The 28th was a day of continued and broken retreat on the part of the Allies; of movements more tardy than, perhaps, they ought to have been, on the part of the French. A great deal of baggage, almost all the wounded, and many prisoners, were abandoned by the fugitives; yet, in most cases, they won the defiles in tolerable order, and were safe. Colloredo, covered by a strong rear-guard, threaded the pass of Dippoldiswald, and had Toeplitz, the point of reunion, in view. The rest made their escape likewise, though with more of confusion; and, in one striking instance, they would not have succeeded at all, had not Vandamme been enticed into the grievous error of leaving the heights of Peterswald unguarded. It was this blunder of his, which caused the disaster at Kulm; and in order to make clear the brief account which I am going to give of that battle, it will be necessary to revert to my own movements, so that the ground may be described as by an eye-witness. The village of Peterswald lies at the northern base of a range of heights, which, circling round, place Toeplitz in the centre of a huge amphitheatre. On this side the ascent is gradual, and the face of the hill open and cultivated. In a military point of view, therefore, the position is admirable; it forms a perfect glacis. As you wind your way upwards, moreover, the view becomes, at every step, more and more interesting, till having gained the ridge,--where a windmill is built,--it is glorious in the extreme. You look down upon a valley, of which it is scarcely too much to say, that the eye of man has never beheld anything more perfect. Deep, deep, it lies, enclosed on every side by mountains, which, sloping away one from another, resemble so many prodigious cones, and open out to you the gorges of countless glens; each, as it would appear, more exquisitely beautiful than another. The vale of Toeplitz itself may measure, perhaps, where it is widest, some six or eight English miles across; where it is least wide, the interval between the mountains is scarcely one mile. But it is in all directions fertile and luxuriant in the extreme. Waving woods, rich cornfields, vineyards, meadows, and groves, are there; with towns, and villages, and castles, and hamlets, scattered through them, even as the hand of the painter would desire to arrange them. Nor is the running stream, that most indispensable of all features in a landscape of perfect beauty, wanting. The Pala rolls his waters through the valley; and if he be inconsiderable in point of size, yet is he limpid and clear; with width enough to catch the sun's rays, from time to time, as they fall, and throw them back almost brighter in the reflection than in the reality. Altogether it is as striking a panorama as any which, even in Bohemia, one will easily find.