ROOSEVELT'S LECTURE.

Colonist, Volume LVI, Issue 13573, 14 September 1914, Page 8

ROOSEVELT'S LECTURE.

** !ox-President Roosevelt in July! i , iinnphantly demonstrated beforo a ; ciouded meeting at the Royal Geo; graphical Society, London, that he has ' put on the map" a great river ia. Hi nail'which was not on the map bofore. , He had a map hanging on the wall ,'. with the new river—the Duvida—j1 narked on it in red ink; he told^ •e.-a-ctly how he and his party went'1 down H, at risk ol" their h"ves, and he r showed, on a screen, some photographs , dt scenes by the way. j Mr. Roosevelt just had room to talk and turn round with his lance-like i>ointer to the map. The rest of the : theatre in Burlington Gardens was : packed with geographers and others as tifjht as it would hold. Sir Edward Giey, liord Bryce, Mr. Page" (the j .American Ambassador), Lord Curzon, and other eminent men sat before him. It was just the Mr. Roosevelt of the photographs—a thick-set man of middle ' height, with a sturdy neck, a bullet head,** an aggressive chin, a large • sf.iong mouth showing a magnificent j double set of clenched teeth whenever ! ho smiled, eyes that gleam and sometimes glare behind gold-rimmed spectacles, and a general air of grim determination touched with humour. You could cut his nasal American accent with a knife as he uttered his f.vst words, "Mr. President and gen-! tlemen"—lords and ladies forgotten!—! s;nd all through he clipped his words ' so short that it was often difficult to follow him, although he spoke in a j fairly full tone. i Whenever he made a joke he enjoy- \ ed it himself so much that his voice ; vent up to a falsetto and ended in a squeak, which brought down the house j every time, although often the joke v.ns lost in the squeak. ;' Every one laughed unroariously in j sympathy with him, and he shook with ; laughter at the fun. \

After a while 'the audienco looked out for the rise in note, and as soon as tho falsetto began they began to laugh. He made them do it.

As a rule he spoke with a professorial calmness, but every now and then his head went back, bis chin shot out, his mouth widened, his'words were vio: lciitly ejected, and the spear-pointer in his clenched right hand shook rapidly from the vehemence of his utterance. He drove his words home with all the. zeal of a Salvationist at a revival congress—and then, suddenly, up went his note, and everyone laughed. He told some good stories. One was about a tribe of Indians | who play "football"—only with their ! heads. The first man "kicks, off" by rvnning forward, flinging himself down flat, and "bunting" the ball. His opponent, lying, down, bunts it back j and up into the air, and the game jpocoeds with a succession of bunts. [ There were shouts of laughter as Mr. Roosevelt voted the little rhyme:— I do not like my billy-goat; I wish that ho were dead— Because he -.kicked and kicked me — He. kicked me with his head. HiT'told of a kind of fish he found, mo larger than a trout, that bit off ' one of his party's toes, took a piece out of another's leg, and tho tip of two dogs' tails. j Another fish —a nine-foot catfish — was found with a monkey inside it. The fish jumped and caught the monl:ey when it climbed down a branch to drink. lie told how he and his party took j forty-two days to cover sixty-nine and !p.-lialf mfles of rapids, where they lost four out of -seven canoei ami a man, and nearly lost others of the party, The ex-President was cheered at the faish. The president of the society likened his discovery to Stanley's discovery of the true course of the Congo.