y good chance of being run down by
some incoming steamer.

[Illustration: "Serried ranks of tall iron funnels."]

When it was clear that we should drift down below the region of the oil
quays I thought we would see what our lungs could do. Timing our shouts
together, the coxswain and I, we sent up a tremendous hail to the lowest
of the piers. Again and again we startled the night, until at last we
heard an answering hallo.

In a few minutes a motor-boat bore down upon us. It was the British Navy
in the shape of an engineer lieutenant commander. He took us in tow,
carried me off to his bungalow, arranged about the boat being berthed
and looked after till the morning, and proved a most cheery soul full of
good looks and given to hospitality. When I explained my job he roared
with laughter.

"Just the right time to arrive," he said. "Subject one, Abadan at night
complete with tanks; subject two, works, oil, one in number--sketched in
triplicate--why, my Lords Commissioners will be awfully bucked. They've
put a couple of millions into this show, you know. Say 'when,' it can't
hurt you, special Abadan brand."

[Illustration: Ship loading with oil.]

I said "when." I kept on saying "when," and then as a measure of
self-protection suggested sketching the works while I could distinguish
tanks from palm trees. So we went out and had a preliminary look round,
reserving the "Grand Tour of the Inferno," as my host named our
projected expedition, until after dinner.

I will not attempt to explain the processes of oil refining. I am merely
concerned in narrating what it looks like. I know little beyond the fact
that the crude oil arrives by pipe from the oilfields by means of
several pumping stations and that it is cooked or distilled over
furnaces and converted into different grade oils from petrol to heavy
fuel oil. As a spectacle, however, I found a journey through this weird
region most fascinating and mysterious. At night it appears as a vast
plain gleaming with lights and studded with dark objects, half seen and
suggesting primitive machinery of uncouth proportions. Huge lengths of
pipes creep from the shadows on one hand into the far-off regions of
blackness on the other.

Armed with an electric torch, which the Chief carried, and a large
sketch-book which I regretted taking almost as soon as we started, we
set out on our quest of Dantesque scenery. At first our road ran along
the quays by the river side. A camouflag