FROM GOKTCIIAI TO LENKORAN. 287 



CHAPTER XIII. 



FROM GOKTCHAI TO LKMKORAX. 



Rough travelling Shooting by the way Shemakha and Aksu 

 Tarantasses and post-roads A wretched station Mud volcanoes 

 and naphtha springs Bustards On the road to Salian -Swarms 

 of wild-fowl A rascally official Disappointed hopes A pood 

 Sa:naritan Rival hosts Asiatic fever The Mooghan steppe 

 Pelicans and myriads of other birds -Tartar orgies Banished 

 sectaries: the Molochans and Skoptsi Arrival tit Lenkoran A 

 Persian gunsmith Fellow-sportsmen. 



THE day after our return to the post-road, we 

 found on waking that the change in the weather 

 predicted by our mountain guides had already set 

 in. There was no longer that crisp raciness in the 

 air which carried us through the day's work with 

 comparative ease and pleasure, but a steady cold 

 rain, with occasional snowstorms, blinded the sun 

 and changed the roads into morasses. The hills 

 were already snow-clad in that one night, and had 

 we not left Gerdaoul when we did, we might have 

 remained for the winter. As it was, the prospect 

 of our journey to Lenkoran was not a bright one. 

 Every rill that crossed the road was fast swel- 

 ling to a torrent, and the fifty-seven versts which 

 formed our day's allotted work, and terminated at 



