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 L4 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.