202 HIGHWATER MARK. 



the minutest, and to others altogether imperceptible, 

 phenomena; a broken twig, a crushed leaf, a bent 

 blade of grass, a slight depression in a bed of moss, 

 the action of a distant bird ; all are inevitably dis- 

 cerned, and each has its eloquent record to their 

 minds. These feral white men, too, are able to travel 

 in direct lines without sun or compass. 



Strange to say, the perceptive faculty, in its highest 

 condition of exercise, seems to revert again to the pas- 

 sive state. These men of the wild, whether white 

 or red, at length come to exercise their acute powers 

 without effort and without consciousness. The de- 

 sired result is infallibly attained ; but when asked by 

 what means, they cannot tell you. They have not 

 been conscious of the individual processes by which 

 they formed their conclusions. Take, for instance, 

 the travelling through a dense American pine forest. 

 Certain indications have been observed, by the know- 

 ledge of which the points of the compass may be de- 

 termined, such as the condition of the bark of trees, 

 the mosses and lichens, which always grow thickest on 

 the north side, the direction in which the summits of 

 certain conical trees, as the hackmatack, and some 

 others of the pine family, bend over, which is invariably 

 to the north-east. But the Indians protest that they 

 do not have recourse to these or the like signs. 

 Hardy,* who has investigated the subject with some 

 care, thinks that they really do not. When he has 

 mentioned them to a Ked Man, he has invariably 



* Sporting Adventures in the New World. 



