Company. She is a big paddle steamer, making three trips a week from
coast to coast. She is a very roomy boat, designed to carry a large
cargo, and the builders have thought considerably more of the cargo
than of the passengers. After all, there is not much to make a fuss
about in a day's voyage.

There is a noisy crowd on the quay of people who are going off, and
people who have come to see them off, recruited from the cosmopolitan
population of Baku. I notice that the travelers are mostly Turkomans,
with about a score of Europeans of different nationalities, a few
Persians, and two representatives of the Celestial Empire. Evidently
their destination is China. .

The _Astara_ is loaded up. The hold is not big enough, and a good deal
of the cargo has overflowed onto the deck. The stern is reserved for
passengers, but from the bridge forward to the topgallant forecastle,
there is a heap of cases covered with tarpaulins to protect them from
the sea.

There Ephrinell's cases have been put. He has lent a hand with Yankee
energy, determined not to lose sight of his valuable property, which is
in cubical cases, about two feet on the side, covered with patent
leather, carefully strapped, and on which can be read the stenciled
words, "Strong, Bulbul & Co., Now York."

"Are all your goods on board?" I asked the American.

"There is the forty-second case just coming," he replied.

And there was the said case on the back of a porter already coming