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.
Little did I know what was in store for us; for the glass at midday
was falling-fast, and at 2 p.m., when we anchored off Lenkoran, it
was snowing hard and blowing half a gale.
The western coasts of the Caspian are flat and monotonous. There are
two ports of call between Baku and Enzelli - Lenkoran, a dismal-looking
fishing-village of mud huts, backed by stunted poplars and a range of
low hills; and Astara, the Russo-Persian frontier. Trade did not seem
very brisk at either port. We neither landed nor took in cargo at
either. A few small boats came out to the ship with fish to sell. The
latter is bad and tasteless in the Caspian, with the exception of
the sturgeon, which abounds during certain seasons of the year. The
fisheries are nearly all leased by Russians, who extract and export
the caviar. There is good shooting in the forests around Lenkoran, and
tigers are occasionally met with. The large one in the possession of
Prince Dondoukoff Korsakoff, mentioned in the first chapter, was shot
within a few miles of the place.
We arrived off Astara about 6.30 that evening. It was too dark to see
anything of the place, but I had, unfortunately for myself, plenty
of opportunities of examining it minutely a couple of days later. We
weighed anchor again at nine o'clock, hoping, all being well, to reach
Enzelli at daybreak. The sea had now gone down, and things looked more
promising.
My spirits rose at the thought of being able to land on the morrow. I
was even able to do justice to the abominable food set before us at
dinner - greasy sausages and a leathery beefsteak, served on dirty
plates and a ragged table-cloth that looked as if it had been used to
clean the boiler. But the German Jew had recovered from his temporary
indisposition, the cadaverous Persian had disappeared on deck, and
the Armenian children had squalled themselves to sleep, so there
was something, at least, to be thankful for. Captain Z - - , a tall,
fair-haired Swede, who spoke English fluently, had been on this line
for many years, and told us that for dangerous navigation, violent
squalls, and thick fogs the Caspian has no equal. Many vessels are
lost yearly and never heard of again. He also told us of a submarine
city some miles out of Baku, called by the natives "Tchortorgorod," or
"City of the Devil." "In calm, sunny weather," said Z - - , "one can
distinctly make out the streets and houses." The German Jew, of a
facetious disposition, asked him whether he had not also seen people
walking about; but Z - - treated the question with contemptuous
silence.
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