rich's time,--some rabbit-colony, or other the like insignificancy,
eating out the roots, till all vegetation died, and the wind got hold
and set it dancing;--and that, in 1759, when Russian human beings
took it for a Camp, it must have been at least coherent, more or less;
covered, held together by some film of scrubby vegetation; not blowing
about in every wind as now! Kunersdorf stands with its northern end
pushed into that KUHGRUND (Cow-Hollow); which must then have been a
grassy place. Eastward of Kunersdorf the ground has still some skin of
peat, and sticks together: but westward, all that three miles, it is a
mere tumult of sand-hills, tumbled about in every direction (so diligent
have the conies been, and then the winds); no gullet, or definite cut or
hollow, now traceable anywhere, but only an endless imbroglio of twisted
sand-heaps and sand-hollows, which continually alter in the wind-storms.
Sand wholly, and--except the strong paved Highway that now runs through
it (to Reppen, Meseritz and the Polish Frontier, and is strongly paved
till it get through Kunersdorf)--chaotic wholly; a scene of heaped
barrenness and horror, not to be matched but in Sahara; the features of
the Battle quite blown away, and indecipherable in our time.

"A hundred years ago, it would have some tattered skin,--of peat, of
heather and dwarf whins, with the sand cropping out only here and there.
So one has to figure it in Soltikof's day,--before the conies ruined
it. Which was not till within the last sixty years, as appears. Kriele's
Book (in 1801) still gives no hint of change: the KUHGRUND, which now
has nothing but dry sand for the most industrious ruminant, is still a
place of succulence and herbage in Kriele's time; 'Deep Way,' where 'at
one point two carts could not pass,' was not yet blown out of existence,
but has still 'a Well in it' for Kriele; HOHLE GRUND (since called
Loudon's Hollow), with the Jew Hill and Jew Churchyard beyond, seem
tolerable enough places to Kriele. Probably not unlike what the
surrounding Country still is. A Country of poor villages, and of wild
ground, flat generally, and but tolerably green; with lakelets, bushes,
scrubs, and intricate meandering little runlets and oozelets; and in
general with more of Forest so called than now is:--this is Kunersdorf
Chain of Knolls; Soltikof's Intrenched Camp at present; destined to
become very famous in the world, after lying so long obscure under Oder
and its rages