Having found my friend, we went together to the Sternwarte, or observatory, which gives a fine view of the country around the city, and in particular the battlefield.  The castellan who is stationed there is well acquainted with the localities, and pointed out the position of the hostile armies.  It was one of the most bloody and hard-fought battles which history records.  The army of Napoleon stretched like a semicircle around the southern and eastern sides of the city, and the plain beyond was occupied by the allies, whose forces met together here.  Schwarzenberg, with his Austrians, came from Dresden; Bluecher, from Halle, with the Emperor Alexander.  Their forces amounted to three hundred thousand, while those of Napoleon ranked at one hundred and ninety-two thousand men.  It must have been a terrific scene.  Four days raged the battle, and the meeting of half a million of men in deadly conflict was accompanied by the thunder of sixteen hundred cannon.  The small rivers which flow through Leipsic were swollen with blood, and the vast plain was strewed with more than fifty thousand dead.

It is difficult to conceive of such slaughter while looking at the quiet and tranquil landscape below.  It seemed more like a legend of past ages, when ignorance and passion led men to murder and destroy, than an event which the last half century witnessed.  For the sake of humanity it is to be hoped that the world will never see such another.

There are some lovely walks around Leipsic.  We went yesterday afternoon with a few friends to the Rosenthal, a beautiful meadow, bordered by forests of the German oak, very few of whose Druid trunks have been left standing.  There are Swiss cottages embowered in the foliage where every afternoon the social citizens assemble to drink their coffee and enjoy a few hours’ escape from the noisy and dusty streets.  One can walk for miles along these lovely paths by the side of the velvet meadows or the banks of some shaded stream.  We visited the little village of Golis, a short distance off, where, in the second story of a little white house, hangs the sign, “Schiller’s Room.”  Some of the Leipsic “literati” have built a stone arch over the entrance, with the inscription above:  “Here dwelt Schiller in 1795, and wrote his Hymn to Joy.”  Everywhere through Germany the remembrances of Schiller are sacred.  In every city where he lived they show his dwelling.  They know and reverence the mighty spirit who has been among them.  The little room where he conceived that sublime poem is hallowed as if by the presence of unseen spirits.