Page:The Boy Travellers in the Russian Empire.djvu/416

410 couple of days we were not particular, and took places on the first vessel that offered.

"Owing to the shallowness of the lower Volga the oil-steamers, excepting some of the smaller ones, do not come to Astrachan, but transfer their cargoes at 'Diavet Foot' (Nine Feet), which is so called from its depth of water. Diavet Foot is eighty miles from Astrachan, and on a shoal which spreads ont like a fan beyond the mouth of the Volga. A small steamer having several barges in tow took us to the shoal, where we were

transferred to the Koran, a handsome steamer two hundred and fifty-two feet long and twenty-eight feet broad. There was a large fleet of river-boats, barges, and sea-steamers at Diavet Foot, and we watched with much interest the process of transferring kerosene from the tank-steamers which had brought it from Baku to the barges for conveyance up the river."

An English gentleman, who was connected with the petroleum works at Baku, kindly gave the youths the following information: