he received gilt-edged prizes, presented to him "in recognition of his improvement in geography, and in the hope that it would prove an incentive to future exer- tions." Even in those early times he was an explorer ; and once, when exploring an apple-tree in order to study the fruit of the tree in. situ, his motives were misunderstood, and he received,—no, he would not tell them what he received, except that "it was not intended as an incentive to future exer- tions." As a youth, he bad found himself pointed at as "the embodiment of the maximum of folly that a human being can attain,"—indeed, as a "mountain maniac,"—for it never occurred to anybody that a mountain maniac might really be a geographical explorer with a serious interest in the extension of geographical knowledge. In reality, the ex- ploration of mountain regions had hardly commenced. The geography of the future would be chiefly developed in that direction. Let us hope that Mr. Whymper's very enthusiastic reception will prove to be " an incentive to future exertions."