Page:Maud, Renée - One year at the Russian court 1904-1905.djvu/121

Rh From the windows of the train I was able to distinguish a caravan, numbering about eighty camels all in Indian file, silhouetted against the sky, on the edge of the Caspian, which the train skirts before it bends round the end of the mountains near Bakou and threads the valleys of Transcaucasia.

I have always admired those fine animals with their placid expression and their grand, slow, soft movements, which nothing seems to disturb. The mineral wealth of the Caucasus is worthy of The Arabian Nights, but, unfortunately, owing to the non-existence of railways, it is next to impossible to utilize the output from but very few places.

The oil wells at Bakou and other places are, as every one knows, one of the great sources of the wealth of the country. Nothing is more terrible to behold than one of these oil-wells when it catches fire, which sometimes happens.

The Armenian church is interesting; the Armenians are known as the Jews of the Caucasus, and there is a saying that one Armenian is equal to five Jews!

There are two Catholic churches, one specially frequented by the Poles and built in the Polish quarter; the other built almost entirely by one of my grandmother's brothers, and where I used to go.

This grand-uncle of mine, Baron Louis de Nicolay, became a celebrated Russian General and conqueror of Shamyl, the famous Caucasian Chief held to be invincible till then in his