The wind was fair up the river, and away we bowled before it. It was
clear to me that the colonel commanding the post had overrated our
strength, and, under the belief that we had cut him off from Cuxhaven, he
had determined on falling back on Hamburgh.
When the morning broke, we were close to the beautiful bank below Altona.
The trees were beginning to assume the russet hue of autumn, and the sun
shone gaily on the pretty villas and bloomin Gartens on the hill side,
while here and there a Chinese pagoda, or other fanciful pleasure--house,
with its gilded trellised work, and little bells depending from the eaves
of its many roofs, glancing like small golden balls, rose from out the
fast thinning recesses of the woods.
But there was no life in the scene--'twas "Greece, but living Greece no
more,"--not a fishing--boat was near, scarcely a solitary figure crawled
along the beach.
"What is that?" after we had passed Blankanese, said the colonel quickly.
"Who are those?" as a group of three of four men presented themselves at a
sharp turning of the road, that wound along the foot of the hill close to
the shore.
"The uniform of the Prussians," said one.
"Of the Russians," said another.
"Poo," said a third, "it is a picket of the Prince's;" and so it was, but
the very fact of his having advanced his outposts so far, showed how he
trembled for his position.
After answering their hail, we pushed on, and as the clocks were striking
twelve, we were abreast of the strong beams, that were clamped together
with iron, and constituted the boom or chief water defence of Hamburgh.
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