308 FROM GOKTCHAI TO LENKORAN. 



themselves as the suburbs of Lenkoran, and the 

 homes of another sect, which the Emperor Nicholas, 

 with greater reason perhaps, expelled from Russia. 

 These are the Skoptsi (eunuchs), or White Doves 

 as they prefer to call themselves. Besides muti- 

 lating themselves, these people drink no strong 

 drink, and eat very little of anything beyond 

 bread and oil. The people of Lenkoran say they 

 live a quiet, harmless life. Those 1 saw of this 

 sect were big bloated men, with faces as devoid of 

 expression as the lives they lead. 



Though Lenkoran was of course not the para- 

 dise it had been represented to be at Tiflis, it was, 

 however, less disappointing than many of the places 

 I had seen. There were really a few Europeans in 

 the town ; there was a fair bazaar where food 

 could be bought ; there was a room attached to the 

 establishment which grandiloquently styles itself 

 the Lenkoran Club, in which we could sleep on a. 

 wooden floor in comfort ; there was a post-office, 

 and (although it took a long time to find him, and 

 when found, he had nothing but a single pair of 

 shears for apparatus) there was a barber. For the 

 rest Lenkoran is at this time of year a sea of mud ; 

 in the summer it must be a cloud of dust. The 

 streets are in places paved, though badly; there 

 are no shops outside the bazaar, which is held in 

 an open space without the town, and where most 

 of the traders are Persian or Tartar : the houses 



