Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1890-07-16
THROUGH THE CAUCASUS.

Peculiarities of Bakou, Russia's Great PEE
troleUm Town.
I1ti1s is midway on the railway that
cuts the Caucasus in its whole width
and puts the two seas in communication
the port of Batoum on the Black Sea
with that of Bakou on the Caspian. AS
we leave the capital in the latter direc-
ton, the eye is at first ravished and
then desolated by the changing aspects
of the land. The track follows the
kour, which rolls it's broad sheet of
water majestically through wild forests
and rich, titled soil, while two chains
of snowy ridges stretch away out of
sight in the distance-the Caucasus to
the left, the mountains of Armenia to
right. Soon we leave the river, which
goes to join the Araxes toward the
south; the plain gets broader and harer;
tall cages built of p'anks perched on
four tree trunks, rise in the midst of the
rice fields like watch-towers. The in
habitants of the village, VINO are all
Tartars in this region, take refuge at
night in these aerial nests; the marshy
land is so unhealthy that it is danger
Gus to sleep there. In spite of these
are devoured by fever; their emaciated
visages remind US of those of the in
habitants of the Roman Campagna. At
ter leaving Hadji-Caboul, the station in
Moorish style where new line branches
of-'the Teheran line" l am told by
the engineers who are building it, and
who hope to carry it into the very heart
OF Persla-we enter an African land
scape, sad and luminous. The mount
DIN chains become lower; they are now
simply cliffs of gilded sand
stone festooniEg against = crude
blue sky. At their feet the
desert sandy expanse, covered
here and there with a rose carpet of
towering tamarisks. Herds of calnels
browse on these shrubs, under the guard
OF half-naked shepherd motionless as
bronze statue. The fantastic silhou-
cites of these animals are increased in
size and changed in form by the effect
OF the mirage, which displays before
our eyes, in the ardent haze of the hori-
ION, lakes and forests From time to
time we meet a petroleum train, COM
posed of cistern trucks in the form of
cylinders, surmounted by a funnel with
a short thick neck When you see
them approaching from distance, So1
might mistake them for processi on OF
mastodops, yying in shapelessness with
the trains OF cameis which thew esss.
The sun burns in space. Yonder a green
band glitters beneath it's rays; it is the
Caspian. We turn around hill. and
| behold! on this western shore, in this
10
| corner of Arabia PetrRa, monstrous
! city arises before our eyes. Is it oDo5
more the effect OF mirage, this town 0s
| diabolical aspect, enYeloped in a cloud
of smoke traYersed by running toppdas
| of tiames, as il were Sodom fortified By
the demons in its girdle of cast-iron
towers? l can find but one word To de-
pict exactly the first impression that it
gives: it is town of pason
eters. There are no houses-+be
houses are delegated further as,ay
on the right, IN the old Persian cftt22
nothing but iron cylinders and plies
and chimneys, scattered in disorder
fEoga the nils dow. 70 the beael. I.tis
is doubtless the fearful model of wat
manufacturing towns will all be in t1e
/ eWOAbAOsA century hed1N1lle, Tor me
: .',cnoent this one is UNIQUE in the world:
it is Bakou-the town of Fire. as the
natives call it: the petroleun town,
where every thing is devoted aId subar-
dinated TO the worship of the loeal god.
The bed of the Caspian Sea rests upon
a second subterranean sea, whichspreads
its floods of naphtha under tie whole
baSiu On tho aastarn cbo-a al L..:1a
ing of the Samarcand railway ldi to the
discovery of immense beds of mineral
oil On the western shore, frtm the
most remote. ages, the magi Ssed TO
adore the fire springing from ths earth
at the very spot where its last 3arship-
pers PROSTATE themselves at thel resent
day. But after having long adoed it,
impious men began to make prolitiby it
commercially. In the thirteenthlcen
ury the famous traveller Marco Polo