For the rest, one of the wildest, and perhaps (except to the picturesque tourist) most unpleasant regions in the world.

Wild stony upland; topmost Upland, we may say, of Europe in general, or portion of such Upland; for the rainstorms hereabouts run several roads,--into the German Ocean and Atlantic by the Elbe, into the Baltic by the Oder, into the Black Sea by the Donau;--and it is the waste Outfield whither you rise, by long weeks-journeys, from many sides.
"Much of it, towards the angle of Elbe and Aupa, is occupied by a huge waste Wood, called 'Kingdom Forest' (KONIGREICH SYLVA or WALD, peculium of Old Czech Majesties, I fancy); may be sixty square miles in area, the longer side of which lies along the Elbe.

A Country of rocky defiles; lowish hills chaotically shoved together, not wanting their brooks and quagmires, straight labyrinthic passages; shaggy with wild wood.

Some poor Hamlets here and there, probably the sleepiest in Nature, are scattered about; there may be patches ploughable for rye [modern Tourist says snappishly, There are many such; whole region now drained; reminded me of Yorkshire Highlands, with the Western Sun gilding it, that fine afternoon!]--ploughable for rye, buckwheat; boggy grass to be gathered in summer; charcoaling to do; pigs at least are presumable, among these straggling outposts of humanity in their obscure Hamlets: poor ploughing, moiling creatures, they little thought of becoming notable so soon! None of the Books (all intent on mere soldiering) take the least notice of them; not at the pains to spell their Hamlets right: no more notice than if they also had been stocks and moss-grown stones.
Nevertheless, there they did evidently live, for thousands of years past, in a dim manner;--and are much terrified to have become the seat of war, all on a sudden.

Their poor Hamlets, Sohr, Staudentz, Prausnitz, Burgersdorf and others still send up a faint smoke; and have in them, languidly, the live-coal of mysterious human existence, in those woods,--to judge by the last maps that have come out.