Some of his forests were stocked with wild boars. These animals were quite tame while they were being fed in winter, but in summer they would attack the horses of a carriage and become really dangerous. If they could break out by night, which happened not unfrequently, the peasants would find next morning whole fields of corn ploughed up, trampled down, and destroyed. Large damages had to be paid by the Duke, but he never demurred as long as he was unshackled by his two responsible ministers. After 1848, however, not only was the amount to be paid for damages considerably reduced by his ministers, but the Duke was told that this pig-preserving was a very expensive amusement, and that it might make him very unpopular. The Duke knew better. He knew the peasants liked his boars, and still more the ample damages which he paid, but he did not like the advice of his ministers. So whenever any mischief had been done by the boars, the peasants ran after his carriage in the forest and told him how much they had lost. In his good-nature he used to say: “I will pay it all, let me know how much it is; only do not tell my ministers.” After a time things settled down again at Dessau, still the old state of things could never come back. The three duchies of Anhalt-Dessau, Cöthen, and Bernburg with its beautiful Hartz mountains, when united, formed a more considerable principality, and it was thought necessary to have a regular parliament to control its finances, and watch over its legislation. Everything assumed a grander air; the Duke, who since the days of the Old Dessauer had been Serene Highness (Durchlaucht), now became Highness (Hoheit), which is supposed to be a step higher than Serene Highness (Durchlaucht), though I cannot see how language could ever produce a finer title than Serene Highness. The railway, which as the Berlin jokers said, had led to the discovery of Dessau, brought it at all events close to Berlin, Leipzig, Magdeburg, and the great Continental net of railways. People from all parts of Germany came to settle in the quiet, beautiful town on the Mulde; the Elbe had been made navigable nearly as far as Dessau, and the port near the Walwitzberg became an important commercial centre for export and import.