This was a
mistake. He took us out of the hills well enough, and a good job that
was, 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.
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