The good-natured Swede presses a box of Russian cigarettes into my hand as I descend the ladder--a gift he can ill afford--and twenty minutes later our boat glides safely and smoothly on Persian soil.
It was a lovely day, and the blue sky and sunshine, singing of birds, and green of plain and forest, a pleasant relief to the eye and senses after the cold and misery of the past two days.

Astara (though the port of Tabriz) is an insignificant place, its sole importance lying in the fact that it is a frontier town.

On one side of the narrow river a collection of ramshackle mud huts, neglected gardens, foul smells, beggars, and dogs--Persia; on the other, a score of neat stone houses, well-kept roads and paths, flower-gardens, orchards, a pretty church, and white fort surrounded by the inevitable black-and-white sentry-boxes, guarded by a company of white-capped Cossacks--Russia.

I could not help realizing, on landing at Astara, the huge area of this vast empire.

How many thousand miles now separated me from the last border town of the Great White Czar that I visited--Kiakhta, on the Russo-Chinese frontier?
Surrounded by a ragged mob, we walked to the village to see about horses and a lodging for the night.