l
march that day." [MILITARY INSTRUCTIONS.] With a surprising vividness of
eye and mind (beautiful to rival, if one could), he watches the signs of
the times, of the hours and the days and the places; and prophesies from
them; reads men and their procedures, as if they were mere handwriting,
not too cramp for him.--The Austrians have, by this time, got their
Konigseck home, very unvictorious, but still on foot, all but a thousand
or two: they are already stronger than the Prussians by count of
heads; and till even Daun come up, what hurry in a Post like this? The
Austrians are viewing Friedrich, too, this morning; but in the blankest
manner: their outposts fire a cannon-shot or two on his group of
adjutants and him, without effect; and the Head people send their
cavalry out to forage, so little prophecy have they from signs seen.

Zisca Hill, where the Austrians now are, rises sheer up, of well-nigh
precipitous steepness, though there are trees and grass on it, from
the eastern side of Prag, say five or six hundred feet. A steep,
picturesque, massive green Hill; Moldau River, turning suddenly to
right, strikes the northwest corner of it (has flowed well to west of
it, till then), and winds eastward round its northern base. As will
be noticed presently. The ascent of Ziscaberg, by roads, is steep and
tedious: but once at the top, you find that it is precipitous on two
sides only, the City or westward side, and the Moldau or northward.
Atop it spreads out, far and wide, into a waving upland level; bare
of hedges; ploughable all of it, studded with littery hamlets and
farmsteadings; far and wide, a kind of Plain, sloping with extreme
gentleness, five or six miles to eastward, and as far to southward,
before the level perceptibly rise again.

Another feature of the Ziscaberg, already hinted at, is very notable:
that of the Moldau skirting its northern base, and scarping the Hill,
on that side too, into a precipitous, or very steep condition. Moldau
having arrived from southward, fairly past the end of Ziscaberg, had,
so to speak, made up his mind to go right eastward, quarrying his way
through the lower uplands there, And he proceeds accordingly, hugging
the northern base of Ziscaberg, and making it steep enough; but finds,
in the course of a mile or so, that he can no more; upland being still
rock-built, not underminable farther; and so is obliged to wind round
again, to northward, and finally straight westward, the way h