To the hither edge of this Rhyn-Luoh, from Berlin, I guess there may be five-and-twenty miles, in a northwest direction;from Potsdam, whence Friedrich starts to-day, about, the same distance north-by-west; "at Seelenhorst," where Fromme waits him, Friedrich has already had 30 miles of driving,--rate 10 miles an hour, as we chance to observe. Notable things, besides the Spade-husbandries he is intent on, solicit his remembrance in this region. Of Freisack and "Heavy-Peg" with her didactic batterings there, I suppose he, in those fixed times, knows nothing, probably has never heard: Freisack is on a branch of this same Rhyn, and he might see it, to left a mile or two, if he cared.
But Fehrbellin ("Ferry of BellEEN"), distinguished by the shining victory which "the Great Elector," Friedrich's Great-Grandfather, gained there, over the Swedes, in 1675, stands on the Rhyn itself, about midway; and Friedrich will pass through it on this occasion.
General Ziethen, too, lives near it at Wusterau (as will be seen):
"Old Ziethen," a little stumpy man, with hanging brows and thick pouting lips; unbeautiful to look upon, but pious, wise, silent, and with a terrible blaze of fighting-talent in him; full of obedience, of endurance, and yet of unsubduable "silent rage"(which has brooked even the vocal rage of Friedrich, on occasion);a really curious old Hussar General. He is now a kind of mythical or demigod personage among the Prussians; and was then (1779), and ever after the Seven-Years War, regarded popularly as their Ajax (with a dash of the Ulysses superadded),--Seidlitz, another Horse General, being the Achilles of that service.
The date of this drive through the moors being "23d July, 1779," we perceive it is just about two months since Friedrich got home from the Bavarian War (what they now call "POTATO WAR," so barren was it in fighting, so ripe in foraging); victorious in a sort;--and that in his private thought, among the big troubles of the world on both sides of the Atlantic, the infinitesimally small business of the MILLER ARNOLD'S LAWSUIT is beginning to rise now and then.
[Supra 415, 429. Preuss, i. 362; &c. &c.]
Friedrich is now 67 years old; has reigned 39: the Seven-Years War is 16 years behind us; ever since which time Friedrich has been an "old man,"--having returned home from it with his cheeks all wrinkled, his temples white, and other marks of decay, at the age of 51. The "wounds of that terrible business," as they say, "are now all healed," perhaps above 100,000 burnt houses and huts rebuilt, for one thing; and the "ALTE FRITZ," still brisk and wiry, has been and is an unweariedly busy man in that affair, among others. What bogs he has tapped and dried, what canals he has dug, and stubborn strata he has bored through,--assisted by his Prussian Brindley (one Brenkenhof, once a Stable-boy at Dessau);--and ever planting "Colonies" on the reclaimed land, and watching how they get on! As we shall see on this occasion,--to which let us hasten (as to a feast not of dainties, but of honest SAUERKRAUT and wholesome herbs), without farther parley.
Oberamtmann Fromme (whom I mark "Ich") LOQUITUR: "Major-General Graf von Gortz," whom Fromme keeps strictly mute all day, is a distinguished man, of many military and other experiences;much about Friedrich in this time and onwards. [Supra, 399.]
Introduces strangers, &c.; Bouille took him for "Head Chamberlain,"four or five years after this. He is ten years the King's junior;a Hessian gentleman;--eldest Brother of the Envoy Gortz who in his cloak of darkness did such diplomacies in the Bavarian matter, January gone a year, and who is a rising man in that line ever since. But let Fromme begin:-- [ Anekdoten und Karakterzuge aus dem Leben Friedrich des Zweyten (Berlin, bei Johann Friedrich Unger, 1787), 8te Sammlung, ss. 15-79.]
"On the 23d of July, 1779, it pleased his Majesty the King to undertake a journey to inspect those" mud "Colonies in the Rhyn-Luch about Neustadt-on-the-Dosse, which his Majesty, at his own cost, had settled; thereby reclaiming a tract of waste moor (EINENODEN BRUCH URBAR MACHEN) into arability, where now 308 families have their living.
"His Majesty set off from Potsdam about 5 in the morning," in an open carriage, General von Gortz along with him, and horses from his own post-stations; "travelled over Ferlaudt, Tirotz, Wustermark, Nauen, Konigshorst, Seelenhorst, Dechau, Fehrbellin,"1
"to the hills at Stollen, where his Majesty, because a view of all the Colonies could be had from those hills, was pleased to get out for a little," as will afterwards be seen.--"Therefrom the journey went by Hohen-Nauen to Rathenau:" a civilized place, "where his Majesty arrived about 3 in the afternoon; and there dined, and passed the night.-- Next morning, about 6, his Majesty continued his drive into the Magdeburg region; inspected various reclaimed moors (BRUCHE), which in part are already made arable, and in part are being made so; came, in the afternoon, about 4, over Ziesar and Brandenburg, back to Potsdam,--and did not dine till about 4, when he arrived there, and had finished the Journey." His usual dinner-hour is 12; the STATE hour, on gala days when company has been invited, is 1 P.M.,--and he always likes his dinner; and has it of a hot peppery quality!
