From the hall we pass into a large reception-salon, where a double row of windows of richly stained glass represent a variety of rural scenes. Ceiling and doors are richly gilded; the workmanship of the latter is exquisite. Broad divans, resplendent with crimson velvet, run all round the room. In the centre a fountain springs from a basin of porphyry. In this room everything is magnificent, but its effect is neutralized by the curious fashion in which the walls are painted, their surface being covered with the inventions of a prolific fancy in the shape of castles and harbours, bridges, rivers, islands--all crowded together with a sublime disregard for perspective--while in niches above the doors are collected all kinds of children's toys, such as wooden dolls' houses, fruit-trees, models of ships, and little figures of men writhing in a thousand contortions. These interesting objects were accumulated by one of the last of the Khans, who would shut himself up every day in this room in order to admire them. "Such childishness," as Madame de Hell remarks, "so common among the Orientals, would induce us to form an unfavourable opinion of their intelligence, were it not redeemed by their innate love of beauty and their genuine poetic sentiment. We may forgive the Khans the strange devices on their walls in consideration of the silvery fall of the shining fountain and the adjoining garden with its wealth of bloom." The hall of the divan is of regal magnificence; the mouldings of the ceiling, in particular, are of exquisite delicacy. But every room has in it many evidences of the wealth and taste of its former occupants, and all are adorned with fountains, and the glow and gleam of colour. Not the least interesting is that which belonged to the beautiful Countess Potocki. It was her ill fate to inspire with a violent passion one of the last of the Crimean Khans, who carried her off and made her absolute queen and mistress of his palace, in which she lived for ten years, struggling between her love for an infidel, and the penitence that brought her prematurely to the grave. "The thought of her unhappy fortune," says Madame de Hell, "invested everything we beheld with a magic charm. The Russian officer, who acted as our cicerone, pointed out to us a cross carved above the mantel-piece of the bedroom. The mystic symbol, placed above a crescent, eloquently interpreted the condition of a life divided between love and grief. What tears, what conflicts of the heart and mind had it not beheld!" The travellers passed through a succession of gardens and walled enclosures, in the course of their inspection of the various pavilions, kiosks, and buildings comprised within the precincts of the palace. To the one occupied by the harem has appropriately been given the name of "The Little Valley of Roses." It is a beautiful rose-bower, which echoes divinely with the sound of falling waters and the song of the nightingales.