kept my eye 

 month after 

 serious diffi- 



alive, or even look ridiculous, so I began very care- 

 fully : glanced back regularly to see what the track, 

 trees, rocks, or kopjes looked like from the 

 other side ; carefully noted which side of the 

 road I had turned off ; and always 

 on the sun. But day after day and 

 month went by without accident or 

 culty, and then the same old thing happened : 

 familiarity bred contempt, and I got the beginner's 

 complaint, conceit fever, just as others did : thought 

 I was rather a fine fellow, not like other chaps who 

 always have doubts and difficulties in finding their way 

 back, but something exceptional with the real instinct 

 in me which hunters, natives, and many animals are 

 supposed to have; thought, in fact, I could not 

 get lost. So each day I went further and more 



boldly off the road, and grew more confident 



and careless. 



The very last thing that would have occurred 

 to me on this particular day was that there was any 

 chance of being lost or any need to take note of where 

 we went. For many weeks we had been hunting in 

 exactly the same sort of country, but not of course 

 in the same part ; and the truth is I did not give the 

 matter a thought at all, but went ahead as one does 

 with the things that are done every day as matters of 

 habit. 



