The Russellville Democrat., 1877-07-26
The Horror of Being Lost.

had been engaged for hours working my way up brook on which had been told was a capital fishing place, and, finding an end to navigation, toek to the
 land. In making the circuit of maize
 alders impenetrable even to bear, l lost the water-course, and in looking for 1t
 crossed low ridge and fell on another which ran the other side. and in the ops posite direction from that which had left. The reversal of the current was instantaneous cause of complete upset of all my ideas of material things There was no reason in the thing, no reasoning against it. The points ot the compass had been as clear in my head as if l saw the needle, but the moment l found this ominous stream running the wrong way, everything was unsettled. The sun was shining out of the clear heavens, but it started out of the north. One minute before I could have taken q bee-line back to my boat, but the minute after I had lost faith in every landmark. 1 was not novice in woods matters. l could follow trail readily, and find my way in the dark, and know the points of the compass as well as any trapper in the country, but now north had become south, and the labor of my reason would not persuade my senses that the sun
 was not sinking north by east. dared not travel by the sun, so firmly
 was my fallacy rooted. knew the thing at once, and comprehended the danger. knew that in ten minutes l
 would be as mad as any man ever was with delerium tremens, that should be. beyond self control or human help. Not once in three months would foot pass within reach of my voice from where l was, but that wolves were nearer, l knew by their abundant footprints in the wet sand where 1 had passed. l knew as we'll that if lost my wits in that moment nothing lay between me ard eternity but nameless horror. In ali my life I can recall no moment of ter TOT like that which l felt gathering on me in that silent forest. 1 sat down on rotting log, and, covering my face with my hands, waited until l felt calm and elf-possessed again. 1 have no idea how long it was, but when arose the sun had got back into the southwest and l made up my mind as l walked back to my boat never to trust myself in q strange wood again without blazing my path as I went along. might point the moral of my experience by more than one case not so fortunate. The most impressive one remember is that of an Englishman who settled in one of the towns border ing on the Adirondack country, and who, having been fishing one day in the aut
 umn with a neighbor, proposed to go back the next day and try it alone. He never returned, and after day absence an expedition set out to hunt him up. | A light snow had fallen in the night, and his' footprints vera found in one case crossing the road near the village,
 but plunging into the thickets and devl.
 ating in the most aimless and frenzied
 manner, with long strides like those of
 man running and then these even were
 lost. The second day after his departure
 from home a man answering to his
 description came to the door of a house | in the adjoining town and asked the way
 to the village. His face was haggard,
 and he looked wild, the woman said who
 answered the door, and before she could
 reply he started away, and paced fran
 ticaly across the road into the woods
 again, and disappeared. No trace of him
 was ever after found. A friend who
 surveyed the county lines of Franklin
 county, New York, told me another
 more singular case in his experience.
 His party were running line in the
 thick woods, and had taken with them a
 young man from the city who fancied
 camping-out and had joined the gang as
 a volunteer In returning from their
 work to camp they missed the blazed
 line and proceeded to find their way by
 the compass, when it was found that the
 compass itself had been lost None oi
 the gang were disturbed with worse fear.
 than having to sleep out that night, save
 the novice, who was so fearfully panic
 stricken that he became raving mad in
 five minutes, and they were obliged to
 bind him and finally carry him to the
 camp, the way to which they shortly
 redscovered. ed.-Atlaufic Monthly.