and cloud, and would have shone freshly and winningly under the touch of
the sun. On the north bank there is a palace of Potemkin, (or
Potchómkin, as his name is pronounced in Russian,) charmingly placed at
a bend, whence it looks both up and down the river. The gay color of the
building, as of most of the _datchas_, or country-villas, in Russia,
makes a curious impression upon the stranger. Until he has learned to
accept it as a portion of the landscape, the effect is that of a scenic
design on the part of the builder. These dwellings, these villages and
churches, he thinks, are scarcely intended to be permanent: they were
erected as part of some great dramatic spectacle, which has been, or is
to be, enacted under the open sky. Contrasted with the sober,
matter-of-fact aspect of dwellings in other countries, they have the
effect of temporary decorations. But when one has entered within these
walls of green and blue and red arabesques, inspected their thickness,
viewed the ponderous porcelain stores, tasted, perhaps, the bountiful
cheer of the owner, he realizes their palpable comforts, and begins to
suspect that all the external adornment is merely an attempt to restore
to Nature that coloring of which she is stripped by the cold sky of the
North.

A little farther on, there is a summer villa of the Empress
Catharine,--a small, modest building, crowning a slope of green turf.
Beyond this, the banks are draped with foliage, and the thinly clad
birches, with their silver stems, shiver above the rush of the waters.
We, also, began to shiver under the steadily falling rain, and retreated
to the cabin on the steward's first hint of dinner. A _table d'hôte_ of
four courses was promised us, including the preliminary _zakouski_ and
the supplementary coffee,--all for sixty _copéks_, which is about
forty-five cents. The _zakouski_ is an arrangement peculiar to Northern
countries, and readily adopted by foreigners. In Sweden it is called the