see the Europeans. Persian women were sitting around
by sundry little ovens of masonry, where, by the help of gas flames, they
baked their _Tsheuks_, thin cakes of unleavened bread. Followed by the
crowd, we were led a couple of hundred steps from the castle to a spring
that was covered over; the cover was taken off, and a bundle of burning
straw thrown in, when, crackling and hissing, sprung up a splendid pillar
of fire, vanishing in sparks like stars. This beautiful spectacle lasted
but for a moment, and a quarter of an hour was necessary to collect gas
enough to repeat the experiment.

We returned to Baku in the rain, more dead than alive. It was the eve of
Easter. The next morning, as I was sitting on the sofa with the children,
there came in a tall, meagre Hindoo, with gray hair; he was dressed in a
white robe, and brought me white and red sugar on a silver plate. He was
the chief priest from the temple of the Gebers, and had come to Baku to
see the Easter festivities. We took a few grains of his sugar, and I laid
a silver rouble on the plate. While he was making his bows for this, my
husband came in and told him, partly in Tartar, partly in Russian, and
partly in pantomime, that we had been to his temple the night before, and
had prayers said there. He asked at once, with eagerness, how much we had
given, and when he learned the sum, asked for a certificate to that
effect, as, without it, the others would give him no part of the money. We
sent him away without granting his request, for the two screamers of the
night previous had earned all we gave them. We learned afterwards that the
gifts of visitors occasioned quarrels, and often blows, in the romantic
fire-castle. This disgusted me, and yet it is not the fault of these poor
fellows. They must necessarily become covetous, since they profane their
most sacred ceremonies as a means of living. They have neither fields nor
gardens, and the only thing like vegetation that I saw was some lone boxes
in the court yard, filled with shrubs and plants, remains, no doubt, from
the time of the Indian nabob, who sought in vain to establish cultivation
in a soil impregnated with inflammable gas. However, I learned to my
sorrow that grass at least grows there, for, in going through it to the
spring, my feet became perfectly wet.

The air of the locality does not seem to be unwholesome for man. At least,
the Geber priests, who had lived there for years, were perfect lions for
he