We had been lost so long that we had come to accept the condition of being lost as habitual.

As I look back I see clearly how our lives and destinies are shaped by the merest chance.

We did not know it was our river--there was no way of telling; and if we had never crossed it we would most probably have never returned to the horde; and I, the modern, the thousand centuries yet to be born, would never have been born.
And yet Lop-Ear and I wanted greatly to return.

We had experienced homesickness on our journey, the yearning for our own kind and land; and often had I had recollections of the Swift One, the young female who made soft sounds, whom it was good to be with, and who lived by herself nobody knew where.

My recollections of her were accompanied by sensations of hunger, and these I felt when I was not hungry and when I had just eaten.
But to come back to the river.