. In Balakhani one can hardly look out of the door
without one's clothes being smeared with oil, and the odour can be
perceived a dozen miles away. Not a blade of grass grows in this
neighbourhood; all that one sees is a forest of derricks. Lines of pipes
convey the oil from the borings to the "Black Town" of Baku, which is
full of oil refineries (over 170 in all) emitting vast volumes of smoke,
black and greasy buildings, and pools of oil refuse. When the crude
natural oil is purified, it is distributed far and wide in special
railway trucks like cisterns, and in special tank steamers, into which
the petroleum is pumped, and which carry nothing else.

In the Baku oil-fields there are now (1910) no fewer than 4094 bores, of
which 2600 are productive. Last year they yielded about eight million
tons of raw petroleum, some of them having sometimes given nearly 300
tons in twenty-four hours by pumping, and 2000 when the oil shot out
of the ground itself. The value on the spot is now about 20 shillings
a ton. The deepest boring is sunk 2800 feet into the earth.

[Illustration: PLATE III. OIL-WELL AT BALAKHANI.

A fountain of oil forced up by natural pressure.]

Late one evening in February, 1886, the dreadful cry of "Fire! Fire!"
was heard outside our house. The very thought of fire is enough to raise
terror and consternation throughout this oil-soaked district. We hurry
out and find the whole neighbourhood illuminated with a weird, whitish
light, as bright as day. The derricks stand out like ghosts against the
light background. We make for the place and feel the heat increasing.
Bright white flames shoot up fantastically into the air, sending off
black clouds of smoke. One derrick is in flames and beside it a pool of
raw petroleum is burning. A Tatar had gone to the derrick with a lantern
to fetch a tool. He lost his lantern, and only just escaped with his
life before the oil-soaked derrick took fire.

It is vain to fight against such a fire. The fire-engine came, and all
the hoses were at work, but what was the use when the jets of water were
turned to steam before they reached the burning surface of the oil pool?
The chief thing is to keep the fire from spreading, and if that is done,
the oil is left to bubble and burn until not a drop is left.

ACROSS PERSIA

It was an adventurous journey that I commenced from Baku on April 6,
1886. I had a travelling companion, a young Tatar, Baki Khanoff, about
L30 in my pocke