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!