Most of the crew, also, were smuggling men, women, or material across the Black Sea. The crew itself included four Russian soldiers, who had escaped from prison camps in Turkey, and were passing themselves off as seamen. The bo'sun's particular line of business was a woman thief who had with her a heavy purse and a trunk full of property, stolen from a merchant who had been her dear friend. Katrina, the kitchen girl who brought us our food, invested in a well-to-do Turkish deserter. As for the non-human contraband, it was stowed in every corner of the vessel--cocaine, opium, raw leather, tobacco, cognac, and quinine. Prices were extravagant enough in Constantinople, but in Russia they were colossal. The difference in the price of drugs, for example, often amounted to hundreds per cent. The demand for cocaine as contraband was so great during the week before we actually sailed that by the end of it the chemists of Pera and Galata would sell none under 500 dollars a kilo; but in Odessa, we heard, one might dispose of it without difficulty for a thousand dollars a kilo. Even White and I became infected by the contraband craze and, with Kulman as partner, gambled successfully on a consignment of leather and so covered most of our escape expenses. At dusk, when we left the wireless cabin and paced the shadowed portion of the deck for exercise, we often saw a rowing boat creeping toward whichever side of the _Batoum_ happened not to face the shore. Somebody in it would exchange low whistlings with somebody on deck--the somebody often being Titoff. When the boat had been made fast to the bottom of the gangway, a figure, or two figures, would climb to the deck and disappear. Sometimes they brought and left a package; sometimes it was a visitor himself--or herself--who did not depart with the rowing boat. Besides the mystery traffic from shore to ship there was also a certain amount from ship to shore. For this the steward--a Russian Jew--was responsible. A Turkish merchant had chartered the _Batoum_ for the coming voyage, and since our many delays in sailing were the result of his haggling with government officials over the amount of _baksheesh_ to be paid for permission to export, he undertook to feed the officers and crew for as long as they remained at Constantinople. Incidentally, he unknowingly fed White and myself, besides the other stowaways and the escaped Russian soldiers. The steward ordered more provisions than were needed; and a few hours after the delivery of each consignment a boatload would be sent back to the quay and carted to the bazaars. Titoff, who organized the sale, shared the proceeds with the steward.