for we could not see the length of our arms into the thick, rainy
blackness, and we had to go entirely by the slants of the country. But
once in the more open, sloping country, with its innumerable bushy or
wooded ravines, he began to stray. I felt this from the first; but
Kongoni insisted strongly he was right, and in the rain and darkness we
had no way of proving him wrong. In fact I had no reason for thinking
him wrong; I only felt it. This sense of direction is apparently a fifth
wheel or extra adjustment some people happen to possess. It has nothing
to do with acquired knowledge, as is very well proved by the fact that
in my own case it acts only as long as I do not think about it. As soon
as I begin consciously to consider the matter I am likely to go wrong.
Thus many, many times I have back-tracked in the dark over ground I had
traversed but once before, and have caught myself turning out for bushes
or trees I could not see, but which my subconscious memory recalled.
This would happen only when I would think of something besides the way
home. As soon as I took charge, I groped as badly as the next man. It is
a curious and sometimes valuable extra, but by no means to be depended
upon.

Now, however, as I was following Kongoni, this faculty had full play,
and it assured me vehemently that we were wrong. I called C. up from the
rear for consultation. Kongoni was very positive he was right; but as we
had now been walking over an hour, and camp should not have been more
than three miles from where we had killed the roan, we were inclined
towards my instinct. So we took the compass direction, in order to
assure consistency at least, and struck off at full right angles to the
left.

So we tramped for a long time. Every few moments Kongoni would want
another look at that compass. It happened that we were now going due
north, and his notion was that the needle pointed the way to camp. We
profoundly hoped that his faith in white man's magic would not be
shattered. At the end of an hour the rain let up, and it cleared
sufficiently to disclose some of the mountain outlines. They convinced
us that we were in the main right; though just where, to the north, camp
now lay was beyond our power to determine. Kongoni's detour had been
rather indeterminate in direction and distance.

The country now became very rough, in a small way. The feeble light of
our leading lantern revealed only ghosts and phantoms and looming,
warning s