Still proceeding towards the south they arrived, in about an hour from these ruins, upon the margin of a burning field, the surface of which was strewed with a pale white sand, and heaps of ashes; while, from numerous gaping rents, rushing flames, black smoke, or bluish steam, strongly impregnated with the scent of naphtha, burst up in a singularly striking manner. When the superincumbent sand was removed, whether upon the edge of the fissures, or in any other part of the field, a light rock, porous, and worm-eaten, as it were, like pumice-stone, was discovered; which, as well as the substratum of the whole peninsula, consisted of shelly petrifactions. Here they found about ten persons occupied in different labours about the fires; some being employed in attending to a number of copper or earthen vessels, placed over the least intense of the burning fissures, in which they were cooking dinner for the inhabitants of a neighbouring village; while others were piling stones brought from other places into heaps, to be burnt into lime. Apart from these sat two Parsees, the descendants of the ancient inhabitants of Persia, beside a small wall of dry stones which they had piled up, contemplating with holy awe and veneration the fiercely ascending flames, which they regard as an emblem of the eternal God.
One of the lime-burners now came up to the travellers, and said that for a small reward he would show them a very extraordinary spectacle. When they had given him some trifle, he plucked a few threads of cotton from his garment, and twisting them upon the end of his rake, went and held them over one of the burning fissures, where they were instantly kindled. He then held the rake over another rent, from which neither flame nor smoke ascended, and in an instant the gaseous exhalation, previously invisible, was kindled, and shot up into a tall, bright flame, like that of a vast gas lamp, which, after burning furiously for some time, to the unspeakable astonishment of the strangers, died away and disappeared. Similar phenomena are observed in several parts of the Caucasus, particularly in the chasms of Mount Shubanai, about four days’ journey from Okesra.
From this place they were conducted to the fountains of white naphtha, where the substance oozed out of the earth as clear as crystal, but in small quantities. Kæmpfer was surprised to find the wells left unprotected even by a wall; for if by any accident they were set on fire, as those near Ecbatana were in ancient times, as we learn from Plutarch, they would continue to burn for ever with inextinguishable violence. Having likewise visited the wells of black naphtha, where this pitchy oil bubbled up out of the earth with a noise like that of a torrent, and in such abundance that it supplied many countries with lamp oil, our travellers repaired to a neighbouring village to pass the night. Here they fared more sumptuously than at Baku; and having supped deliciously upon figs, grapes, apples, and pomegranates, their unscrupulous hosts, notwithstanding that they were Mohammedans, unblushingly offered to provide them with wine and courtesans! Kæmpfer preferring to pass the evening in learning such particulars as they could furnish respecting the ancient and modern condition of their country, they merrily crowded about him, and each in his turn imparted what he knew. When their information was exhausted, they formed themselves into a kind of wild chorus, alternately reciting rude pieces of poetry, and proceeding by degrees to singing and dancing, afforded their guests abundant amusement by their strange attitudes and gestures.
Rising next morning with the dawn, they proceeded to view what is termed by the inhabitants the naphtha hell. Ascending a small hemispherical hill, they found its summit occupied by a diminutive lake, not exceeding fifty paces in circumference, the crumbling, marshy margin of which could only be trodden with the utmost caution. The water, which lay like a black sheet below, had a muriatic taste; and a strange hollow sound, arising out of the extremest depths of the lake, continually smote upon the ear, and increased the horror inspired by the aspect of the place. From time to time black globules of naphtha came bubbling up to the surface of the water, and were gradually impelled towards the shore, where, mixing with earthy particles, they incessantly increased the crust which on all sides encroached upon the lake, and impended over its infernal gloom. At a short distance from this hill there was a mountain which emitted a kind of black ooze impregnated with bitumen, which, being hardened by the sun as it flowed down over the sides of the mountain, gave the whole mass the appearance of a prodigious cone of pitch. In the northern portion of the peninsula they beheld another singular phenomenon, which was a hill, through the summit of which, as through a vast tube, immense quantities of potter’s earth ascended, as if impelled upwards by some machine, and having risen to a considerable height, burst by its own weight, and rolled down the naked side of the hill. In this little peninsula nature seems to have elaborated a thousand wonders, which, however, while they astonish, are useful to mankind. It was with the produce of Okesra that Milton lighted up his Pandæmonium:—
From the arched roof,
Pendent by subtle magic, many a row
Of starry lamps and blazing cressets, fed
With naphtha and asphaltus, yielded light
As from a sky.
Returning to Shamakin, which Kæmpfer erroneously supposes to be the Rhaya of the Bible, our traveller a few days afterward departed for Ispahan, where he remained nearly two years. Shah Solyman, the prince then reigning, whose character and court have been so admirably described by Chardin, was a man whose feeble constitution and feebler mind rendered him a slave to physicians and astrologers. He was now, by the counsel of his stargazers, a voluntary prisoner in his own palace, a malignant constellation, as they affirmed, menacing him with signal misfortunes should he venture abroad. On the 30th of July, however, the sinister influence of the stars no longer preventing him, he held a public levee with the utmost splendour and magnificence; upon which occasion, as Asiatic princes are peculiarly desirous of appearing to advantage in the eyes of strangers, all the foreign ambassadors then in the capital were admitted to an audience. Though the representatives of several superior nations, as of France, Germany, and Russia, to say nothing of those of Poland, Siam, or of the pope, were present, the ambassador of Sweden obtained, I know not wherefore, the precedence over them all. Probably neither the shah nor his ministers understood the comparative merits of the various nations of Europe, and regulated their conduct by the personal character of the envoys; and it would seem that Lewis Fabricius possessed the secret of rendering himself agreeable to the court of Persia.