CHAPTER III. 

 APPEARANCE OF THE COUNTRY AT DIFFERENT SEASONS. 



OF Revel and Estonia, and of life there, a pleasing picture 

 is given in a small volume published in 1844 under the 

 title of Letters from the Shores of the Baltic. 



The quantity of forest land in this province is small 

 in comparison with what there is in the more western 

 provinces ; but it is not altogether devoid of forests, and 

 in general aspects at the different seasons of the year, a 

 description of this may be accepted as more or less 

 descriptive of the characteristics of all. The authoress of 

 that work thus writes of a day spent in the country 

 shortly after her arrival : 



' Summer's busy workshop has long been closed, and 

 Nature has shrouded herself deep within her monumental 

 garments, though, as if to cheer us on the long and dreary 

 winter pilgrimage before us, she charitably reveals a few 

 glimpses of her real features, shows us here a line of bold 

 grey rocks butting through the snow, and there a dashing 

 cascade, which the frost has not yet completely stiffened, 

 till our faith in her hidden beauties is only equalled by 

 our impatience to behold them. 



' There is something, however, very exhilarating in this 

 breathless, still, bright cold with a clean white expanse 

 a spotless world before you every tree fringed every 

 stream stopped freedom to range over every summer 

 impediment ; while the crystal snow, lighting up into a 

 delicate pink or pearly hue, or glistening with the 

 brightest prismatic colours beneath the clear, low sun, 

 and assuming a beautiful lilac or blue where our long 

 shadows intercept its rays, can no longer be stigmatised 



