Persia Revisited | Page 3

the ninth day from London, and
arranged to leave for Enzelli, on the Persian coast, the port for Tehran,
at midnight the next day. Through the kindness of a member of the
Greek house of Kousis, Theophylactos and Co., we were shown over
the oil-wells and refineries belonging to M. Taghioff, a millionaire of
Persian origin (the name probably was Taghi Khan). The story goes
that, on becoming wealthy through the oil industry in its early days, he
presented the young township with a church, school-house, and
hospital, and, in recognition of his generous public spirit, the
Government gave him a grant of the waste land on which his works
now stand, and out of which millions of roubles have come to him from
oil-springs. Our visit had the appearance of bringing him luck in the
form of a new fountain rush. We had seen all the works and wells; none
of the latter were flowing, and the usual steam-pumping was going on.
We were about to leave, when a commotion at the wells attracted our
attention, and we saw the dark fluid spouting up from two to three
hundred feet through the open top of the high-peaked wooden roof
erected over each of the wells. On hurrying back, we saw the great iron
cap, which is swung vertically when the pump is working, lowered and
fixed at some height over the mouth of the well, to drive the outward
flow down into the hollow all round and out into the ditch leading to
the reservoirs. The force of the gush was shown by the roar of the dash
against the iron cap, and the upward rush had the appearance of a solid
quivering column. The flow was calculated at fifty thousand gallons an
hour. The business of refining is generally in the hands of others than
the producers; but some of the larger firms--notably the Rothschilds,
Nobel Brothers, and Taghioff--are both producers and refiners. This
means of course, the employment of very, much larger capital.
There is a great dash of the gambling element in the oil-well business at

Baku. Large sums are spent in boring operations, and success so often
stands off that all available capital is sunk in the ground and swallowed
up. Even with good signs, it is impossible to foresee the results or the
extent of production, and there is also an extraordinary irregularity in
the outcome of the separate naphtha-bearing plots. An instance was
mentioned to me of a peasant proprietor who had made enough money
on which to live sumptuously, but he hungered for more, and engaged
in further boring operations. He was on the verge of losing everything,
when oil was suddenly struck, and he made a fortune. He laboured hard
himself, and literally went to sleep a poor working man, and awoke to
find his dream of riches realized.
Baku has been immensely improved in every way of late, and now has
good streets, hotels, and shops. Water, which was a great want before,
is well supplied from condensers which belong to the town. The rise in
the value of house property and building sites within the last ten years
has been enormous, and great part of the money thus made has gone to
native owners, Persians (or Tartars, as all Mohammedans are called
here), and I was told of a plot of building ground with a small house on
it, which had been originally bought for 600 roubles, being lately sold
for 30,000. The town is growing in size, and new buildings are rising,
which give an appearance of prosperity and increasing trade. The
harbour is crowded with steamers and sailing vessels, and the wharfs
present a busy sight. The loading and unloading is quickly done by
steam-cranes and powerful porters, who come in numbers from the
Persian districts of Khalkhal and Ardabil. I watched with much interest
a gang of these men at work. They were wonderfully quick, quiet, and
methodical in their ways, and showed great capacity for handling and
carrying heavy weights.
Baku swarms with Persians, resident and migratory. They are seen
everywhere--as shopkeepers, mechanics, masons, carpenters, coachmen,
carters, and labourers, all in a bustle of business, so different from
Persians, at home. Climate or want of confidence produces indolence
there, but here and elsewhere out of Persia they show themselves to be
active, energetic, and very intelligent. They are in great numbers at all
the censes of trade in the adjoining countries--at Constantinople,

Damascus, Aleppo, Baghdad, Tiflis, Askhabad, and other towns. Most
of the new buildings in Tiflis were built by Persians, and thousands
were engaged in the construction of the Trans-Caspian Railway. The
permanent workmen now employed on it are largely Persians, and
Askhabad has a resident population of over twelve thousand. There
were said to be