96 FROM NORTH POLE TO EQUATOR. 



the deep valleys, along the banks of all the streams, and in the 

 marshes. More gregarious and richer in species than the tulips, 

 they appear in much more impressive multitudes ; they completely 

 dominate wide stretches of country, and in different places remind 

 one of a rye-field overgrown with corn-flowers, or of a rape-field in 

 full blossom. Usually each species or variety is by itself, but here 

 and there blue lilies and yellow are gaily intermingled, the two 

 complementary colours producing a most impressive effect — ^a vision 

 for rapture. 



While these first-born children of the spring are adorning the 

 earth, the heavens also begin to smile. Unclouded the spring sky 

 certainly is not, rather it is covered with clouds of all sorts, even in 

 the finest weather with bedded clouds and wool-packs, which stretch 

 more or less thickly over the whole dome of heaven, and around the 

 horizon appear to touch the ground. When these clouds thicken the 

 heavens darken, and only here and there does the sunlight pierce 

 the curtain and show the steppes warmed by the first breath of 

 spring, and flushed with inconceivable wealth of colour. 



But every day adds some new tint. There is less and less of 

 the yellowish tone which last year's withered stalks give even in 

 spring to the steppes; the garment already so bright continues to 

 gain in freshness and brightness. After a few weeks, the steppe - 

 land lies like a gay carpet in which all tints show distinctly, from 

 dark green to bright yellow-green, the predominant gray-green of 

 the wormwoods being relieved by the deeper and brighter tones of 

 more prominent herbs and dwarf -shrubs. The dwarf-almond, which, 

 alone or in association with the pea-tree and the honeysuckle, covers 

 broad stretches of low ground, is now, along with its above-mentioned 

 associates, in all its glory. Its twigs are literally covered all over 

 with blossom; the whole effect is a shimmer of peach-red, in lively 

 contrast to the green of the grass and herbage, to the bloom of the 

 pea-trees, and even to the delicate rose-red or reddish-white of the 

 woodbine. In suitable places the woodbine forms quite a thicket, 

 and, when in full bloom, seems to make of all surrouading colour 

 but a groundwork on which to display its own brilliancy. Various, 

 and to me unknown, shrubs and herbs give high and low tones to 



