he path or
river runs, or the sea-coast tends?

3. When I last left the path, etc., did I turn to the left or to the
right?

As regards the first, calculate deliberately how long you have been
riding or walking, and at what pace, since you left your party; subtract
for stoppages and well-recollected zigzags; allow a mile and a half per
hour as the pace when you have been loitering on foot, and three and a
half when you have been walking fast. Occasional running makes an almost
inappreciable difference. A man is always much nearer the lost path than
he is inclined to fear.

As regards the second, if you recollect the third, and also know the
course of the path within eight points of the compass, (or one-fourth
of the whole horizon,) it is a great gain; or even if you know your
direction within twelve points, or one-third of the whole horizon, that
knowledge is worth something. Don't hurry, if you get bewildered. Stop
and think. Then arrange matters, and you are safe. When Napoleon was
once caught in a fog, while riding with his staff across a shallow arm
of the Gulf of Suez, he _thought_, as usual. His way was utterly lost,
and going forward he found himself in deeper water. So he ordered his
staff to ride from him in radiating lines in all directions, and such
of them as should find shallow water to shout out. If Napoleon had been
alone on that occasion, he would have set his five wits to the task of
finding the right way, and he would have found it.

Finally, cheerfulness in large doses is the best medicine one can take
along in his out-door tramps. We once had the good-luck to hear old
Christopher North try his lungs in the open air in Scotland. Such
laughter and such hill-shaking merry-heartedness we may never listen to
again among the Lochs, but the lesson of the hour (how it rained that
black night!) is stamped for life upon our remembrance. "Clap your back
against the cliff," he shouted, "and never mind the deluge!" Rest,
glorious Christopher, under the turf you trod with such a gallant
bearing! Few mortals knew how to rough it like you!

* * * * *

SELF-POSSESSION vs. PREPOSSESSION.

Timoleon, a man prosperous in all his undertakings, was wont to ascribe
his successes to good-luck; but that he did not mean to give credit to
any blind Goddess of Fortune is evident from his having built an altar
to a certain divine something which he called Automatia, signifying
Spontaneo