96 
NATURAL SELECTION 
IV 
open to the direction in which he is going * the mossy side 
of trees, the presence of certain plants under the shade of 
rocks, the morning and evening flight of birds, are to him 
indications of direction almost as sure as the sun in the 
heavens. Now, if such a savage is required to find his way 
across this country in a direction in which he has never been 
before, he is quite equal to the task. By however circuitous 
a route he has come to the point he is to start from, he has 
observed all the bearings and distances so well, that he knows 
pretty nearly where he is, the direction of his own home and 
that of the place he is required to go to. He starts towards 
it, and knows that by a certain time he must cross an upland 
or a river, that the streams should flow in a certain direction, 
and that he should cross some of them at a certain distance 
from their sources. The nature of the soil throughout the 
whole region is known to him, as well as all the great features 
of the vegetation. As he approaches any tract of country he 
has been in or near before, many minute indications guide 
him, but he observes them so cautiously that his white 
companions cannot perceive by what he has directed his course. 
Every now and then he slightly changes his direction, 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 Europeans whom he guides he seems to have come with- 
out trouble, without any special observation, 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,” conclude 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 different vegeta- 
tion 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 completely 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 
