owski, drawn out on favorable ground somewhere. The country
is of fertile, but very broken character; intersected by many
brooks, making obliquely towards the Elbe (obliquely, with a leaning
Meissen-wards); country always mounting, till here about Rohrsdorf we
seem to have almost reached the watershed, and the brooks make for the
Elbe, leaning Dresden way. Good posts abound in such broken country,
with its villages and brooks, with its thickets, hedges and patches of
swamp. But Rutowski has not appeared anywhere, during this Tuesday.

Our four columns, therefore, lie all night, under arms, about Rohrsdorf:
and again by morrow's dawn are astir in the old order, crunching far
and wide the frozen ground; and advance, charged to the muzzle with
potential battle. Slightly upwards always, to the actual watershed
of the country; leaving Wilsdruf a little to their right. Wilsdruf is
hardly past, when see, from this broad table-land, top of the country:
"Yonder is Rutowski, at last;--and this new Wednesday will be a day!"
Yonder, sure enough: drawn out three or four miles long; with his
right to the Elbe, his left to that intricate Village of Kesselsdorf;
bristling with cannon; deep gullet and swampy brook in front of him: the
strongest post a man could have chosen in those parts.

The Village of Kesselsdorf itself lies rather in a hollow; in the slight
beginning, or uppermost extremity, of a little Valley or Dell, called
the Tschonengrund,--which, with its quaggy brook of a Tschone, wends
northeastward into the Elbe, a course of four or five miles: a little
Valley very deep for its length, and getting altogether chasmy and
precipitous towards the Elbe-ward or lower end. Kesselsdorf itself,
as we said, is mainly in a kind of hollow: between Old Leopold and
Kesselsdorf the ground rather mounts; and there is perceptibly a flat
knoll or rise at the head of it, where the Village begins. Some trees
there, and abundance of cannon and grenadiers at this moment. It is the
southwestern or left-most point of Rutowski's line; impregnable with
its cannon-batteries and grenadiers. Rightward Rutowski extends in long
lines, with the quaggy-dell of Tschonengrund in front of him, parallel
to him; Dell ever deepening as it goes. Northeastward, at the extreme
right, or Elbe point of it, where Grune and the Austrians stand, it has
grown so chasmy, we judge that Grune can neither advance nor be

MAP/PLAN GOES HERE--book 15 continuation --page 10--