80 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- 



