I Retired To Rest With The "Matoushka
Volga," A Boat-Song Popular The Length And Breadth Of Russia, Ringing
In My Ears.
There are no private cabins on board the _Kaspia_.
I share the stuffy
saloon with a greasy German Jew (who insists on shutting all the
portholes), an Armenian gentleman, his wife, and two squalling
children, a Persian merchant, and Gerome.
The captain's cabin, a box-like retreat about eight feet square,
leads out of our sleeping-place, which is also used as a drawing and
dining-room. As the latter it is hardly desirable, for the German and
Persian are both suffering violently from _mal-de-mer_ before we
have been two hours out, and no wonder. Though there is hardly a
perceptible swell on, the tiny cock-boat rolls like a log. To make
matters worse, the _Kaspia's_ engines are worked by petroleum, and the
smell pursues one everywhere.
The passage from Baku to Enzelli (the port of Resht) is usually made
in a little over two days in _fine weather_. All depends upon the
latter, for no vessel can enter if it is blowing hard. There is a
dangerous bar with a depth of barely five feet of water across the
mouth of the harbour, and several Europeans, impatient of waiting,
have been drowned when attempting to land in small boats. "I
frequently have to take my passengers back to Baku," said Captain
Z - - at the meal he was pleased to call breakfast; "but I think we
shall have fine weather to-morrow." I devoutly hoped so.
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