A CRUISING VISIT TO SOME GERMAN BATTLE-FIELDS. 447 
who had saved Austria as well as Germany from Napoleon, as a boy 
here would be with Wellington and Nelson, but I could find no one of the 
average class of men who had ever heard of Scharnhorst, and it was only 
when I was, by my host, introduced to a professor at the Prague 
University, that my efforts were successful. He told me where 
Scharnhorst had died in Prague, and I went to the house and climbed 
upstairs and rang the bell. A very stout lady came out, and I asked 
her to excuse my apparent presumption in calling upon her, but could 
she tell me if Scharnhorst had died here. She told me rather sur¬ 
prisingly that there was no such lodger in the house and that I had 
made a mistake. So I went downstairs and my professor friend was 
waiting for me downstairs—he was actually afraid to come up—he was 
a German and the house was Czech. He told me he was quite sure it 
was the place and that I had rung at the right door. So that is as far 
as I got in trying to pay my respects to the memory of that great man 
in Prague. 
That recalls to me a trip that I made in another direction. Perhaps 
I ought to say first that the scenery from the head waters of the 
Moldau down to Prague is magnificently wild. The peasants there 
are equally wild, but not magnificent. The principal life is connected 
with taking rafts down the river. There are many rapids and a 
few weirs. Sometimes you can shoot them in the canoe. I shot some, 
but I shot one too many. I smashed the rear part of my boat and I 
had to make a raft trip of it for two days, which was very interesting, 
living with the men and hearing about their life and adventures. 
Prom Prague I paddled down to where there is a little town about 
three or four miles from the battle-field of Kulm. That battle, -as you 
will all remember, was the sequel to the famous battles round about 
Dresden, where Napoleon smashed the allies completely in the summer 
of 1813, and where Napoleon followed his victory up as far as the little 
town of Pirna, which is a short way above Dresden. And there he had 
one of those violent attacks upon his digestive apparatus, the result of 
his most extraordinary gluttony, and had to turn back, leaving Vandamme 
to follow over the mountains. Well, Yandamme had engaged the 
Austrian and Russian army near Kulm, and apparently was doing very 
well, though the allies held their own fairly well. He was expecting 
momentarily reinforcements which had been promised by Napoleon, 
when suddenly over the brow of the mountains appeared blue coats, 
and there was a great hurrah and cheering amongst the Frenchmen 
and they attacked with redoubled energy; but instead of Frenchmen 
they turned out to be Prussians under Kleist. This Prussian general 
received his later title from Nollendorf, and a splendid monument near 
the palace in Berlin, by reason of having stumbled upon this place near 
to Kulm without having the vaguest idea that he was going to meet 
there anything but disaster. He was riding along with one or two of 
his adjutants, and with tears in his voice he begged them to tell a 
fair story of his disaster, saying to them: “ I know this will be a dis¬ 
graceful day, but do speak the truth and say I did my duty as a 
soldierand he supposed of course that he was about to be smashed 
entirely. Instead of that it was hid presence which demoralised the 
