100 LOSING THE POINTS. 



that are strange to us, we sometimes cannot con- 

 vince ourselves that the south is not the north, 

 although the mid-day is shining there in all its 

 splendour. There is no man, who has walked much 

 about among lonely places, that has not often ex- 

 perienced that ; and, therefore, though our object is 

 only to cross a portion of country by the shortest 

 road, observation is the most certain means by which 

 we can attain that object; and thus, one of the 

 earliest lessons that the observer of nature requires 

 is " how to keep his way." Take the most intelli- 

 gent friend that you have in or near London, who 

 has lived within view of a certain reach of the 

 Thames, till he has associated the direction of the 

 river there with the other points of the horizon, pur 

 a compass in your pocket and walk with him along 

 the bank of the river from Vauxhall to Windsor, or 

 for any other considerable distance, and keep him 

 engaged in conversation all the while, so that he 

 should take little notice of the objects which he 

 passes, then stopping at any place you will, where 

 there is only a small straight portion of the river in 

 view, ask him its direction and get his answer. 

 Then pull out your pocket compass and learn the 

 true direction by that ; and you will find that your 

 friend's notion has little, if any, reference to that, 

 but that with him the Thames always runs in the 

 same direction as it does within his "own "reach." 

 Even you yourself, although you may try to guard 

 against it, will find that, as the river bends gently 

 northward or southward, your compass becomes 

 false both ways by turns, and that the very sun 

 shifts about in the heavens, gets sometimes very 

 rapidly westward, and at other times retrogrades 

 eastward. 



Where there are pathways people can " keep the 

 rut," and hold on their journey and arrive at the 

 end of it with certainty, just as the dull plod on in 

 life by imitating others ; but in the new, whether on 



