I retired to rest with the "Matoushka Volga," a boat-song popular the length and breadth of Russia, ringing in my ears.
There are no private cabins on board the _Kaspia_.

I share the stuffy saloon with a greasy German Jew (who insists on shutting all the portholes), an Armenian gentleman, his wife, and two squalling children, a Persian merchant, and Gerome.
The captain's cabin, a box-like retreat about eight feet square, leads out of our sleeping-place, which is also used as a drawing and dining-room.

As the latter it is hardly desirable, for the German and Persian are both suffering violently from _mal-de-mer_ before we have been two hours out, and no wonder.

Though there is hardly a perceptible swell on, the tiny cock-boat rolls like a log.

To make matters worse, the _Kaspia's_ engines are worked by petroleum, and the smell pursues one everywhere.
The passage from Baku to Enzelli (the port of Resht) is usually made in a little over two days in _fine weather_.