Glade with Landmark Tree (Location Key)

A "landmark tree" is a tree used for navigation. This specific tree is "nine hours" on foot from De Spain's camp (196), in "a little glade" (198) deep within the interior of what Go Down, Moses calls "the markless wilderness" (197). It is here that Ike McCaslin (and in "The Bear," the unnamed boy) "relinquishes completely" to the woods, leaving his watch and compass behind in his quest to see Old Ben (197). When he realizes he is lost, the bear leads him back to the tree. As Thoreau would say in Walden, which is also about 'Life in the Woods,' 'Not till we are lost, in other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves.'