296 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



in sight all day to the south. They say the waters 

 of the Caspian decrease yearly. 1 



September 2,0th. Land in sight occasionally this 

 day, and the water not above eight or ten feet deep. 

 A dead calm about noon, which lasted all night. 



September 21st. A strong breeze sprang up right 

 in our teeth. Took advantage of a slight favourable 

 change in the wind, and moved about twelve miles 

 into deeper water. Here the wind settled against 

 us, and we were twenty-four hours anchored, a heavy 

 swell running and shaking this little boat as if it were 

 but a cockle-shell. 



Late on the evening of the 22d we got a puff in 

 our favour, and gradually the wind came round and 

 brought us in, in gallant style, early in the morning 

 of the 23d, to the anchorage of Oochuck, as it is 

 called by Turkomans and Cossacks, or Goorieff by 

 Russians as pretty a spot for fever and ague as I 

 have seen. The vessels are surrounded by high grass, 

 which covers their decks, and the mud is black and 

 glutinous. This place is at one of the mouths of the 

 Ural river. "We are now waiting while people go 

 to fetch carriages for us from the neighbourhood. 

 " They the Tutor," and indeed all but the old sailors, 



1 It is a curious fact connected with this sea, that by the 

 last Russian surveys it appears that the sea of Aral is 104 

 feet, and the Black Sea 116 feet above the Caspian, thus mak- 

 ing the Aral and the Black seas neaily on a level with each 

 other, with the Caspian in a hollow a little more than 100 feet 

 below and between them. 



