Page:The Boy Travellers in the Russian Empire.djvu/430

424 and we thoroughly enjoyed the cold chicken, bread, and grapes which we ate in the carriage before starting back to the town. We reached the hotel without accident, though considerably shaken up by the rough road and the energetic driving of our Tartar coachman."

While Frank was busy with his description, Fred was looking up the history of the oil-wells of Baku. Here is what he wrote concerning them:

"For twenty-five hundred years Baku has been celebrated for its fire-springs, and for a thousand years it has supplied surrounding nations and people with its oil. From the time of Zoroaster (about 600 ) it has been a place of pilgrimage for the Guebres, or Fire-worshippers, and they have kept their temples here through all the centuries down to the present day. At Surukhani (about eight miles from Baku and four or five from Balakhani) there are some temples of very ancient date; they stand above the mouths of gas-wells, and for twenty centuries and more the Fire-worshippers have maintained the sacred flame there without once allowing it to become extinct. On the site of Baku itself there was for centuries a temple in which the sacred fire was maintained by priests of Zoroaster until about 624. The Emperor Heraclius, in his war against the Persians, extinguished the fires and destroyed the temple.

"Since the eighth century, and perhaps earlier, the oil has been an article of commerce in Persia and other Oriental countries. Read what Marco Polo wrote about it in the thirteenth century:

On the confines of Georgine there is a fountain from which oil springs in great abundance, inasmuch as a hundred ship-loads might be taken from it at one time. This oil is not good to use with food, but 'tis good to burn, and is used also to anoint camels that have the mange. People come from vast distances to fetch it, for in all countries there is no other oil.'

"It is probable that the good Marco means camel-loads rather than ship-loads—at least that is the opinion of most students of the subject. The fire-temple of the Guebres is a walled quadrangle, with an altar in the centre, where the fire is kept; the sides of the quadrangle contain cells where the priests and attendants live, and in former times there were frequently several thousands of pilgrims congregated there. We were told that the place would not repay a visit, and therefore we have not gone there, as we are somewhat pressed for time, and the journey is a fatiguing one.

"For a considerable space around the temple there are deep fissures in the ground whence the gas steadily escapes. Before the Russians