He addicts himself chiefly to mustering, drilling and practical military duties, while here at Berlin; runs out, often enough, wife and perhaps a comrade or two along with him, to hunt, and take his ease, at Wusterhausen (some fifteen or twenty miles [English miles,--as always unless the contrary be stated.

The German MEILE is about five miles English; German STUNDE about three.] southeast of Berlin), where he has a residence amid the woody moorlands.
But soldiering is his grand concern.

Six years ago, summer 1706, [Forster, i.

116] at a very early age, he went to the wars,--grand Spanish-Succession War, which was then becoming very fierce in the Netherlands; Prussian troops always active on the Marlborough-Eugene side.

He had just been betrothed, was not yet wedded; thought good to turn the interim to advantage in that way.