therefore obliged to sit in the boat fighting mosquitoes all night long, and wait until nine o’clock in the morning before he could get his passport stamped, so that he could land and go home. This, he assured us, was no unusual adventure, and it is a recognized fact that when the head officer of the Custom-house is at his meals or is taking a nap, the whole business of the port is temporarily suspended. Of course this would hardly be the case if Vilkoff were on any route of travel. But this far-off settlement is not within two days’ drive of a [Illustration: ROUMANIAN SAILORS AT THE “CORDON”] railway, and no steamer ever comes through the Kilia arm, because the numerous channels into which it divides at Vilkoff are all of them shallow, and only navigable by small fishing-boats. The sturgeon is chiefly valuable for the roe or caviar which is found in it, but the meat finds ready sale, fresh or pickled. In sturgeon fishing the men employ long strings of large hooks without barbs, suspended by stout cords a yard long from a rope strung with cork floats. These hooks are not baited, but are hung very closely together, so that when the fish is swimming near the surface, as he usually does, he runs against them, and entangling himself by the violence of his struggles is easily captured. We saw a medium-sized fish brought to the warehouse at Vilkoff, where the caviar was extracted. There was just about enough to fill an ordinary bucket, and the trader told us it was worth on the spot about 160 francs. The roe is held together by a net-work of delicate fibres and a gelatinous substance not unlike thin starch in appearance. The eggs are separated from this envelope by carefully rubbing them through a coarse sieve, and the caviar is then ready for the table. The extremely delicate nature of caviar will not permit of its transportation unless it is preserved in some way, and it is usually put on the market in small quantities salted, or in bulk salted and pressed. There is as much difference between the flavor of the fresh and the salted caviar as there is between ripe and dried figs, or between grapes and raisins. The amateur of this delicacy really enjoys it only within twenty-four hours after it is taken from the fish.