445 
A CRUISING VISIT? TO SOME GERMAN BATTLE-FIELDS. 
water of tlie river by little dykes. The Prussians had to figbt up to 
their waists in the mud, and the hardest work they bad to get through 
there was at a place called the Sauanger, which means a a hog wallow/' 
a boggy hole; and they drove the enemy out there with wonderful 
pluck and dash—this new army of volunteers, which consisted largely 
of men who had never seen a battle before. It was there that the men 
who fought against them most obstinately were not the French, but 
their own fellow Germans, and from that time on, until after Leipzig, 
the struggle against Napoleon took upon itself something of the 
character of a civil war—Germans against Germans. The hatred of 
the north of Germany against the south of Germany was so intense 
that it w T as with the greatest difficulty that they could be got to give 
quarter. 
Now at Wartemburg I think I shall lay up my canoe for the present ; 
not because the further cruise to Hamburg is devoid of interest, but 
because your clock is keeping time for you—as well as for me. 
In conclusion permit me to pay a tribute to my canoe again for one 
advantage which it has over the bicycle or the horse or any other 
means for assisting the progress of a single man in a strange country; 
and that is that it has excellent dry storage room for maps and books 
and other works of reference which are so valuable. You can read and 
write as you go and never never be fatigued. I do not know of any 
means of locomotion which affords the inquisitive stranger so many 
important advantages as does the canoe I have sought to tell you 
about. 
By the way, on one occasion I was cruising from Potsdam along the 
old line of works prepared in 1813 for flooding the country about 
Berlin, in anticipation of an attack by the French, when I came to a 
point where the water stopped and I had to carry my canoe over to a 
long ditch which my maps told me would connect with a point I was 
seeking. I found but two or three inches* of water under my keel; 
but as I soon entered a Government forest where deer abounded, I 
ceased to care where I was going, and followed the stream for several 
hours, most of which I occupied by dragging the craft over sand bars. 
Suddenly the forest ceased and as I glided under a bridge I saw a 
Prussian sentry who was fortunately looking away from me. I took 
no pains to attract his attention, for I found I had come out immediately 
at the point where the artillery experiments are made—which is an ex¬ 
ceedingly serious thing if caught. I was apparently either a poacher 
or a spy, and the choice of character embarassed me. Time commenced 
to drag with me. I disliked the idea of this chap on the bridge dis¬ 
covering me. So I lay under the bridge and watched till at last his 
helmet disappeared, and then I made the water boil as tiny the devil 
were blowing into it and soon came out into a broad lake where I was 
once more safe. 
This shows what can be seen from a canoe even without making 
much effort. 
I thank you very much for listening to my lecture (cheers). 
