A BRANCH UNEXPLORED 137 



that the business I am occupied with is more of the 

 nature of tree-climbing. The root thereof is the hind, 

 her senses and behaviour, and from this root spring 

 the trunk and branches I am climbing; and the 

 trouble is that when I have finished exploring the 

 branch I happen to be on and am about to proceed 

 to the next one above it, I discover that I have 

 left one beneath me unexplored and am obliged 

 to return to it. 



For example, this little frontier tragedy, related 

 at the conclusion of the last chapter, reminds me of 

 a serious omission. The simple word frontier has 

 served to bring it back, recalling as it does the long 

 months I have spent on divers occasions, in heat and 

 cold, by day and night, on foot and on horseback, 

 on that vast vacant territory bordering on the lands 

 inhabited by men and cattle, or outside them, and 

 of the value in such regions of a sense and instinct 

 common to man and beast, which in civilised and 

 populous districts is of no more importance than our 

 decayed sense of smell. 



Here then I come back to my interview with my 

 lady stag, reposing with her back to me and adjust- 

 ing her ears so as to listen to the incomprehensible 

 sound I emitted, while attending to the other under- 

 standable ones that come to her from the wood. 



If by an exercise of magic I could have projected 

 the power of abstract thought into her cervine 

 brains our colloquy would have been more interesting, 

 and she would have told me how much I had lost 

 by developing a bigger brain and assuming an erect 



