30 SIGNS AND SEASONS 



and the learned reason without observing. If one 

 could apply to the observation of nature the sense 

 and skill of the South American rastreador, or 

 trailer, how much he would track home ! This 

 man's eye, according to the accounts of travelers, 

 is keener than a hound's scent. A fugitive can no 

 more elude him than he can elude fate. His per- 

 ceptions are said to be so keen that the displace- 

 ment of a leaf or pebble, or the bending down of 

 a spear of grass, or the removal of a little dust from 

 the fence are enough to give him the clew. He 

 sees the half-obliterated footprints of a thief in the 

 sand, and carries the impression in his eye till a 

 year afterward, when he again detects the same 

 footprint in the suburbs of a city, and the culprit 

 is tracked home and caught. I knew a man blind 

 from his youth who not only went about his own 

 neighborhood without a guide, turning up to his 

 neighbor's gate or door as unerringly as if he had 

 the best of eyes, but who would go many miles on 

 an errand to a new part of the country. He seemed 

 to carry a map of the township in the bottom of 

 his feet, a most minute and accurate survey. He 

 never took the wrong road and he knew the right 

 house when he had reached it. He was a miller 

 and fuller, and ran his mill at night while his sons 

 ran it by day. He never made a mistake with his 

 customers' bags or wool, knowing each man's by the 

 sense of touch. He frightened a colored man whom 

 he detected stealing, as if he had seen out of the 

 back of his head. Such facts show one how deli- 



