it, that I was obliged to dismount and trace it out on foot. It wound about with a hundred serpentine evolutions to avoid the heavy swamps and marshes around us; and I repeatedly thought that, if we lost it, we never should extricate our baggage: even with its assistance, we were obliged frequently to halt and replace the packs, which were violently forced off by the branches with which they constantly came in contact . . 'where on earth is he taking us now?—why we are going back in the same direction as we came!' I turned round and asked the speaker (a comrade) . . to point with his finger to the quarter which he would make for if he were guiding the party to Fort Leavenworth. He did so; and I took out my compass and showed him that he was pointing south-west, i.e. to Santa Fé and the Gulf of California: so completely had the poor fellow's head become puzzled by the winding circuit we had made in the swamp."[1]
- ↑ Travels in North America (London, 1839), vol. ii, pp. 29–48.
