| At many parts of this seaboard the New England tribes, as at | | Damariscotta visited the tidal waters to obtain food. | | | | [10] When afterwards passing through the forests near Palenque, | | in Central America, I observed that whenever the Indians found | | it necessary to quit the track, they immediately broke off small | | branches from the trees, and placed them on the ground over which | | they had trodden. As an additional precaution, they also made | | marks on the trunks with their hatchets. It was thus easy for | | them to get back to the place from which they had started. It is | | however evident, that this plan is only useful in those cases | | where the path is intentionally left. When the path is | | accidentally missed, it is of the greatest importance not to lose | | touch with the spot where you happen to be when your error is | | discovered. This position will necessarily be within a short | | distance by a straight line from the place from which you | | wandered. It has been ascertained that it is the tendency of men | | who have lost their way to unconsciously move in a circle, and | | thus much time may be wasted in trusting to personal judgment. It | | is a good plan to make a series of short tentative marches in | | different directions, in straight lines from your starting point, | | which should be considered as a central position to which you can | | always return if necessary. Such straight lines of direction can | | be made by marking trees, and keeping them as much as possible in | | line with each other. In dense forests a watch is not serviceable, | | as the sun does not penetrate them, and its bearing cannot be | | seen. A compass is useful to a certain extent, but the constant | | deviations that have to be made to avoid obstacles, tend to make | | the line of progress a succession of broken curves, and it becomes | | unsafe to rely upon the accuracy of the direction. Explorers have | | found it desirable to send men occasionally to the tops of the | | tallest trees to observe the nature of the country that is being | | traversed. When Cortes made his celebrated expedition from Mexico | | to Honduras, he maintained a straight march by the use of a ship’s | | compass, but in that case there was no difficulty, for the | | direction was followed by cutting down the trees that were in the | | line of the advance. | | | | [11] See “Report on the Geology and Topography of a portion of the | | Lake Superior Land District,” by I. W. Foster and I. D. Whitney. | | Washington, 1850. |