[History of Friedrich II. of Prussia Vol. XV. (of XXI.) by Thomas Carlyle]@TWC D-Link bookHistory of Friedrich II. of Prussia Vol. XV. (of XXI.) CHAPTER XII 1/26
CHAPTER XII .-- BATTLE OF SOHR. The famed beautiful Elbe River rises in romantic chasms, terrible to the picturesque beholder, at the roots of the Riesengebirge; overlooked by the Hohe-Kamms, and highest summits of that chain.
"Out of eleven wells," says gentle Dulness, "EILF or ELF QUELLEN, whence its name, Elbe for ELF." Sure enough, it starts out of various wells; [Description, in Zollner, _Briefe uber Schlesien,_ ii.
305; in &c.
&c.] rushes out, like a great peacock's or pasha's tail, from the roots of the Giant Mountains thereabouts; and hurries southward,--or even rather eastward, at first; for (except the Iser to westward, which does not fall in for a great while) its chief branches come from the eastern side: Aupa, Metau, Adler, the drainings of Glatz, and of that rugged Country where Friedrich has been camping and manoeuvring all summer.
On the whole, its course is southward for the first seventy or eighty miles, washing Jaromirz, Konigshof, Konigsgratz, down to Pardubitz: at Pardubitz it turns abruptly westward, and holds on so, bending even northward, by hill and plain, through the rest of its five or six hundred miles. Its first considerable branch, on that eastern or left bank, is the Aupa, which rises in the Pass of Schatzlar (great struggling there, for convoys, just now); goes next by Trautenau, which has lately been burnt; and joins the Elbe at Jaromirz, where Valori was stolen, or nearly so, from under the Prussian left wing.
<<Back Index Next>> D-Link book Top TWC mobile books
|