Robur the Conqueror by Jules Verne
page 112 of 217 (51%)
page 112 of 217 (51%)
|
The vast extent of water was a sea. It was the Caspian.
The eddies of sand had been passed. There was a view of a group of European houses rising along a promontory, with a church tower in the midst of them. The "Albatross" swooped down towards the surface of the sea. Towards evening she was running along the coast-which formerly belonged to Turkestan, but now belongs to Russia--and in the morning of the 3rd of July she was about three hundred feet above the Caspian. There was no land in sight, either on the Asiatic or European side. On the surface of the sea a few white sails were bellying in the breeze. These were native vessels recognizable by their peculiar rig--kesebeys, with two masts; kayuks, the old pirate-boats, with one mast; teimils, and smaller craft for trading and fishing. Here and there a few puffs of smoke rose up to the "Albatross" from the funnels of the Ashurada streamers, which the Russians keep as the police of these Turcoman waters. That morning Tom Turner was talking to the cook, Tapage, and to a question of his replied, "Yes; we shall be about forty-eight hours over the Caspian." "Good!" said the cook; "Then we can have some fishing." "Just so." They were to remain for forty-eight hours over the Caspian, which is some six hundred and twenty-five miles long and two hundred wide, |
|