"No accident."

"And what may be in those cases, if you please?

"In those cases? Ah! There is the thirty-seventh!" he exclaimed, and he
ran out to meet a truck which had just come onto the quay.

There was a good deal of bustle about, and all the animation of
departures and arrivals. Baku is the most frequented and the safest
port on the Caspian. Derbent, situated more to the north, cannot keep
up with it, and it absorbs almost the entire maritime traffic of this
sea, or rather this great lake which has no communication with the
neighboring seas. The establishment of Uzun Ada on the opposite coast
has doubled the trade which used to pass through Baku. The Transcaspian
now open for passengers and goods is the chief commercial route between
Europe and Turkestan.

In the near future there will perhaps be a second route along the
Persian frontier connecting the South Russian railways with those of
British India, and that will save travelers the navigation of the
Caspian. And when this vast basin has dried up through evaporation, why
should not a railroad be run across its sandy bed, so that trains can
run through without transhipment at Baku and Uzun Ada?

While we are waiting for the realization of this desideratum, it is
necessary to take the steamboat, and that I am preparing to do in
company with many others.

Our steamer is called the _Astara_, of the Caucasus and Mercury