Chapter XXXV: We Return Viâ the Caspian (2)

M. Schwab puts us up in his huge house with great hospitality, gives us a good double-bedded room, and gives his own room to the children, telling us to make ourselves at home: we do so.

We find at M. Schwab’s, M. Vassiliardes, a Greek, formerly one of Ralli’s people whom I had known in Teheran, and a young American traveller, Mr. Doherty, who says he is a naturalist, and “hopes to find curious bugs” in Persia. _He will!_ He tells me bug is _American_ for beetle.

We breakfast. The rest of the day is occupied in paying off servants, giving over Captain W⸺’s purchases, handing over the mare, giving present to muleteer, repacking for the ship, getting money, etc.

_April 30th._—We start after breakfast. A⸺ and I, with N⸺ and the children, in a rough cart on the mattresses and pillows; the luggage in another, the servants on its top. After one farsakh (_the last one_) we reach (passing through forest and swamp) “Peri-bazaar,” in the midst of swamps. Here is the wharf. In a few minutes we get on a boat manned by six rowers and haulers, a bow-man and a steersman; we take three servants with us, and the woman Bēbē. As soon as we push off from the bank, a rope is attached to the top of the mast and we are towed for an hour, by the haulers, through the swamp.

They then get on board and row; they row very badly with oars like long-handled spades, and when the steersman calls out “Mohammed,” they reply “Allah saklassān,” in a yelling chorus, and spurt. We passed through a narrow natural canal, and then came to the “Mūrd ab,” or “Dead Water,” a large estuary; we row for three-quarters of an hour and then the sail is set. We left Peri-bazaar at three, and reach Enzelli at seven.

The canal and estuary were teeming with fish and water-birds, and we saw cranes, herons, cormorants, and unknown water-fowls in thousands, flying up from the reeds, or rising as we neared them. We also saw a huge vulture who was eating a fish (or was it a big fish-eagle?), _but no boat or human being_.

At each side of the boat are fixed sticks tied in a bundle; these serve as fenders and rowlocks, really the latter being a small ring of rope.

We land just at the door of the prime minister’s harem, a tumble-down place. We find the governor of Ghilān in the berūni, or men’s apartments; he has laid down carpets in our rooms, and gives us tea, lights, dinner, and breakfast, _i. e._ he does so for his friend M. Vassiliardes, and we reap the benefit. Our beds are full of fleas. Weather _hot_ and damp.

_May 1st._—Lovely weather; have all ready by eight A.M. No steamer. Breakfast from Akbar Khan, Governor of Ghilān. Walk in the gardens, orange-trees with lots of oranges (of last year) on them, and at same time in full bloom quantities of roses, the iris too—very large and fine flowers. Everything very damp; rather too hot in sun, but nice breeze.

Four P.M.—_No steamer._ Go over the six-storied tower of the Shah, built when he went to Europe, a gew-gaw place going to ruin from damp; protected by mats. We inspect his bedroom, salon, etc. Walk in town; like a Russian suburb of, say, Astrachan.

Seven P.M.—_No steamer._ Bed at ten.

_May 2nd._—Get up at five. _No steamer._ At six the steamer is seen; we cram in a few odds and ends, cushions and blankets, and make the final distribution of clothes, etc., to servants. We go down to the shore and get into our last night’s boat.

Half-past eight, arrive on board the steamer. Give my servants their presents: they kiss our hands and weep; we weep, the children weep. I send them off by saying their boat is leaving. Our boat is the _Tzarovitch Alexander_, one of the newest and best boats. N⸺ has _all_ the ladies’ cabin; we have a state room below. We take in cargo.

Eleven, breakfast. Vegetables very well done come after the zakooska, or snack, then stewed steaks with carrots, then a sweet sort of omelette with jam—and very little jam. We drink piver (beer) of Astrachan. One P.M. Still taking in cargo.

Ten minutes to two.—We start, leaving some cargo-boats still unloaded; our principal cargo seems to be raisins, eggs, and cotton, and a little dried fish; but the captain tells me that this is the largest cargo he has ever got from Enzelli. We have been loading busily, both fore and aft, with steam cranes, since the vessel’s arrival. We run along the coast, no motion to speak of; strong sun, weather lovely. At half-past five we dine, and we took tea at half-past three. Ship’s tea undrinkable; we use our own. Dinner is stchēe (one of the national cabbage soups), cutlets, roast duck, and a sort of Bavaroise. We pass (without stopping) Astara at ten P.M., sea getting up. Stop at Lenkoran at one A.M., take eight passengers for Bakū.

They talk in cabins and wake A⸺. I remonstrate in German, French, and Persian; dead silence. Leave at three _A.M._, sea going down. Tea at eight; lovely sun, pass between islands; no sea on.

_May 3rd._—Half-past ten, breakfast. Four P.M., arrived at “Bakū;” went on shore, bought photos of Russian types of Bakū, etc., changed all my Persian money into paper roubles; exchange, three roubles forty-seven copecks to one toman (or seven-and-sixpence).

_May 4th._—Again went on shore. There is nothing to see; the usual cheap imitation of French fashions, much business, principally in naphtha (Bakū, owing to this, has in twenty years risen from nothing). There is a good natural harbour, lots of Russian officers about; Armenians, Persians, Lesghians, more numerous than the actual Russians. Deep water full of fine fish close in shore; our big steamer is warped up to a wooden pier 300 yards long. Only four other steamers lying here, all smallish, one barque, and lots of small crafts like galliots. Oranges plentiful and bad, also tobacco from Riga (?). I got a pair of Tartar enamelled earrings here, and a big turquoise.

Noon (twelve).—Sudden rush of the beauty and fashion of Bakū to breakfast on board; it appears that doing this, and the club, are _the two amusements of the place_. The naphtha trade and the steamer depot, with the garrison, form the society of this place. Festive Russia drinks bad champagne, at one pound a bottle, after breakfast. First whistle, half-past one. Second whistle, a quarter to two. Embracing, weeping, departure of Festive Russia, leaving some ten men-passengers, one Georgian lady very uninteresting, and one young lady with a quantity of fair hair and a fat baby. “Fair one with golden locks” is kissed freely by every one.

Third whistle. Final rush; we are warped out. The deck passengers are dissolved in oily and spirituous tears. At ten minutes past two we paddle off. No sea in the bay. Half-past four, tea. Half-past six, dinner. Heavy swell on. A⸺ and N⸺ go below; so does fair one with the golden locks, at end of dinner. A⸺ lies down, and escapes. Quarter to nine we all retire. Heavy swell on.

_May 5th_, seven A.M.—No swell. We make Durbend, said to have been fortified by Alexander the Great. We anchor half a mile off. I make a rough sketch. Arrival of “fair one with the golden locks,” with the locks done into one huge yellow plait; it is one foot from the ground exactly. I save the fat baby’s life, who had made for the staircase, and shot into my arms. At ten leave Durbend. Half-past ten, breakfast. Half-past four, tea. Reach Petrovsk. A fine natural harbour. Within this the Russians have made a second one, formed by two horns of blocks of rough stone, tossed in pell-mell, and masses of concrete, eight feet by four feet, which stand in a row seawards on the loose stones. They have a tramway for horses, and five men. Each mounts a horse and drags a truck full of stones out (tandem). When they get to the right place they dismount and throw out the stones. Simple, not pretty, but effectual. They were doing this when I was here ten years ago. They are doing it now.

The place is hardly Russian—full of Lesghians, who seem prosperous. I did not go ashore, as it was getting chilly, and there is nothing to see. The town covers a large space of ground, but is sparsely scattered, and looks better from the sea than nearer. As we had one thousand sacks of rice to discharge we did not get off till half-past nine P.M. Weather fine all night.

_May 6th._—Up at eight. Did up rugs and bedding, as we get on the “flat” at the six-foot channel in the afternoon, and are towed in it to the Volga boat. We are at present in the boat in which the Shah made his last voyage to Europe. Of course he had it to himself, and the engineer tells me he slept on the floor of the ladies’ cabin, and _put his shoes on the table_. So much for the civilisation of the “Asylum of the Universe,” “The king of kings!” The stewards, after a little remonstrance, are civil and obliging, the food good and plentiful; the fish particularly good; while the Astrachan beer is a great treat, fourpence-halfpenny a bottle only. We had a lot of port with us, which, _as we had to drink_ or throw away, we preferred the former. The corkage is charged fivepence. Many Russians bring their own liquor.

Children and ourselves all in robust health. The rest has done us good. The officers are all very obliging and friendly, two speaking English, all German, and one some French; but the stewards were, alas! Russians of the real _vielle roche_. The bill had to be gone carefully through. I cut off one-fifth of it; they merely smiled; and not finding that we were the sheep who before the shearer was dumb, were very civil.

Quarter to one.—Nearing the nine-foot channel. Not a ripple. We have been very fortunate, as the Caspian is at times _very_ rough! Half-past four, arrived at the “Nine-foot,” as it is called. We go on board the “flat” This is a huge barge, some two hundred feet long; forward and aft are the holds; in the centre twenty cabins, each for four persons, and the saloon; over these another saloon, and a hurricane-deck on top. The sea is like oil, and we leave at ten P.M., being towed by a small tug.

_May 7th._—Wake to find ourselves in the Volga. At eleven A.M. we _reach Astrachan_. Here I go on shore to the office, and complain that I have been forced to take a ticket for my two children, and that I ought only to pay half-fare for one. This, however, I put in a veiled manner. I find that children under ten _travel free_, and forty-one roubles are immediately _refunded_! Officials of company most civil. Our luggage is merely formally examined. I find all this is because my passport has a favourable mark from my friends of the Russian Legation in Teheran which signifies “treat the bearer well:” so they tell me. We are even provided with a private cabin, although every berth has been taken in advance. I and “Charlie” drive in a droschy through Astrachan, a hideous but flourishing, large town, evidently rich. I buy a pair of Russian salt-cellars, ugly, but good. I had fever yesterday. I have it again to-night. At ten P.M. we leave.

The current is very strong here, and the long shallow boats very fast and powerful, but the vibration is tremendous, worse than a railway carriage. There is every comfort, convenience, and luxury on board. The scenery of the Volga above Astrachan, as we see it on

_May 8th_, is very tame: a low sandbank, a little brushwood. River two miles wide. A few villages; country quite flat; consequently we see nothing. Here and on the “flat,” we have had “sterlet,” the celebrated Volga fish—fairly good, nothing wonderful. Here the police tell me not to wear my grey wideawake, as, if I did, I should be mobbed as a Nihilist. The Emperor just assassinated, and mob very excitable.

_May 9th._—Tsaritzin, seven A.M. Go ashore and drive to railway station, a very fine building. We dine, and at half-past three P.M. start in a compartment of a first-class saloon carriage; this we have all to ourselves. About every half-hour we stop for five minutes at least. One gets in and out as one likes, and the guard takes care that the train does not leave without us. On every platform is a big vessel of clean drinking-water for the peasants. Bottled beer, hot pies, and vodka (a very raw spirit) to be got everywhere: the beer sixpence a bottle, and very nice bread, quite a luxury, and so good that the children eat it all day long, calling it “cakey.” Travel with windows open all night; pace, seventeen miles an hour, without stoppages.

_May 10th._—Reached Griazi at noon. Sleep in the _sleeping-room_, and after a bath leave at half-past six P.M. We have with us sheets, pillows, and blankets, and at eight P.M. we all go to bed, undressing and making ourselves quite at home. Start at midnight.

_May 11th._—Arrive at Orel ten minutes to nine A.M. Drive round town with “Charlie” and A⸺ in droschy. Buy a gilt silver salt-cellar of Moscow work. Nothing to see in the town, which seems well-to-do and substantial. Get a bath, or rather wash, and four hours’ nap in the waiting-room. Leave at three P.M. Carriage to ourselves.

In this part of Russia a train consists of one first-class, one second-class, and, say, fifteen third-class carriages. We find that it suits us to go first, as we can lie down and go to bed, which is of great moment in so long a journey. All the seats draw out to form beds, and the carriages are lined with velvet, have double windows, and every comfort on board. Pace, twenty miles an hour. _No charge is made for the children!_ Witebsk at eight P.M.

_May 12th._—Dunaberg at half-past five A.M. Here we find a wretched station and buffet. They try to persuade us to go to an hotel. We breakfast at the buffet, and then go by rail some two miles, to the Dunaberg station of the Warsaw-Riga line. _This move was an inspiration._ Here we found a really magnificent station and buffet. Nothing leaves till to-morrow at half-past three A.M.—an unearthly hour. We dine at the buffet, and take one of the bedrooms in the station provided for travellers _by the Russian Government_. We get a magnificent _appartement_ for three roubles, with two _beds_! with blankets and pillows and a sofa. Fortunately, the beds are in alcoves, so I take the sofa, and we all sleep till three A.M. of the _13th_. We get up, go down to the station, and at twenty minutes past four A.M. (awful time) start for Berlin.

Arrive at Wilna at eight A.M. Get to Eydtkuhnen, the Prussian frontier, at eighteen minutes to two. Here a form of custom-house examination is gone through. Leave at twenty-two minutes past two, and reach _Berlin_ on May 14th at ten minutes past six A.M.

We are all dog-tired, dirty, woebegone in the extreme, our luggage eccentric-looking; and on our arrival in the Hôtel de R⸺, Unter den Linden, a new and handsome building, we humbly ask for rooms in French. The head waiter patronisingly informs us that he _hopes_ to give us rooms, and informs the manager in German that we may be put _anywhere_.

We are taken into the lift and brought to the _third floor_. Two good rooms are shown us for six and a half marks each room—in all, with extra, _i. e._ children’s beds, fifteen marks.

When the head waiter sees our piles of luggage arrive, and is asked for hot coffee, he becomes polite and servile, and tells us he can give us better rooms on the second or first floors; but we decline to move, sleep being our first object. We do sleep, but _miss_ the vibration of the carriage. We go to the _table d’hôte_, and, as we dread strange liquors, order a bottle of a well-known brand of dry champagne. It appears without label and without cork carefully frozen. The head waiter glides up, and remarks in English—

“You will find this a ver fine wine, sar.”

I taste it, and reply—

“You have brought me sugar-water; I asked for wine. Take it away.” Astonishment of head waiter, who retires with wine, and presently returns with same sweet mixture in an old labelled and capsuled bottle. I taste, and point out that the label says “_très sec_,” and the wine is sweet, in fact, the same as before. He then tells me that the “pore waitre” has made a mistake, and will have to pay for the wine if I return it. I retort “that that won’t injure him, as it can’t cost much, and that it would injure _us_ to drink it.” This to the intense delight of some German officers.

The waiter then tells me that _he finds_ that they are out of the wine I want, but _he_ recommends ⸺. I decline to drink it, saying, “I don’t care for ‘_Schloss weis nicht wo_,’” as I feared getting a second succedaneum. After a sitting at the lengthy _table d’hôte_ of one hour and a half, we leave for more sleep. The table was plentiful, but common, and required a youthful appetite. This we did not possess, and we were both decidedly seedy for the rest of our stay in Berlin. We merely had our morning coffee at the hotel, and dined and breakfasted at “Dressel’s,” a restaurant of European celebrity. The cost was the same, but the wines and cook were undeniable, the attendance good, and the place select and quiet, and only some three hundred yards from our hotel in the Unter den Linden. This evening my neck was cricked, and gave me great pain. We still could not sleep, missing the jarring of the train. A⸺ and Charlie quite knocked up. We all are feeling the cold.

_May 15th._—All of us quite knocked up: headaches and sleeplessness, and want of appetite; in fact, we are getting ill. I went to see the National Gallery and Altes and Neues Museums. Much pleased with what I saw, but my cricked neck annoyed me. A⸺ too ill to go out. Our eldest boy, Charlie, still quite done up.

_May 16th._—Saw the Galleries again, and the wax-works (to which I took Charlie, who seems nearly himself again)—far better than Tussaud’s.

In the evening we went to the Friedrich Wilhelm’s Theatre, and saw the ‘Piper of Hammelin,’ a so-called comic opera. The singing and acting were good, but serious in the extreme. The orchestra stalls cost only three marks (three shillings). Began at half-past seven, over at half-past ten. The players very respectable, and the audience very quiet and appreciative; dresses good, _mise-en-scène_ fair, acting equal to that of English provincials.

_May 17th._—A⸺ much better. Went for drive in morning. Had a good deal of business to do to get money, and start luggage, etc. At five went to Zoological Gardens, a fine collection and magnificent gardens, a concert; fairly good dinner there, price very moderate: lots of guests. Much pleased. These gardens are open till ten P.M. We returned home by eight.

_May 18th._—Had coffee. Started at ten. Breakfasted at the station. _Again no charge for the children._ Secured a _coupé_, with washing-place, etc., to ourselves, after some wrangle with the guard, having to appeal to the station-master, who decided in my favour against another claimant, I having placed my hat in the carriage, and so retained it by travellers’ law, but the guard had removed it and put other people in. Started at twelve noon for Calais. Speed, forty miles, including stoppages. Lovely country till we got to the iron region, Essen (Krupp’s?). Minden particularly pretty.

_May 19th_, one P.M.—Arrive at Calais. Half-past one leave by the Calais Douvres. Fair sea on, no pitching, but considerable roll. None of our party sick; only some dozen ill in all on board. A great improvement on the little boats as to motion. Time, one hundred minutes. Half-past three leave Dover. Half-past five arrive at Charing Cross Station.

_Home!_ “Alhamdulillah!” (“Thank God!”)

FINIS.