FROM GOKTCHAI TO LENKORAN. 299 



to feed us all the way to Lenkoran. Of course I 

 might have expected the answers to my questions, 

 after all I had seen of Russian promises and their 

 fulfilment. Of course there was no hotel. There 

 were but six Russian families of any kind in Salian, 

 all the rest were Tartars. Whatever you wanted 

 you might buy from Tartars in the open bazaar, 

 who would not serve you if they could help it ; if 

 you wanted to eat, you might eat standing there 

 or in the doorway of the merchant who sold vodka. 

 There was no caviare at Salian to be had for love or 

 money. It was not the right season for fresh ' ikra,' 

 and ' pressed ikra ' (i.e. caviare) could not be bought 

 nearer than l>osghi Promysl, the great fishery, 

 fifteen miles off, where it cost rather more than it 

 does in the Crimea. Even had 1 been at Salian 

 at the right season, I could only have purchased 

 this luxury, for which it is famous, by stealth, as 

 the whole produce of the fishery is bought up by 

 merchants at a distance, to whom it is sent direct, 

 it being specially provided by contract that they 

 should have an entire monopoly. Thus, though 

 Salian and Bosghi Promysl are the places whence 

 the greater part of the caviare sold in Russia 

 comes, they are the two most difficult places at 

 which to buy it. 



Standing moodily in the wine-merchant's door- 

 way, munching a lump of dry bread, the meagre 

 realisation of all our dreams of luxury and rest, 



