History of Friedrich II of Prussia, appendix | Page 5

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 (EINEN ODEN 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," [See Reimann's KREIS-KARTEN, Nos. 74,73.] and twelve other small peat villages, looking all their brightest in the morning sun,-- "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!
"Till Seelenhorst, the Amtsrath Sach of Konigshorst had ridden before his Majesty; but here," at the border of my Fehrbellin district, where with one of his forest-men I was in waiting by appointment, "the turn came for me. About 8 o'clock A.M. his Majesty arrived in Seelenhorst; had the Herr General Graf von Gortz in the carriage with him," Gortz, we need n't say, sitting back foremost:--here I, Fromme, with my woodman was respectfully in readiness. "While the horses were changing, his Majesty spoke with some of the Ziethen Hussar-Officers, who were upon grazing service in the adjoining villages [all Friedrich's cavalry went out to GRASS during certain months of the year; and it was a LAND-TAX on every district to keep its quota of army-horses in this manner,-- AUF GRASUNG]; and of me his Majesty as yet took no notice. As the DAMME," Dams or Raised Roads through the Peat-bog, "are too narrow hereabouts, I could not, ride beside him," and so went before? or BEHIND, with woodman before? GOTT WEISS! "In Dechau his Majesty got sight of Rittmeister von Ziethen," old Ajax Ziethen's son, "to whom Dechau belongs; and took him into the carriage along with him, till the point where the Dechau boundary is. Here there was again change of horses. Captain von Rathenow, an old favorite of the King's, to whom the property of Karvesee in part belongs, happened to be here with his family; he now went forward to the carriage:--
CAPTAIN VON RATHENOW. "'Humblest servant, your Majesty!' [UNTERTHANIGSTER KNECHT, different from the form of ending letters, but really of the same import].
KING. "'Who are you?'
CAPTAIN. "'I am Captain von Rathenow from Karvesee.'
KING (clapping his hands together). "'Mein Gott, dear Rathenow, are you still alive! ["LEBT ER NOCH, is HE still alive?"--way of speaking to one palpably your inferior, scarcely now in use even to servants; which Friedrich uses ALWAYS in speaking to the highest uncrowned persons: it gives a strange dash of comic emphasis often in his German talk:] I thought you were long since dead. How goes it with you 7 Are you whole