CHAPTER III
BAKU, THE CITY OF OIL WELLS
• From Badku and those fountains of blue flame That burn into the Caspian.'
— MooRE, Lalla Bookh.
Baku is a city founded upon oil, for to its inexhaustible founts of naphtha it owes its very existence, its maintenance, its prosperity. The flowing treasure that wells up from the hidden depths of its subterranean reservoirs brings occupation to thousands, wealth to tens of thousands, and light and heat to millions. At present Baku produces one-fifth of the oil that is used in the world, and the immense output in crude petroleum from this single city far surpasses that in any other district where oil is found. ^ Verily, the words of the Scriptures find illustration here: * the rock poured me out rivers of oil.'^
Oil is in the air one breathes, in one's nostrils, in one's eyes, in the water of the morning bath (though not in the drinking- water, for that is brought in bottles from distant mineral springs), in one's starched linen — everywhere. This is the impression one carries away from Baku, and it is certainly true in the environs. The very dust of the streets is im- pregnated by the petroleum with which they are sprinkled; the soil of the home garden is charged with oil; and if
1 Statistics on the annual yield of London, 1906 ; this latter volume is oil at Baku will be found below, p. 40. the best work yet published on the Compare also Shoemaker, Heart of the general subject of Baku and its oil Orient, p. 84, and consult Henry, Baku, wells. an Eventful History, pp. vii and 104, * Job 29. 6.
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