"There is a line of steamers on the Caspian Sea for the transport of petroleum; they are constructed with tanks in which the oil is carried in bulk, and their engines are run by petroleum instead of coal. Their accommodations for passengers are limited, but as the voyage is made in a couple of days we were not particular, and took places on the first vessel that offered.
"Owing to the shallowness of the lower Volga the oil-steamers, excepting some of the smaller ones, do not come to Astrachan, but transfer their cargoes at 'Diavet Foot' (Nine Feet), which is so called from its depth of water. Diavet Foot is eighty miles from Astrachan, and on a shoal which spreads out like a fan beyond the mouth of the Volga. A small steamer having several barges in tow took us to the shoal, where we were transferred to the Koran, a handsome steamer two hundred and fifty-two feet long and twenty-eight feet broad. There was a large fleet of river-boats, barges, and sea-steamers at Diavet Foot, and we watched with much interest the process of transferring kerosene from the tank-steamers which had brought it from Baku to the barges for conveyance up the river."
An English gentleman, who was connected with the petroleum works at Baku, kindly gave the youths the following information:
AN OIL-STEAMER ON THE CASPIAN SEA.
"There are nearly a hundred steamers on the Caspian engaged in the oil traffic. They are of iron or steel, average about two hundred and fifty feet in length by twenty-seven or twenty-eight in breadth, and carry from seven hundred to eight hundred tons (two hundred thousand to two hundred and fifty thousand gallons) of petroleum in their tanks. Their engines are of one hundred and twenty horse-power, and make a speed of ten knots an hour; they use petroleum for fuel, and it is estimated that their running expenses are less than half what they would be if coal were burned instead of oil. The steamers were built in Sweden or England, and brought through from St. Petersburg by means of the canals connecting the Volga with the Neva. Some of the largest steamers were cut in two for the passage of the canals, the sections being united at Astrachan or Baku.
"The oil-steamers for river work are from sixty to one hundred and fifty feet long; they are fitted with tanks, like the sea-steamers, and are powerful enough for towing tank-barges in addition to the transport of their own loads. They run from Diavet Foot to Tsaritsin, four hundred miles up the Volga, the first point where there is railway connection to Western Europe. Some of them proceed to Kazan, Nijni Novgorod, and other points on the upper Volga, and also through the canals to St. Petersburg, but the greater part of them land their cargoes at Tsaritsin.
"When you get to Baku you will see how rapidly the loading of the steamers is performed. When a steamer is ready for her cargo, an eight-inch pipe pours the kerosene into her tanks, and fills her in about four hours. Then she starts for Diavet Foot, where the oil is pumped into the river steamers and barges; she fills her tanks with fresh water, partly in order to ballast her properly, and partly because water is very scarce at Baku, and then starts on her return. Five or six days make a round trip, including the loading and unloading at either end of the route.