at Baku. Large sums are spent in boring operations, and success so
often stands off that all available capital is sunk in the ground and
swallowed up. Even with good signs, it is impossible to foresee the
results or the extent of production, and there is also an extraordinary
irregularity in the outcome of the separate naphtha-bearing plots. An
instance was mentioned to me of a peasant proprietor who had made enough
money on which to live sumptuously, but he hungered for more, and
engaged in further boring operations. He was on the verge of losing
everything, when oil was suddenly struck, and he made a fortune. He
laboured hard himself, and literally went to sleep a poor working man,
and awoke to find his dream of riches realized.

Baku has been immensely improved in every way of late, and now has good
streets, hotels, and shops. Water, which was a great want before, is
well supplied from condensers which belong to the town. The rise in the
value of house property and building sites within the last ten years has
been enormous, and great part of the money thus made has gone to native
owners, Persians (or Tartars, as all Mohammedans are called here), and I
was told of a plot of building ground with a small house on it, which
had been originally bought for 600 roubles, being lately sold for
30,000. The town is growing in size, and new buildings are rising, which
give an appearance of prosperity and increasing trade. The harbour is
crowded with steamers and sailing vessels, and the wharfs present a busy
sight. The loading and unloading is quickly done by steam-cranes and
powerful porters, who come in numbers from the Persian districts of
Khalkhal and Ardabil. I watched with much interest a gang of these men
at work. They were wonderfully quick, quiet, and methodical in their
ways, and showed great capacity for handling and carrying heavy weights.

Baku swarms with Persians, resident and migratory. They are seen