HONORS TO AMrXDSKX AXD PKARV 



12: 



case, and yet if I am able to remember 

 the lines they may carry home some of 

 these distinctive features and may illus- 

 trate the different spirit which pervades 

 those far outlying territories of ours. 



The island of Hawaii, of course, lies 

 in the tropic or semi-tropic region, and 

 it has a poetess, in the person of the wife 

 of the present Governor of the island, 

 who has written a poem which perhaps 

 describes the sentiment and the atmos- 

 phere of those islands better than any 

 other of which I know. It runs some- 

 thing like this : 



MY ISLANDS 



On the edge of the world my islands lie, 



Under the sun-steeped sky, 



And their waving palms 



Are bounteous alms 



To the soul-spent passer-by. 



On the edge of the world, dear islands, stay, 



Far from clamorous day, 



Content with calm, 



Hold peace and balm, 



Be Isles of the Blest for aye! 



The port of the northern clime is of 

 much rougher variety. I do not know 

 how much you know about the country 

 which got its greatest nott)riety from the 

 rush to the Klondike. That rush was 

 celebrated in a poem, which has in it 

 vigorous lines like this : 



You've read of the trail of Ninety-eight, but 



its woe no man can tell ; 

 It was all of a piece and a whole yard wide, 



and the name of the brand was "Hell." 



But the poem which best describes that 

 land is perhaps the "S])ell of the Yukon," 

 written by Robert W. Service. 



THE SPi:rj. OF TIIK YUKON' 



I wanted the gold and I sought it ; 



1 scrabbled and mucked like a slave. 

 Was it famine or scurvy — I fought it; 



I hurled my youth into a grave. 

 I wanted the gold and I got it, 

 Yet somehow life's not what I thought it, 

 And somehow the gold isn't all. 



No, there's the land. (Have you seen it?) 



It's the cussedest land that I know, 

 Frotn the big, dizzy mountains that screen it 



To the deep death-like valleys below. 

 Some say God was tired when He made it ; 



Some say it's a tine land to shun. 

 Maybe, but there's some as would trade it 



For no land on earth — and I'm one. 



There's gold, and it's haunting and haunting; 



It's luring me on as of old; 

 Yet it isn't the gold that I'm wanting 



So much as just linding the gold. 

 It's the great, big, broad land 'way up yonder; 



It's the forests where silence has lease; 

 It's the beauty that thrills me with wonder: 



It's the stillness that Jills me with peace. 



TlIK TO.\STM.\STlCR, ROHKKT K. I'l-.XkV 



In the first chapter of Genesis we read 

 that the Creator, after having first sep- 

 arated the light from the darkness and 

 the earth from the land, filled the land 

 with vegetation and the sea and the air 

 with life, creating man, and said: "Let 

 them have dominion over the earth." 

 Only now, with the attainment of the two 

 uppermost parts of the earth — the Xorth 

 and the South Pole — has that scriptural 

 command become realized. 



Today there are. broadly speaking, no 

 large regions on the face of the glol)e 

 that have not been traversed or pene- 

 trated by that incomparable, wonderful, 

 adjustable machine — the human animal — 

 guided by the flame of divine intelligence. 



Ended is that splendid series of great 

 ventures and voyages, beginning with the 

 first pushing out of the I'lKienician navi- 

 gators through the Pillars of Hercules 

 into the frightful storms and fearful 

 terrors of the great Atlantic ; the crossing 

 of the Equator, where the sun's furnace 

 heat, it was thought, scorched men black : 

 the rounding of the Cape of Good Hope ; 

 Columbus' splendid launching into the 

 mysteries of the unknown West : the cir- 

 cumnavigation of the globe : the accom- 

 plishment of the X'ortheast and the 

 X'orthwest passages : the attainment of 

 the X'orth Pole and the South Pole. 



Ended is the long list of strange con- 

 ceptions of the shape and character of 

 this world of ours. 



TUF. I'OI..\R MVSTKRIICS V.XNISIl 



\'anished are those mysterious regions 

 about the two poles, filled with strange 

 imaginary conditions and peoples. 



done is the "Open Polar Sea" — 

 "Svmnes Hole" — the Garden of Eden: 

 the glistening Lodestone Mountain : the 

 huge ice-cap ; the great crater-like basin. 



Though every one in this hall tonight 

 knows that the last of the poles has been 

 discovered, I fancy there are some of 



