RUDYARD KIPLING AS LECTURER.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2114, 3 April 1914, Page 9

RUDYARD KIPLING AS LECTURER.

TALK ON TRAVEL. HIS FASCINATING DISCOURSE. Tho old Rudyard Kipling—not tho master whom a political vein had obscured, but tho genius with tho inimitable literary touch, the flashes of humour, tho passages of poignant pathos, the exalted eloquence—was heard at Queen's Hall recently. His lecturo, '"'Somo. Aspects of Travel," delivered under tho auspices of the Royal Geographical. Society, enthralled a representative audienco of tho kind which men lilco Nanson or Peary used to command. Mr. Kipling began with a. discussion of tho psychology of travel nnder laying down the maxim that travellers, liko sea trout, should be caught freshrun, with their experiences still sticking to them. • Cood Men to Travel With. One man ho know said that before ho went to sleep he could run any road that ho had ever marched over between his eyelids liko a kinematograph film. "Such a gift as this —and somo motorists liavo tho rudiments of it—stands at the top of a scale that ends in those disappointing men who, after months of experience, can communicato no more tliaii a hazy recollection, of the places whero they got food or water or warmth or shelter. ' \Purich' has described this type in tho man who said: —'RomeRome! Wasn't that the place _ where' 1 bought the shocking bad cigars ?' (Laughter.) ~ "It is not at all a bad type to travel with, because it-gcDorally gives all its attention to its oivn duties. (Laughter,) A man who carries too many pictures in his head is apt to forget vital things liko straps and kettle-lids when tho loads are being .packed." (Renewed laughter.)

Responsibility and Imagination. The lecturer expounded, the idea that first-class leaders of expeditions either do not visualise too much, or keep their powers of visualisation under control. "An old prospector once warned mo: 'As long as you've only got yourself to think about you can think as much as you damn well please. Whfin you'vo other folks' hides to answer for. you must quit thinking for your own amusement.' So I should bo inclined to say that, however great the strain, responsibility does notencourage detailed imaginative oxcursuses on the roa<l—or on any road—while tlio ivork is in hand." ' As soon as men begin to talk about anything that re/vllv matters,. someone had to go and get the atlas. "And when that had been'mislaid or hidden," he pursued, "it. is interesting to sek how far tlio company can carry on scribbling and sketching' in the fqrk-and-tablecloth school without it. One discovers' then that most men keop a rough map in their heads of those parts of the world they habitually patrol, and a more accurate —often .1 boringly precise' one—, .of .that particular corner they havo last ,como out of." (Laughter.). Smells of the World. V •Mr. Kipling left visualisation for the fascinating l&biect of smellS; iri'their .relation' to the traveller. "Wo shall soon: have tb'exchange, them for blasts of petrol niid atomised castor-oil," he said j 1 amidst, laughter. , ' "Have you' noticed wherever ,a few travellers gather together, oiio or tlio other is sure to sajy'Bd-ybu"fcinoinber that smell, .at, such and., such a place?.' Then, he may go oil to speak of camel—' piiro; camel—ono whiff of which is. all Arabja; or of the smell of rotten eggs at Hitt on'the Euphrates,' where Noah 1 got the pitch for the Ark; or of tho flavour of drying fish iri Burma. Then the- company-b.egin to purr like cats at valerian, and, as the books say;- conversation becomes general." '"(Much laughter.)

"Cod's Own Hour.". In. ■ delightful fashion the 1 lecturer launched into what' he described as "tho two elementary smells of universal appeal—the , smell of burning fuel and tho smell of melting grease—the smell, that is, of what man : cooks his .food over and_ what he cooks his food in. "A whiff of wood smoke," ho declared in an eloquent, outburst, '.'can take us back to forgotten marches over unnamed mountains with disreputable companions to day-long halts beside flooded rivers iii the rain; wonderful mornings of youth in brilliantly-lighted lands where everything was possible—and generally dcine; to uneasy wakings under tho low desert moon and on top of "cruel, hard pebbles; and, above all, to that God's own hour, all tho world ovei'j when tho stars havo gone out, and it ,is.too dark 'to seo clear, and one lies with tho fumes of last night's embers in one's nostrils, lies and waits for a now horizon—to lieavo itself up against a. new dawn.?' (Applause.) , ' • .: ' , In the Wilderness.

Coming to smells of particular appeal, the lecturer suggested that'to a'Polar explorer the utiler-liko smell given off ■by _tho flame or a big spirit-lamp when it is flattened out against the heated metal cooker above would best remind him of his past experiences. ' "I should put the limits of this appeal rot.ghly as from the Seventies, to either I'ole. From the Seventies to the Sixties runs that belt of unsanctified latitudes .which aro the stamping-ground of tho winds, the wilderness, and the-fringes of the restless ice, all. linked together in the minds of men who know it by the desolate smell of the stranded berg as it piles up reeking with ooze gauged off tho sea-floors. Mclvillo, of tho Jeanette, onco told mo that it would 'send .your heart into your boots—if ypu hadn't eaten them already,'. (Laughter.)

. The Spirit of Man. , ■■ "In the future there would be neither mental adjustment nor '.horizons as we had understood them.

."For tho moment, but only for the moment, the .now machines aro outstripping mankind. We have cut down enormously—we. shall cut down inconceivably—tho world conception of time and space, which is the big fly-wheel of the. world's progress. "The old mechanism is scrapped; tho woods'and emotions that wont with it fellow. Only the spirit of man carries on, unaltered and unappeasable."

Mr. P. Hally, Conciliation Commissioner,, is to sit at Palmerston oil Moilday next in connection with the 'Palmerston Painters' dispute. A settlement lias been practically arrived at between the parties and tho only question remaining at issue is_ tho adding and striking out of parties. It .is intimated in the Gazette that Second Lieutenant A. PI. Piper, of tho N.Z. Staff Corps, lias resigned his commission, and tliat Staff Sergeant-Major J. H.' Glover (Permanent Staff) has been promoted to lieutenant. A pleasant gathering took place at the District Lands nnd Survey Office Wednesday, when Dr. M. Crompton Smith, who has been promoted to tfte position of Chief Draughtsman at Hie Head Office, was the recipient' of an oaken Vienna striking clock and a leather satchel, as a token of the t«steem in which lie was held by tho offt-' cers. They also asked him to accept, on behalf of his w'ifo, a useful present, in tho form of a lady's handbag of unusual design. The presentations were mado by Mr. T. N. Brodrick l( who referred to tho valuable assistance given to him hv Mr. Smith, and the cordial illations which existed between them. Other ofEcers spoko in similar tarns.