round which the Battle had its hinge or
cardinal point: the others, as abstruse of spelling, all but equally
impossible to the human organs, we will forbear to name, except in case
of necessity. Half a mile behind Krzeczhorz (let us write it Kreczor,
for the future: what can we do?), is a thin little Oak-wood, bushes
mainly, but with sparse trees too, which is now quite stubbed out,
though it was then important enough, and played a great part in the
result of this day's work. Radowesnitz, a pronounceable little Village,
half a mile farther or southward of the Oak-bush, is beyond the
extremity of Daun's position; low down on a marshy little Brook,
which oozes through lakes and swamps towards Kolin, in the northerly
direction.

Most or all of these Villages are on little Brooks (natural thirst so
leading them): always some little runlet of water, not so swampy when
there is any fall for it; in general lively when it gets over the ridge,
and becomes visible from this Highway. And it is curious to see what
a considerable dell, or green ascending chasm, this little thread of
water, working at all moments for thousands of years, has hollowed out
for itself in the sloping ground; making a great military obstacle, if
you are mounting to attack there. Poor Czech Hamlets all of them, dirty,
dark, mal-odorous, ignorant, abhorrent of German speech;--in what nook
those inarticulate inhabitants, diving underground at a great rate this
morning, have hidden themselves to-day, I know not. The country consists
of knolls and slopes, with swamps intermediate; rises higher on the
Planian side; but except the top of that Kamhayek ridge on the Planian
side, and "Friedrich's-Berg" on the Kolin side, there is nothing
that you could think of calling a Hill, though many Books (and even
Friedrich's Book) rashly say otherwise. Friedrich's-Berg, now so called,
is on the north side of the Highway: half a mile northeastward of
Slatislunz, the mal-odorous Inn. A conical height of perhaps a hundred
and fifty feet; rises rather suddenly from the still-sloping ground,
checking the slope there; on which the Austrian populations have built
some memorial lately, notable to Tourists. Here Friedrich "stood during
the Battle," say they; and the Prussians "had a battery there." Which
remains uncertain to me, at least the battery part of it: that Friedrich
himself was there, now and then, can be believed; but not that he kept
"standing there" for long together. F