Persia Revisited

by Sir Thomas Edward Gordon

The coast country is famous for its rice, which could be extensively cultivated, and the resources in forest and fishery produce are great. There would be considerable local traffic as the country opened up, and the through trade in oil from Baku would be a paying one. I believe the Russians know that it would be cheaper to build a railway along this coast-line of about three hundred miles, with such trade capabilities, than, in the absence of harbours, to erect breakwaters, make sheltered anchorages, and dredge navigation channels. For two-thirds of the distance the line would lie in Russian territory.

I met at Enzelli a foreign artist, whose acquaintance I had formed in Tehran, where he made some good pictures of local life and scenery. He was loud in his complaints of the elements—the heavy rain and the awful mud. He had come down the road with a minimum of travelling comforts, and had been rather miserable. On going off to the mail-boat in the steam-launch, he vented his feelings of disgust with Persia by spitting over the side towards the land, and saying, 'Ach! ach! what a country! 'May I never see it again!' When I reminded him of Tehran and its club, he acknowledged that he had enjoyed his stay there, and appreciated the place; but the rain and sea of mud at Resht had drowned and smothered all his pleasant memories of Persia.

The voyage to Baku was uneventful. There are two Astaras, one Persian, the other Russian, with the frontier stream between them. The steamer remained part of the night at the former place, and moved in the morning three miles to the anchorage opposite the latter. There the Russian Customs officers came on board to examine luggage. The first mate of the steamer, a Swedish Finn, attended the search proceedings, and became much interested In a rusty pistol which was found in the luggage of one of the deck passengers. The question arose, Was the pistol loaded? and he undertook to find out. He raised the hammer to full cock, and, placing the muzzle in his mouth, he blew down the barrel, with his finger on the cap nipple, to feel if the air passed through. He naïvely explained to me the certainty of this mode of discovering whether a percussion arm is loaded or not. In this instance the pistol was thought to be loaded, but it was found to be only choked with rust.

I had intended to return viâ Constantinople, but on arrival at Baku I learnt that the damage done to the railway between Tiflis and Batoum by a storm of unprecedented fury and unusually heavy floods was so extended and bad as to stop all traffic for a long time. I went to Oujari, a station one hundred and sixty miles from Baku, where I was hospitably entertained by Mr. Andrew Urquhart, a Scotch gentleman, established there with a factory and hydraulic presses for the liquorice-root industry, and from there I entered into telegraphic communication with Tiflis to ascertain if I could get a carriage to Vladikavkas, so as to join the railway and proceed home through Russia. There was such a number of passengers detained at Tiflis, en route to Batoum, and all anxious to go to Vladikavkas by road, that I found I should have to wait long for my turn. Accordingly, after six days' stay with my hospitable friend, I went back to Baku and took steamer to Petrovsk, whence I travelled by rail to Moscow and St. Petersburg on my way to England viâ Berlin.

A great petroleum field is now being developed near Grosnoje, a station on the Petrovsk Vladikavkas railway, north of the main Caucasus range; and an English company has had the good fortune, after venturing much, to find the fountain for which they and others have long looked. After carrying on 'sounding' operations for some time, and sinking several wells, oil was at length 'struck' towards the end of August at a depth of three hundred and fifty feet, and it came up with such force as to reach a height of five hundred feet above ground. The well was on a hillside, and the valley below had been dammed up previously to form a reservoir capable of holding a large supply of oil. But such was the flow from the fountain, that after a few days it rose above the dam, and, although every effort was made to raise and strengthen it, the oil overflowed, and the top of the dyke was carried away. Millions of gallons were lost, though on its course down the valley the oil completely filled another reservoir, which had been prepared for the oil of a rival company, but which never came from their own wells. Eventually the main flow of oil found its own level in a low-lying piece of ground, about four miles below the broken dam.

As the fountain continued to flow with almost undiminished vigour, the Governor of Grosnoje began to be alarmed at the damage which was being done by this deluge of oil, and he therefore placed four hundred soldiers at the disposal of the English engineer in charge, and by their organized labour he was able to repair the dam, so that the flow of oil was checked. A friend, from whom I received this account, visited the place on November 27, and saw the fountain still playing to a height of twenty feet, and also the lake of oil which had been formed. The lake was about three hundred and fifty yards long, one hundred and twenty yards wide, and from fifty to sixty feet deep. The fountain was still playing on January 10, but it shortly afterwards ceased to flow. The same company had another stroke of luck in again 'striking oil' last month at another spot, some little distance from the original fountain, while, strange to say, none of the other companies engaged in prospecting for oil there have as yet succeeded in getting so much as a gallon. All this flow of fortune to the one firm reads very like the luck of Gilead Beck in the 'Golden Butterfly.'

Mr. Stevens, H.B.M.'s Consul for the consular district of Batoum, shows in his report for 1894 that the demand for naphtha fuel is increasing in Russia at such a rate, owing to it being more and more widely adopted for railways, steamers, factories, and other undertakings using steam-power, that the time appears by no means far distant when the Russian home market may be in a position to consume in the shape of fuel almost the entire output of the wells of the Caspian, and he adds that probably the supply will even be insufficient to meet the demand. With all this in view, the value of the Grosnoje wells, situated as they are on the main line of railway through the heart of Russia, is likely to prove very great.

I landed in a heavy snowstorm at Petrovsk on November 30, and found the whole country under its winter sheet. Since October 1 all railway fares and charges in Russia have been greatly reduced, and the policy now appears to be to encourage travelling and traffic, which must result in a general improvement of the minds and condition of the people.

Railway travelling in Russia is now much cheaper than in any other country; a through first-class ticket from the Caspian to St. Petersburg, seventeen hundred miles, is but £4 10s., and the other classes are low in proportion. The carriages are comfortable, and the refreshment-rooms excellent.

With accurate information as to the sailings from Petrovsk to Baku and Enzelli, one can now go from London to Tehran in fourteen days. This, of course, means steady travelling, frequent changes, a saddle-seat for about one hundred miles (which can now be reduced to seventy-five), and some previous experience of rough life, so as to reconcile the traveller to the poor accommodation afforded in a Persian post-house. But the Russian road, now under construction, will soon change the rough ride into a fairly comfortable carriage-drive, with well-provided post-houses for food and rest.