Читать книгу Around the Black Sea. Asia Minor, Armenia, Caucasus, Circassia, Daghestan, the Crimea, Roumania онлайн

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Long trains of tank cars stood on the sidetracks at almost every station, either loaded with oil for Batoum or empties on their way back to Baku to be refilled. One of the most important oil companies built its own pipe lines following the railway across the entire Caucasus from Baku to Batoum, but the weaker and less wealthy operators use the railway. There is an odour of petroleum almost the entire distance, chiefly because the locomotives burn that kind of fuel, but also owing to the continual leakage of the tank cars along the track. The track between the rails is black with oil almost the entire distance between the Caspian and the Black Seas, which keeps down the dust, although it is an accidental and not an intentional device.

The passenger cars are large, the seats are wide, low, and comfortable, and in the first-class coaches are arranged so that they can be made up into beds at night like those in the ordinary European sleeping car, although every passenger who desires to utilize them in that way must bring his own sheets, blankets and pillow. The cars are divided into compartments, and the only objection is that there is but one small, high window in each compartment, so that it is impossible to see the country you are passing through unless you stand up or go out into the corridor, which is lighted in a similar way. The first-class passengers except ourselves were military officers and their families, and they all wore their uniforms and swords, high-topped boots and heavy overcoats, notwithstanding the hot weather.