To begin with, the Sun is a rough guide: it traces a path in the sky from east to west. At night, you can use the Pole Star, which is identifiable in the northern sky, or a group of stars known as the Southern Cross if you are on the other side of the equator. But what if it is cloudy or foggy?
You can manage if, with benefit of long experience of relevant environments, you can feel the way: the atmosphere, the temperature, the lie of the land and the swell or drift of the sea change as you go along. Polynesian navigators, by accumulating and handing down that sort of knowledge over many centuries, found their way across the Pacific in what we think of as the Middle Ages. Guides, some of whom were blind, led caravans across the Sahara or the Taklamakan Desert in the same period by similar means.
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