A steep, picturesque, massive green Hill; Moldau River, turning
suddenly to right, strikes the northwest corner of it (has flowed
well to west of it, till then), and winds eastward round its
northern base. As will be noticed presently. The ascent of
Ziscaberg, by roads, is steep and tedious: but once at the top, you
find that it is precipitous on two sides only, the City or westward
side, and the Moldau or northward. Atop it spreads out, far and
wide, into a waving upland level; bare of hedges; ploughable all of
it, studded with littery hamlets and farmsteadings; far and wide, a
kind of Plain, sloping with extreme gentleness, five or six miles
to eastward, and as far to southward, before the level perceptibly
rise again.

Another feature of the Ziscaberg, already hinted at, is very
notable: that of the Moldau skirting its northern base, and
scarping the Hill, on that side too, into a precipitous, or very
steep condition. Moldau having arrived from southward, fairly past
the end of Ziscaberg, had, so to speak, made up his mind to go
right eastward, quarrying his way through the lower uplands there,
And he proceeds accordingly, hugging the northern base of
Ziscaberg, and making it steep enough; but finds, in the course of
a mile or so, that he can no more; upland being still rock-built,
not underminable farther; and so is obliged to wind round again, to
northward, and finally straight westward, the way he came, or
parallel to the way he came; and has effected that great Horse-shoe
Hollow we heard of lately. An extremely pretty Hollow, and curious
to look upon; pretty villas, gardens, and a "Belvedere Park," laid
out in the bottom part; with green mountain-walls rising all round
it, and a silver ring of river at the base of them: length of
Horse-shoe, from heel to toe, or from west to east, is perhaps a