But the best of Caspian mail-boats are most uncomfortable in rough weather for all but those whom no motion whatever can affect.
Owing to the shoal water on all the coast circumference of this sea, the big boats are necessarily keelless, and may be described as but great barges with engines, and when at anchor in a rolling sea their movement is terribly disturbing.
We embarked in the _Admiral Korneiloff_, one of the Mercury Company's best boats, on the night of September 17, and arrived at Enzelli on the morning of the 19th.

I was amused on the voyage to hear the sailors' version of the story how the Caspian became a Russian sea, on which no armed Persian vessel can sail.

The sovereignty of this Persian sea was ceded to Russia by the Treaty of Gulistan in 1813, and the sailors say that on the Shah being pressed over and over again to consent, and desiring to find some good excuse to do so, a courtier, seeing the royal inclination, remarked that Persia suffered sorely from salt soil and water, which made land barren, and that sea-water was of no use for irrigation, nor any other good purpose.

The Shah on this asked if it were really true that the water of the Caspian was salt, and on being assured that it was, he said the Russians might have the whole of it.
We found an improvement at Enzelli in the form of a hotel kept by a Greek, with accommodation good enough to be very welcome.

We had excellent fresh salmon at breakfast, which reminded me of the doubt that has often been expressed of the true salmon being found in an inland sea.