452 A CRUISING VISIT TO SOME GERMAN BATTLE-FIELDS* 
book of liis mother’s; so he ran back and got the hymn book and 
gave it to the tramp and the tramp took it and tried to raise some 
money on it. Bat the person to whom the tramp first brought the 
book was suspicious; and upon examining it discovered the names of 
his mother’s parents. By that means the child became known, and 
pretty soon a coach and four drove up. and took the little boy away 
and he was educated and lived to become Bliicher’s chief of staff. He 
discovered, or somebody discovered for him by a process of reasoning 
which is quite beyond my faculties, that his ancestors had had a castle 
called Gneisenau somewhere in past ages. On the strength of this 
shady knowledge he assumed the new name and dignity. When he 
grew up he entered the Prussian army and found that it was customary 
under the Great Frederick that officers should either be noble or, at 
least, claim nobility—about the origin of which they were not very 
particular in those days. So he at once changed from Neidharfc to 
Gneisenau. 
The uninitiated is a little puzzled to discover why he never called 
himself “ of Schildau,” but preferred to be entered as “ of Torgau,” 
when he went to the University of Erfust at the age of 16. It seems 
that Schildau has a reputation for uniting all the “sillies” of Germany. 
Whenever you tell an outrageous story about a fool it is always some¬ 
body from Schildau, and the name of u Schildauer ” is a synonym for 
all that is absurd. They still tell the story about a woman of Schildau 
who had a cow, which she desired to pasture upon the town walls, but 
strangled the beast in her efforts to pull it up. Another story refers 
to a house that was supposed to be on fire. The people rushed out 
with their buckets and pumps and squirted water over the house and 
finally discovered that it was no fire at all, but merely the reflection of 
the moon upon the window panes, and so on ad infinitum. All such 
stories in Germany are attributed to Schildauans. But such trifles as 
these were enough to affect history and so make people for a long time 
believe that Gneisenau was born not in Schildau, but in Torgau. 
Fortunately this fac-simile here is able to give us the true birthplace 
and birthday of the only citizen of Schildau who was not made to be 
laughed at. 
The battle-field of Leipzig will always be interesting ; although it is 
such an enormous task to get about it that one forgets what one saw 
first, when the last field is reached. One is shown the spot where 
Ponyatowski, the plucky Pole, was drowned, in the river which is little 
larger than a big ditch. Then one sees the narrow dyke, which is the 
only means of getting from Leipzig across on to firm land again, where 
the French armies chased and chased along after they had been beaten; 
reminding one of those horrible scenes in the Conquest of Mexico. 
Close to Leipzig are those flat plains of Lutzen which seem to have 
been made especially for battles or manoeuvres. Hot only was the 
battle of Gross Gorschen fought there, but Frederick the Great’s big 
battle of Rossbach and Gustavus Adolphus’ big battle of Lutzen; and 
it forces upon one the conclusion that this is essentially the military 
and political centre of Germany. It became early the central city for 
intelligence—it was the centre of the book trade, and every road from 
