1.  What is the least distance that I can with certainty specify, within which the path, the river, the sea-shore, etc., that I wish to regain, lies?

2.  What is the direction, in a vague, general way, in which the 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!

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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 Spontaneousness, or a happy promptitude in following the dictates of his own genius.  The Liberator of Sicily, to be sure, did not live in an age of newspapers, and was not liable at every turn to have his elbow jogged by Public Opinion; but it is plain that his notion of a man fit to lead was, that he should be one who never waited to seize Opportunity from behind, and who knew that events become the masters of him who is slow to make them his servants.