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.

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 daybre