24 Sporting Notes in the Far East. 



When coming home from shooting, or in any strange place 

 (especially towards nightfall), and you are rather uncertain as to 

 your whereabouts, if a path can be found, my advice is emphatically 

 stick to it, even if it appears at first to lead in the wrong direction. 

 Paths always lead somewhere, generally to a habitation, and it is 

 better to run the chance of getting a guide, than to go blundering 

 about in the dark, over rough and broken ground, till you are 

 entirely lost, and have to acknowledge it. 



Here is a short story connected with this point, that befell an 

 officer and his servant at Wrangel Bay near Vladivostock. 



Unknown to the country ; these two started off for the river, 

 marked on the chart, twelve miles from the anchorage. They soon 

 picked up a path and trudged merrily along, reaching the river in 

 the afternoon ; where they (luckily) replenished their waterbottles, 

 shot a duck or two, and then as it was getting late, commenced 

 their homeward journey. 



Now comes the mistake. Thinking that the path twisted and 

 turned most unnecessarily ; they tried to cut a corner over some 

 low hills, and almost immediately after their quitting the track, 

 on came a fog. They soon got lost and wandered up one hill 

 and down another, till, as the officer graphically explained to me, 

 all the hills looked the same. 



By night time they were quite played out. and had not an idea 

 where they were, the young marine certainly thought he was going 



