There is not a tree or sign of vegetation for miles round the town--nothing but bleak, desolate steppe and marsh, unproductive of sport and cultivation, or, indeed, of anything save miasma and fever.
In summer the heat, dust, and flies are intolerable; in winter the sun is seldom seen.

There is no amusement of any kind--no _cafe_, no band, no theatre, to go to after the day's work.

This seemed to distress the poor Parisian exile more than anything, more even than the smell of oil, which, from the moment you enter until you leave Baku, there is no getting away from.

Although the wells are fully three miles away, the table-cloths and napkins were saturated with it, and the very food one ate had a faint sickly flavour of naphtha.

"I bathed in the Caspian once last summer," said Mr.B------, despairingly, "and did not get the smell out of my skin for a week, during which time my friends forbade me their houses! Mon Dieu! Quel pays!" The steamer for Enzelli was to leave at eleven.