All on the Elbe, right bank of the Elbe; Town of Muhlberg, chief Town of the District, lying some ten miles northwest; then, not much beyond it, Torgau; and then famed Wittenberg, all on the northwest, farther down the River: and on the other side, Meissen with its Potteries not far to the southeast of you, up the River, on the Dresden hand.

Nay perhaps many of my readers have seen the place, and not known, in their touring expeditions; which are now blinder than ever, and done by steam, without even eyesight, not to say intelligence.

Precisely where the railway from Leipzig to Dresden crosses the Elbe,--there, if you happen to have daylight, is a flat, rather clayey country, dirty-greenish, as if depastured partly by geese; with a big full River Elbe sweeping through it, banks barish for a mile or two; River itself swift, sleek and of flint-color; not unpleasant to behold, thus far on its journey from the Bohemian Giant-Mountains seaward: precisely there, when you have crossed the Bridge, is the south-most corner of August the Strong's Encampment,--vanished now like the last flock of geese that soiled and nibbled these localities;--and, without knowing it, you are actually upon memorable ground.
Actually, we may well say; apart from August and his fooleries.

For here also it was, on the ground now under your eye, that Kurfurst Johann Friedrich the Magnanimous, having been surprised the day before at public worship in the abovementioned Town of Muhlberg, and completely beaten by Kaiser Karl the Fifth and his Spaniards and Duke of Alba, did, on Monday 25th April, 1547, ride forth as Prisoner to meet the said Kaiser; and had the worst reception from him, poor man.

"Take pity on me, O God! This is what it is come to ?" the magnanimous beaten Kurfurst was heard murmuring as he rode.