CHAP. VIII.] MOBXIXG ON THE RIVER. 157 



sky, their shoulders shrouded in a thick mantle of cloud. An 

 impenetrable dark mass to our right showed us the position of 

 Tolbatchinska, as yet unroused from his slumbers by the dawn ; 

 and as we sat drinking our morning coffee at the lire, and trying to 

 get some warmth into our limbs before starting, the day broke, and 

 the dense fog over the river moved uneasily before the faint puffs 

 of the morning air. "We were soon afloat, and at first the wall of 

 vapour shut out all but the nearest objects from our sight, but as 

 the sun rose and projected the huge shadow of the mountains over 

 the country far ahead, the mists vanished as if by magic before its 

 warmth. Only the icy dress with which they had clothed each 

 leaf and twig remained, lending an unwonted beauty to every 

 common object and a yet further grace to the drooping foliage that 

 overhung the river. The breeze of the early morning had died 

 away, and Nature seemed frozen into silence. Aspen and birch 

 alike were as still as death. But every bough sparkling with the 

 hoar frost, each grass-blade glittering in the sun, was an argument 

 against Kittlitz's " niedergeschlagenheit " that was not to be over- 

 come. Even Afanasi seemed insensibly to be affected by the l)eauty 

 of the scene, and crooned some quaint and fitful song beneath his 

 breath as he wielded his frosty paddle. 



Ah ! those mornings of the far north ! Does not the current of 

 our blood, tliickened by the fogs of a London November, or languidly 

 pulsating under the sweltering heat of a tropic sun, quicken at 

 the very thought of them ? Do we not all feel young again as 

 we recall the sound of our footsteps ringing on the frozen ground, 

 and picture the wondrous beauty of the combination of pine-tree, sun- 

 light and snow ? The difficulties and worries of life are forgotten ; 

 we are content with the mere pleasure of actual existence, and 

 morally, as well as physically, we are better men. No morbid 

 introspection, such as is begotten of the more sensuous beauty of 

 warmer climes, is possible under such circumstances. We have all 

 of us, I suppose, some pages in the past history of our lives to 

 which we do not care to turn. But here they are as though they 



