the French. A great deal of baggage, almost all the
wounded, and many prisoners, were abandoned by the fugitives; yet, in
most cases, they won the defiles in tolerable order, and were safe.
Colloredo, covered by a strong rear-guard, threaded the pass of
Dippoldiswald, and had Toeplitz, the point of reunion, in view. The rest
made their escape likewise, though with more of confusion; and, in one
striking instance, they would not have succeeded at all, had not
Vandamme been enticed into the grievous error of leaving the heights of
Peterswald unguarded. It was this blunder of his, which caused the
disaster at Kulm; and in order to make clear the brief account which I
am going to give of that battle, it will be necessary to revert to my
own movements, so that the ground may be described as by an
eye-witness.

The village of Peterswald lies at the northern base of a range of
heights, which, circling round, place Toeplitz in the centre of a huge
amphitheatre. On this side the ascent is gradual, and the face of the
hill open and cultivated. In a military point of view, therefore, the
position is admirable; it forms a perfect glacis. As you wind your way
upwards, moreover, the view becomes, at every step, more and more
interesting, till having gained the ridge,--where a windmill is
built,--it is glorious in the extreme. You look down upon a valley, of
which it is scarcely too much to say, that the eye of man has never
beheld anything more perfect. Deep, deep, it lies, enclosed on every
side by mountains, which, sloping away one from another, resemble so
many prodigious cones, and open out to you the gorges of countless
glens; each, as it would appear, more exquisitely beautiful than
another. The vale of Toeplitz itself may measure, perhaps, where it is
widest, some six or eight English miles across; where it is least wide,
the interval between the mountains is scarcely one mile. But it is in
all directions fertile and luxuriant in the extreme. Waving woods, rich
cornfields, vineyards, meadows, and groves, are there; with towns, and
villages, and castles, and hamlets, scattered through them, even as the
hand of the painter would desire to arrange them. Nor is the running
stream, that most indispensable of all features in a landscape of
perfect beauty, wanting. The Pala rolls his waters through the valley;
and if he be inconsiderable in point of size, yet is he limpid and
clear; with width enough to catch the sun's rays, from ti