We first visited the palace properly so called. Its exterior displays the usual irregularity of Eastern dwellings; but its want of symmetry is more than compensated for by its wide galleries, its bright decorations, its pavilions so lightly fashioned that they seem scarcely attached to the body of the building, and by a profusion of large trees that shade it on all sides. These all invest it with a charm, that in my opinion greatly surpasses the systematic regularity of our princely abodes. The interior is an embodied page out of the Arabian Nights. The first hall we entered contains the celebrated Fountain of Tears, the theme of Pushkin's beautiful verses. It derives its melancholy name from the sweet sad murmur of its slender jets as they fall on the marble of the basin. The sombre and mysterious aspect of the hall, further augments the tendency of the spectator's mind to forget reality for the dreams of the imagination. The foot falls noiselessly on fine Egyptian mats; the walls are inscribed with sentences from the Koran, written in gold on a black ground in those odd-looking Turkish characters, that seem more the caprices of an idle fancy than vehicles of thought. From the hall we entered a large reception-room with a double row of windows of stained glass, representing all sorts of rural scenes. The ceiling and doors are richly gilded, and the workmanship of the latter is very fine. Broad divans covered with crimson velvet run all round the room. In the middle there is a fountain playing in a large porphyry basin. Every thing is magnificent in this room, except the whimsical manner in which the walls are painted. All that the most fertile imagination could conceive in the shape of isles, villages, harbours, fabulous castles, and so forth, is huddled together promiscuously on the walls, without any more regard for perspective than for geography. Nor is this all: there are niches over the doors in which are collected all sorts of children's toys, such as wooden houses a few inches high, fruit trees, models of ships, little figures of men twisted into a thousand contortions, &c. These singular curiosities are arranged on receding shelves for the greater facility of inspection, and are carefully protected by glass cases. One of the last khans, we were assured, used to shut himself up in this room every day to admire these interesting objects. Such childishness, common among the Orientals, would lead us to form a very unfavourable opinion of their intelligence, if it was not redeemed by their instinctive love of beauty, and the poetic feeling which they possess in a high degree. For my part I heartily forgave the khans for having painted their walls so queerly, in consideration of the charming fountain that plashed on the marble, and the little garden filled with rare flowers adjoining the saloon.
The hall of the divan is of royal magnificence; the mouldings of the ceiling, in particular, are of exquisite delicacy. We passed through other rooms adorned with fountains and glowing colours, but that which most interested us was the apartment of the beautiful Countess Potocki. It was her strange fortune to inspire with a violent passion one of the last khans of the Crimea, who carried her off and made her absolute mistress of his palace, in which she lived ten years, her heart divided between her love for an infidel, and the remorse that brought her prematurely to the grave. The thought of her romantic fate gave a magic charm to every thing we beheld. The Russian officer who acted as our cicerone pointed out to us a cross carved on the chimney of the bed-room. The mystic symbol, placed above a crescent, eloquently interpreted the emotions of a life of love and grief. What tears, what inward struggles, and bitter recollections had it not witnessed!
We passed through I know not how many gardens and inner yards, surrounded with high walls, to visit the various pavilions, kiosks, and buildings of all sorts comprised within the limits of the palace. The part occupied by the harem contains such a profusion of rose-trees and fountains as to merit the pleasing name of The Little Valley of Roses. Nothing can be more charming than this Tatar building, surrounded by blossoming trees. I felt a secret pleasure in pressing the divans on which had rested the fair forms of Mussulman beauties, as they breathed the fresh air from the fountains in voluptuous repose. No sound from without can reach this enchanted retreat, where nothing is heard but the rippling of the waters, and the song of the nightingales. We counted more than twenty fountains in the courts and gardens; they all derive their supply from the mountains, and the water is of extreme coolness.