1v ON INSTINCT IN MAN AND ANIMALS 95 
pleasurable sensations consequent on the act lead to its con- 
tinuance. So walking is evidently dependent on the arrange- 
ment of the bones and joints, and the pleasurable exertion of 
the muscles, which lead to the vertical posture becoming 
gradually the most agreeable one; and there can be little 
doubt that an infant would learn of itself to walk, even if 
suckled by a wild beast. 
How Indians travel through unknown and trackless Forests 
Let us now consider the fact of Indians finding their way 
through forests they have never traversed before. This is 
much misunderstood, for I believe it is only performed under 
such special conditions as at once to show that instinct has 
nothing to do with it. A savage, it is true, can find his way 
through his native forests in a direction in which he has never 
traversed them before ; but this is because from infancy he 
has been used to wander in them, and to find his way by 
indications which he has observed himself or learnt from 
others. Savages make long journeys in many directions, and, 
their whole faculties being directed to the subject, they gain 
a wide and accurate knowledge of the topography, not only of 
their own district, but of all the regions round about. Every 
one who has travelled in a new direction communicates his 
knowledge to those who have travelled less, and descriptions 
of routes and localities, and minute incidents of travel, form 
one of the main staples of conversation round the evening fire. 
Every wanderer or captive from another tribe adds to the 
store of information, and as the very existence of individuals 
and of whole families and tribes depends upon the complete- 
ness of this knowledge, all the acute perceptive faculties of 
the adult savage are devoted to acquiring and perfecting it. 
The good hunter or warrior thus comes to know the bearing 
of every hill and mountain range, the directions and junctions 
of all the streams, the situation of each tract characterised by 
peculiar vegetation, not only within the area he has himself 
traversed, but for perhaps a hundred miles around it. His 
acute observation enables him to detect the slightest undula- 
tions of the surface, the various changes of subsoil and altera- 
tions in the character of the vegetation, that would be 
imperceptible or meaningless to a stranger. His eye is always 
