She has drawn attention, in the course of this volume, to the practical
solution [Footnote: See Appendix A; likewise p. 310.] of that provoking
enigma, which seems to perplex all anxious wanderers in an unknown land,
namely, that finding themselves, at the end of a day's toilsome march,
close to the spot from which they set out in the morning, and that this
cruel accident will occur for days in succession. The escape of Captain
O'Brien from his French prison at Verdun, detailed with such spirit in his
lively autobiography, offers remarkable instances of this propensity of the
forlorn wanderer in a strange land. A corresponding incident is recorded in
the narrative of the "Escape of a young French Officer from the depot near
Peterborough during the Napoleon European war." He found himself thrice at
night within sight of the walls of the prison from which he had fled in the
morning, after taking fruitless circular walks of twenty miles. I do
not recollect the cause of such lost labour being explained in either
narrative; perhaps the more frequent occurrence of the disaster in the
boundless backwoods of the Canadian colonies, forced knowledge, dearly
bought, on the perceptions of the settlers.
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