208 NATURAL BEAUTY 



become its chief function. I should Hke to see the 

 tradition estabUshed and well known and recognised 

 that we encourage the search for Natural Beauty, 

 and look upon- the discovery of a new region which 

 possesses special beauty, and the discovery of a new 

 beauty in a region already well known, as among 

 the most important geographical discoveries to be 

 made. In this matter I trust our Society will take 

 the lead. EngUshmen are born lovers of Natural 

 Beauty and born travellers. The search for 

 Natural Beauty ought, therefore, to be a congenial 

 task for this Society. As I have tried to make clear, , 

 we cannot really know and understand the Earth — 

 which is the aim of Geography— until we have seen 

 its beauties and compared the varying beauties of 

 the different features with one another and seen how 

 they affect man and man affects them. We are 

 constituted as a Society for the purpose of diffusing 

 geographical knowledge, and I trust that in future 

 we shall regard knowledge of the Beauty of the 

 Earth as the most important form of geographical 

 knowledge that we can diffuse. 



When I was writing out the lecture which I 

 was invited to give before the Society on " The 

 Geographical Results of the Tibet Mission " I could 

 not resist devoting special attention to the natural 

 beauty of Tibet. But as I read the manuscript 

 through I feared that this attention to Beauty would 

 be regarded by our Society as a lapse from the 

 narrow path of pure Geography, and that I should 

 be frowned upon in consequence and not regarded 

 as a serious geographer. I ought, I feared, to have 

 devoted more attention to survey matters, to the 



