312 TRAVELS IN THE EIGHTIES. 



consisted of a table in a restaurant, on which I was 

 allowed to sleep on payment of a rouble ; and next 

 day, at noon, I left in a small steamer for Enzeli, the 

 chief Persian port on the Caspian ; and thirty hours 

 later we found ourselves at anchor off the port in 

 about five fathoms of water, and rolling heavily. The 

 weather continued so unpleasant that it was impos- 

 sible to communicate with the shore, and on the fourth 

 day I found myself, to my disgust, once more in 

 Baku. 



This gave me an opportunity of visiting the naphtha 

 springs or petroleum wells and refineries which have 

 called this ugly place into existence and rendered it 

 the chief port of the Caspian. The whole district 

 is one bare sandy waste, varied by a few low hills. 

 About five miles distant, which I drove in a carriage, 

 is seen a cluster or forest of tall, black, sugarloaf- 

 shaped erections, four hundred in number. These are 

 the wooden coverings over each of the celebrated 

 wells which supply half Asia with mineral oil. A 

 few gush of their own accord, but most of them con- 

 sist of a narrow shaft up which the oil is lifted in a 

 long bucket shaped like a torpedo. Across the surface 

 of the desert are seen hundreds of black pipes, like 

 iron arteries of the earth's blood, conveying the oil to 

 Baku, where it is refined and shipped to the Volga or 

 railed to Batoum. 



Thence I retraced my steps to Tiflis, the Trans- 

 caucasian capital, where I remained for some days, 

 completing my preparations for a ride of over one 



