150 A SURPRISING FACULTY 
pushed the door open could he convince his com- 
panion that no road or light of star was needed to 
find your way back; nothing, in fact, was wanting 
but one's own sense. 
It was just that sense, I told him, that I was 
without, and I knew that many others were in the 
same condition, otherwise we would not hear of 
people getting lost. That he possessed this sense 
in such perfection seemed almost incredible. 
He replied that to him it seemed incredible that 
any sane person complete in his senses should be 
without it. He had to believe there were such men, 
just as there were others blind or deaf or idiots from 
birth. It made him laugh. For how could anyone, 
no matter how far he might go in a strange district, 
or how many turns he might take, fail to know just 
where he was and the exact direction of the place 
he wished to return to ? You could take him blind- 
folded fifty leagues off into any place unknown to 
him, and lead him now in this direction, now in that, 
then take off the bandage in a dark night and set 
him free, and he would not be lost. Naturally he 
would know the right direction to take. How could 
he help knowing it? 
I was surprised at hearing all this, as up till then 
I had looked on this young gaucho friend who did 
not know a letter of the alphabet as a good-natured 
half-fool. He was a big fellow, so dark, with such 
thick lips and such broad nostrils, that one supposed 
he had negro blood in him, and, negro-like, he was 
much given to laughter. But he had coarse lank 
