While the road leading to Tiflis over the mountains is grand, a more dreary country can hardly be conceived than that crossed by the railway between Tiflis and Baku: endless steppes and deserts, greyish-yellow and desolate, with occasionally a caravan of slowly moving camels. A violent storm arose as we drew near the sea. Dust rose up in clouds and penetrated through all the chinks of the compartment, the air became thick, heavy, and suffocating, and outside nothing could be seen but a universal grey veil of impenetrable mist. But the worst was that the storm struck the train on the side, and at last the engine was scarcely able to draw the carriages along. Twice we had to stop, and on an ascent the train even rolled back a little. However, in spite of all, we at last reached the shore of the Caspian Sea, where clear green billows rose as high as a house and thundered on the strand. At seven o'clock in the evening we were at Baku, and drove ten miles to Balakhani, where I remained seven months. I remember that time as if it were yesterday. I struggled hopelessly with the Russian grammar, but made great progress in Persian, and learned to talk the Tatar language without the least difficulty. Meanwhile I indulged in plans for a great journey to Persia. How it was to be managed I did not know, for my means were not large. But I made up my mind that through Persia I would travel, even if I went as a hired servant and drove other people's asses along the roads. The whole country round Baku is impregnated with petroleum, which collects in vast quantities in cavities in the earth. To reach the oil a tower of wood 50 to 65 feet high is erected, and a line with a powerful borer runs over a block at the top. A steam-engine keeps the line in constant motion, perpendicularly up and down, and the borer eats deeper and deeper into the earth. The first section of piping which is forced down into the bore-hole is about 40 inches in diameter. When this can go no farther the boring is continued with a smaller borer, and a narrower tube is thrust down within the first. And so the work is continued until the petroleum level is reached and the valuable oil can be pumped up.