Page:The Boy Travellers in the Russian Empire.djvu/425

Rh pulverizer is so simple that after the engineers have adjusted the flame at starting and put the machinery in operation, they do not give them any attention till the end of the voyage. One stoker, or fireman, is sufficient to watch all the furnaces of a ship and keep them properly supplied with astaki."

A good many additional details were given which we have not space to present. The study of the petroleum question occupied the attention of the youths during the greater part of the voyage, and almost before realizing it they were entering the Bay of Baku, and making ready to go on shore.

Frank and Fred were astonished at what they saw before them. Baku is on a crescent-shaped bay, and for a distance of seven or eight miles along its shores there is a fringe of buildings on the land, and a fringe of shipping on the water. Thirty or forty piers jut from the land into the bay; some of the piers were vacant, while others had each from three to half a dozen steamers receiving their cargoes or waiting their turns to be filled. Not less than fifty steamers were in port, and there were several hundred sailing craft of various sizes and descriptions riding at anchor or tied up at the piers. It was a busy scene—the most active one that had greeted their eyes since leaving the fair at Nijni Novgorod.

They landed at one of the piers, and were taken to a comfortable hotel facing the water, and not far away from it. The youths observed that the population was a cosmopolitan one, quite equal to that of the fair-grounds of Nijni; Russians, Armenians, Turcomans, Kirghese, Persians,