Chapter 3

The boat did not start until three o'clock in the afternoon. Those of
my companions who intended to cross the Caspian hurried off to the
harbor; it being necessary to engage a cabin, or to mark one's place in
the steamer's saloon.

Ephrinell precipitately left me with these words:

"I have not an instant to lose. I must see about the transport of my
baggage."

"Have you much?"

"Forty-two cases."

"Forty-two cases!" I exclaimed.

"And I am sorry I have not double as many. Allow me--"

If he had had a voyage of eight days, instead of one of twenty-four
hours, and had to cross the Atlantic instead of the Caspian, he could
not have been in a greater hurry.

As you may imagine, the Yankee did not for a moment think of offering
his hand to assist our companion in descending from the carriage. I
took his place. The lady leaned on my arm and jumped--no, gently put
her foot on the ground. My reward was a _thank you, sir_, uttered in a
hard, dry, unmistakably British voice.

Thackeray has said somewhere that a well-brought-up Englishwoman is the
completest of the works of God on this earth. My only wish is to verify
this gallant affirmation in the case of my companion. She has put back
her veil. Is she a young woman or an old girl? With these Englishwomen
one never knows! Twenty-five years is apparently about her age, she has
an Albionesque complexion, a jerky walk, a high dress like an
equinoctial tide, no spectacles, although she has eyes of the intense
blue which are generally short-sighted. While I bend my back as I bow,
she honors me with a nod, which only brings into play the vertebrae of
her long neck, and she walks off straight toward the way out.

Probably I shall meet this person again on the steamboat. For my part,
I shall not go down to the harbor until it is time to start. I am at
Baku: I have half a day to see Baku, and I shall not lose an hour, now
that the chances of my wanderings have brought me to Baku.

It is possible that the name may in no way excite the reader's
curiosity. But perhaps it may inflame his imagination if I tell him
that Baku is the town of the Guebres, the city of the Parsees, the
metropolis of the fire-worshippers.

Encircled by a triple girdle of black battlemented walls, the town is
built near Cape Apcheron, on the extreme spur of the Caucasian range.
But am I in Persia or in Russia? In Russia undoubtedly, for Georgia is
a Russian province; but we can still believe we are in Persia, for Baku
has retained its Persian physiognomy. I visit a palace of the khans, a
pure product of the architecture of the time of Schahriar and
Scheherazade, "daughter of the