iew consists
in a low and strangely regular line of closely-wooded hills to the right
and northwards; southwards, and to the left, a mass of undergrowth, the
low trees of the marshes, occasional gaps of rank herbage which make
bright green patches interspersing the woodland, mark the wide and marshy
course of the Danube, with its belt of alluvial soil and swamp on either
side.

Between this stretch of damp river-ground to the south and the regular low
wooded hills to the north lies a plain just lifted above the level of the
river by such few feet as are sufficient to drain it and no more. Crossing
this plain transversely, on their way to the Danube, ooze and trickle
rather than run certain insignificant streams; each rises in the wooded
hills to the north, falls southward, and in the length of a very few miles
reaches the main river. These streams are found, as one goes up the great
valley, at every mile or so. With one, the Nebel, we shall be particularly
concerned, for during the action at Blenheim it formed the only slight
obstacle separating the two armies. This plain, which in August is all
stubble, is some three miles across, such a space separates the hills from
the river, and that distance, or a trifle more, is the full length of the
little muddy brooks which thus occasionally intersect it.

To the eye which takes in that landscape at a first glance, bare of crops
and under a late summer sun, the plain seems quite even and undisturbed by
any hollows or rolls of land. It is, in fact, like most such apparently
simple terrains, slightly diversified: its diversity is enough to affect
in some degree the disposition of soldiers, to afford in certain places
occasional cover, and to permit of opportunities for defence.

But these variations from the flat are exceedingly slight. The hollow
which the Nebel has made, for instance, is not noticed on foot or even in
mechanical traction as one follows the main road which runs the whole
length of the plain, though if one goes across country on foot, one
notices the slight bank of a few feet separating the cultivated land from
a narrow belt of rough grass, which is boggy in wet weather, and which, in
varying breadth, accompanies the course of the stream.

The plain also, as might be expected, rises slightly from its low shelf
just above the Danube swamps and meadows, to the base of the hills. Its
ascent in its whole three miles of breadth is but sixty feet.

Over this level