SHORES OF THE CASPIAN. 



between Tiflis and the Caspian I may here mention 

 that, though I took many long days to get from 

 Shemakha to Tiflis, that telegram only arrived 

 simultaneously with me, whilst one sent from 

 Baku, three weeks before, arrived two days after 

 me ; and though I travelled by the post- road, 

 and spent some days shooting en route, a letter 

 posted by me in Lenkoran just before I started 

 arrived long after me. So much for internal com- 

 munication on this side the Caucasus. 



Day after day we plodded on, getting dirtier, 

 more starved and ill every day ; travelling often 

 as much as sixteen hours in an open cart at a 

 stretch, the best travelling we ever accomplished 

 being 132 versts in that time. At Shemakha we 

 stopped to shoot antelopes, as much for the sake of 

 the pot as for the sport. A day's rest and a good 

 dinner had become absolutely necessary ; and though 

 the accommodation at Shemakha was so bad as to 

 make the rest impossible, we obtained the dinner. 

 Thus refreshed, we turned our faces on Friday 

 morning towards Tiflis, with a fixed resolve to 

 make no further stoppage in the thirty-six hours' 

 travelling which remained between ourselves and 

 the good things of that place. 



For the last ten days my leading idea, my favour- 

 ite day-dream, the ultima Thale of my ambition, had 

 been a hot tub. To sit and boil in a hot bath of 

 sulphur water and get out a clean man into a clean 



