ON INSTINCT IN MAN AND ANIMALS. 209 
region is known to him, as well as all the great fea- 
tures of the vegetation. As he approaches any tract ot 
country he has been in or near before, many minute 
indications guide him, but he observes them so cau- 
tiously that his white companions cannot perceive by 
what he has directed his course. Every now and 
then he slightly changes his diréction, but he is never 
confused, never loses himself, for he always feels at 
home; till at last he arrives at a well-known country, 
and directs his course so as to reach the exact spot 
desired. To the Huropeans whom he guides, he seems 
to have come without trouble, without any special ob- 
servation, and in a nearly straight unchanging course. 
They are astonished, and ask if he has ever been the 
same route before, and when he answers ‘‘ No,” con- 
clude that some unerring instinct could alone have 
guided him. But take this same man into another 
country very similar to his own, but with other streams 
and hills, another kind of soil, with a somewhat dif- 
ferent vegetation and animal life; and after bringing 
him by a circuitous route to a given point, ask him to 
return to his starting place, by a straight line of fifty 
miles through the forest, and he will certainly decline 
to attempt it, or, attempting it, will more or less com- 
pletely fail. His supposed instinct does not act out of 
his own country. 
A savage, even in a new country, has, however, 
undoubted advantages, from his familiarity with forest 
life, his entire fearlessness of being lost, his accurate 
perception of direction and of distance, and he is thus 
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