ty miles farther; and there at last you are out of the stony
moors, and in a rich champaign comfortable to man and horse, were you
but once there, after plodding through the desolations. But from that
Sazawa by the Luschnitz on to Budweis, mounting and falling in such
fashion, there must be ninety miles or thereby. Plod along; and keep
a sharp eye on the whirling clouds of Pandours, for those too have got
across upon us,--added to the other tempests of Autumn.

On the ninth day of their march, the Prussians begin to descry on
the horizon ahead the steeples and chimney-tops of Tabor, on its high
scarped rock, or "Hill of Zisca,"--for it was Zisca and his Hussites
that built themselves this Bit of Inexpugnability, and named it Tabor
from their Bibles,--in those waste mountain regions. On the tenth day
(27th September), the Prussians without difficulty took Tabor; walls
being ruined, garrison small. We lie at Tabor till the 30th, last day
of September. Thence, 2d October, part of us to Moldau-Tein rightwards;
where cross the Moldau by a Bridge,--"Bridge" one has heard of, in old
Broglio times;--cross there, with intent (easily successful) to snatch
that "Castle of Frauenberg," darling of Broglio, for which he fought his
Pharsalia of a Sahay to no purpose!

Both Columns got united at Tabor; and paused for a day or two, to rest,
and gather up their draggled skirts there. The Expedition does not
improve in promise, as we advance in it; the march one of the
most untowardly; and Posadowsky comes up with only half of his
provision-carts,--half of his cattle having fallen down of bad weather,
hill-roads and starvation; what could he do? That is an ominous
circumstance, not the less.

Three things are against the Prussians on this march; two of them
accidental things. FIRST, there is, at this late season too, the
intrinsic nature of the Country; which Friedrich with emphasis describes
as boggy, stony, precipitous; a waste, hungry and altogether barren
Country,--too emphatically so described. But then SECONDLY, what might
have been otherwise, the Population, worked upon by Austrian officials,
all fly from the sight of us; nothing but fireless deserted hamlets; and
the corn, if they ever had any, all thrashed and hidden. No amount
of money can purchase any service from them. Poor dark creatures; not
loving Austria much, but loving some others even less, it would appear.
Of Bigoted Papist Creed, for one thing; that is a great point