The cars are a compromise between the American style and those of England.  They are divided into several compartments, but the partitions have openings that enable one to pass from end to end of the car.  The doors are in the end compartments, but lead out of the side, there being no platform outside, nor communication between the cars.  The seats are upholstered in gray plush and are provided with sliding extensions for sleeping at night.  Overhead a second tier of berths unfolds for sleeping.  No curtains are employed; the arrangements are only intended for stretching one’s self out without undressing.  The engines employed on the Tiflis & Baku Railway are without coal-tenders.  They burn the residue of petroleum, which is fed to the flames in the form of spray by an atomizer.  A small tank above the furnace holds the liquid, and a pipe feeds it automatically to the fire-box.  The result of this excellent arrangement is spontaneous conversion into flame, a uniformly hot fire, cleanliness aboard the engine, a total absence of cinders, and almost an absence of smoke.  The absence of a tender gives the engine a peculiar, bob-tailed appearance to the unaccustomed eye.

The speed of our train is about twenty miles an hour, and it starts from Baku an hour behind the advertised time.  For the first few miles unfenced fields of ripe wheat characterize the landscape, and a total absence of trees gives the country a dreary aspect.  The day is Sunday, but peasants, ragged and more wretched-looking than any seen in Persia, are harvesting grain.  The carts they use are most peculiar vehicles, with wheels eight or ten feet in diameter.  The tremendous size of the wheels is understood to materially lighten their draught.  After a dozen miles the country develops into barren wastes, as dreary and verdureless as the deserts of Seistan.  At intervals of a mile the train whirls past a solitary stone hut occupied by the family of the watchman or section-hand.  Sometimes a man stands out and waves a little flag, and sometimes a woman.  Whether male or female, the flag-signaller is invariably an uncouth bundle of rags.  The telegraph-poles consist of lengths of worn-out rail, with an upper section of wood on which to fasten the insulators.  These make substantial poles enough, but have a make-shift look, and convey the impression of financial weakness to the road.  The stations are often quite handsome structures of mingled stone and brickwork.  The names are conspicuously exposed in Russian and Persian and Circassian.  Beer, wine, and eatables are exposed for sale at a lunch-counter, and pedlers vend boiled lobsters, fish, and fruit about the platforms.  On the platform of every station hangs a bell with a string attached to the tongue.  When almost ready for the train to start, an individual, invested with the dignity of a military cap with a red stripe, jerks this string slowly and solemnly thrice.  Half a minute later another man in a full military uniform blows a shrill