Between Saratov and Tzaritsin the character of the river changes altogether, the vegetation begins to dwindle, the great hills on the right bank of the river diminish, and the farther one travels south the lower they become. The left bank is flat, monotonous, and green as before. The river itself broadens, and in some places it is several kilometres wide. You get the impression that you are travelling on a large lake or on a sea rather than on a river. The farther south one travels the greater is the beauty of the river. It is a solemn, majestic river; one understands its having been the mother and inspirer of a quantity of poetry, of folk-song and folk-lore; and one understands, too, how appropriate the deep octaves, the broad slow-dying notes and echoes of the Volga songs are to these great melancholy spaces of shining water. Every day on the steamer between Saratov and Astrakan I awoke at dawn and went out on to the deck to sniff the freshness and to watch the process of daybreak. The soft, grey sky trembled into a delicate tint of lilac, and over the far-off banks of the river, which were distant enough to have the appearance of a range of violet hills, came the first blush of dawn, and then a deeper rose, while the whole upper sky was washed with a clean daffodil colour, which was reflected in silver on the blue water. And then the sun rose--a huge red ball of fire, casting golden scales beneath him on to the water. Towards noon, perhaps, the sky will be piled with white clouds, and the river looks like an immense hard glass, reflecting in unruffled detail every curve and shadow of the cloudland, and the small motionless trees of the banks which in the sunless heat are as unreal as a mirage. Later in the afternoon the water seems to grow more and more luminous; the sensation of some kind of enchantment, of something wizard-like and unreal increases, and one would not be surprised to catch sight of the walls of Tristram’s Castle in the air, the wizard walls to which he promised to bring Iseult--the castle built of the stuff of which rainbows are made, of fire, dew, and the colours of the morning. But with the sunset this feeling of unreality and enchantment ceases and gives way; the nearer bank stands out in sharp outline, intensely real between purple skies and grey waters, and over the farther bank hangs the intense blue of woody distances. Between Tzaritsin and Astrakan the character of the river changes yet again. The hills on the right bank vanish altogether; both the banks are flat now--unlimited steppes possessing scant vegetation and culminating in steep banks of yellow sand. It was here that the river reminded me of the Nile.