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Colonel Stewart's kindness and hospitality are a byword in Persia, and the Sunday of our arrival at Résht was truly a day of rest after the discomfort and privations we had undergone since leaving Baku. Day broke gloomily enough the morning following the day of our arrival at Résht.
The fire-engine came, and all the hoses were at work, but what was the use when the jets of water were turned to steam before they reached the burning surface of the oil pool? The chief thing is to keep the fire from spreading, and if that is done, the oil is left to bubble and burn until not a drop is left. It was an adventurous journey that I commenced from Baku on April 6, 1886.
Referring to the small outline map of the trans-Caspian region, herewith, it will be seen that troops could embark from Odessa in the fleet of merchant steamers available, and, if not molested en route by hostile cruisers, would reach Batum in from 2 to 3 days, thence by rail to Baku in 24 hours, another 24 hours through the Caspian Sea to Krasnovodsk, a transfer in lighters to the landing at Michaelovsk, and the final rail transportation to the present terminus of the track beyond Kizil Arvat; this, it is said, will soon reach Askabad, 310 miles from Herat.
In England oil has been pumped up from the carboniferous strata of Coalbrook Dale, whilst in Sussex it has been found in smaller quantities, where, in all probability, it has had its origin in the lignitic beds of the Wealden strata. Immense quantities are used for fuel by the Russian steamers on the Caspian Sea, the Baku petroleum wells being a most valuable possession.
From this summons the nature of the Baku congress can be imagined. It was, in fact, a social revolutionist far more than a nationalist assembly. Of its 1900 delegates, nearly 1300 were professed communists. Turkey, Persia, Armenia, and the Caucasus countries sent the largest delegations, though there were also delegations from Arabia, India, and even the Far East.
Daylight found us there, anchored a mile from the shore, and a heavy swell running. But there is no bar here; only a shelving sandy beach, on which, even in rough weather, there is little danger. Some good-sized boats came out to the Kaspia with fish and vegetables, and we at once resolved to land. Anything sooner than return to Baku!
At the famous sacred Fire wells of Baku, in the Eastern Caucasus, the ejections of mud and inflammable gas are so mixed with asphaltic products that Eichwald says 'they should be rather called naphtha volcanoes than mud-volcanoes, as the eruptions always terminate in a large emission of naphtha. It is reasonable enough, then, to suppose a similar connection in Trinidad.
The improvement in the Russian telegraph line, perhaps, owes something to its brief association with the invading stranger from England; and now among the sublime loveliness of this Caucasian Switzerland one finds the station-houses built with far more pretence to the picturesque than on the barren steppes toward Baku and the Caspian.
The series of articles which commenced at Baku on 'What Cobdenism might do for the camel industry' ranks among the best of the recent contributions to Free Trade literature, while the views on foreign policy enunciated 'from a roof in Yarkand' showed at least as much grasp of the international situation as those that had germinated within half a mile of Downing Street.
An American engineer, building a railway in Turkey, came on board at Trebizond; there were one or two light women on their way home from Baku, and the attache of a foreign embassy from Teheran. But the Irishman felt more in touch with the hundred peasant-folk who joined the ship at Ineboli from the interior of Asia Minor and were bound as third-class emigrants for Marseilles and far America.
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