Page:From Constantinople to the home of Omar Khayyam.djvu/168

 82 ON THE CASPIAN TO PERSIA

revolutions that have since occurred in the various districts of Persia, have given to such movements of troops as we had just witnessed, a significance that cannot even yet be fully judged. But soon we were casting off from the dock and steaming out of the harbor of Baku into the broad Caspian, whose waves I have plowed seven times on my different journeys.

To one accustomed to crossing the Atlantic twice each year, the voyage on the Caspian Sea, whether boisterously rough or placidly smooth, presents little novel beyond the local color. This huge inland sea, whose tideless waters are slightly less salt than the ocean and are even fresh at the northern end, where the Volga and Ural empty their streams into its volume, has, in the course of time, become a Russian lake, with a thou- sand craft, largely propelled by steam, furrowing its glistening surface. The enterprising Kavkas-Merkur Line alone runs no less than thirty steamers, north and south, east and west, ply- ing between its main ports at Astrakhan, Baku, Anzali, Astra- bad, and Krasnovodsk. The equipment, manning, and handling of these vessels compares favorably with that of other packet- boats of like burden under similar conditions; but the passage money does not include food, which must be paid for extra. Yet the table is all that one could expect, and not the least attractive feature of the voyage is the Russian zaJcuska^ or pre- liminary morsel, before sitting down to the formal meal at noonday or sunset. A graceful touch is sometimes given to this refreshment, especially on the eastern route to Krasno- vodsk, when the captain, who is often a Finn or a Swede, ceremoniously conducts one or another of his passengers to the table as a special act of courtesy.

He talks interestingly of the development of shipping — how tons in the year 1865, the gross tonnage has since risen to a point considerably over a hundred thousand in cubic capacity; and he points with pride to an almost equal bulk of displace- ment in the freightage of sailing vessels. The conversation

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