184 
WALDEN. 
hatches with a merry crew of thoughts, leaving only my 
outer man at the helm, or even tying up the helm when 
it was plain sailing. I had many a genial thought by 
the cabin fire 66 as I sailed.” I was never cast away 
nor distressed in any weather, though I encountered 
some severe storms. It is darker in the woods, even in 
common nights, than most suppose. I frequently had to 
look up at the opening between the trees above the path 
in order to learn my route, and, where there was no cart- 
path, to feel with my feet the faint track which I had 
worn, or steer by the known relation of particular trees 
which I felt with my hands, passing between two pines 
for instance, not more than eighteen inches apart, in the 
midst of the woods, invariably in the darkest night. 
Sometimes, after coming home thus late in a dark and 
muggy night, when my feet felt the path which my eyes 
could not see, dreaming and absent-minded all the way, 
until I was aroused by having to raise my hand to lift 
the latch, I have not been able to recall a single step of 
my walk, and I have thought that perhaps my body 
would find its way home if its master should forsake it, 
as the hand finds its way to the mouth without assist¬ 
ance. Several times, when a visitor chanced to stay into 
evening, and it proved a dark night, I was obliged to 
conduct him to the cart-path in the rear of the house, 
and then point out to him the direction he was to pur¬ 
sue, and in keeping which he was to be guided rather 
by his feet than his eyes. One very dark night I di¬ 
rected thus on their way two young men who had been 
fishing in the pond. They lived about a mile off through 
the woods, and were quite used to the route. A day or 
two after one of them told me that they wandered 
about the greater part of the night, close by their own 
