We reached Baku on September 16, the ninth day from London, and arranged
to leave for Enzelli, on the Persian coast, the port for Tehran, at
midnight the next day. Through the kindness of a member of the Greek
house of Kousis, Theophylactos and Co., we were shown over the oil-wells
and refineries belonging to M. Taghioff, a millionaire of Persian origin
(the name probably was Taghi Khan). The story goes that, on becoming
wealthy through the oil industry in its early days, he presented the
young township with a church, school-house, and hospital, and, in
recognition of his generous public spirit, the Government gave him a
grant of the waste land on which his works now stand, and out of which
millions of roubles have come to him from oil-springs. Our visit had the
appearance of bringing him luck in the form of a new fountain rush. We
had seen all the works and wells; none of the latter were flowing, and
the usual steam-pumping was going on. We were about to leave, when a
commotion at the wells attracted our attention, and we saw the dark
fluid spouting up from two to three hundred feet through the open top of
the high-peaked wooden roof erected over each of the wells. On hurrying
back, we saw the great iron cap, which is swung vertically when the pump
is working, lowered and fixed at some height over the mouth of the well,
to drive the outward flow down into the hollow all round and out into
the ditch leading to the reservoirs. The force of the gush was shown by
the roar of the dash against the iron cap, and the upward rush had the
appearance of a solid quivering column. The flow was calculated at fifty
thousand gallons an hour. The business of refining is generally in the
hands of others than the producers; but some of the larger
firms--notably the Rothschilds, Nobel Brothers, and Taghioff--are both
producers and refiners. This means of course, the employment of very,
much larger capital.

There is a great dash of the gambling element in the oil-well business