'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎61] (92/714)

FROM LONDON TO ASIIKABAl)
61
escape the malarial contagion of the neighbourhood, which, after
one or two years' sojourn, commonly asserts itself in physical
inertia or decline.
There are several hotels, mostly kept by Frenchmen, of which
the best is the Hotel de France. Here, and at the Hotel Imperial,
the better class of the population and the Russian officers
Daily 1 6 meet to take their meals and to consume the hours not
spent on business in such limited conversational relaxation as the
stupor of life at Batum admits of. There are no interests or
occupations, or even amusements, in the town outside the
ordinary official or mercantile routine. The talk soon reverts to
' shop ;' and oil, which is the staple commodity of business trans
actions, fills the same place in conversation also. There is little
to tempt the resident into the surrounding country, surpassingly
beautiful though it be. Sport is only pursued with much labour,
and. if at a distance, expense. There are not sufficient roads to
furnish any variety of rides. The heat during the greater part of
the year in the middle of the day is excessive, and rain is usually
falling. It is the auri sacra fames alone that has attracted so large
a population to this uncanny spot. Fortunes can be and have
been made with startling rapidity; and there are few of the resi
dents who do not look forward to an early flight, with lined pockets,
and a resolute intention never to set foot in Batum again.
Military necessities dictated to Russia the occupation of the
onlv decent port on the eastern coast of the Black Sea; but
Petroleum petroleum, as I have indicated, has made Batum, and
industry petroleum is its life blood. All along the recesses of the
bay, and on the flat and feverish fringe of soil which separates it
from the splendid wooded background of hills, are to be seen the
clustered reservoirs and premises of the various firms engaged in
this lucrative trade. 1 Over 5,000 tank-cars run between Baku
and Batum, the largest owners being Messrs. Nobel and Roth
schild, the former of whom, with the enterprise for which they
have long been notorious, have procured a concession for a pipe
line over the difficult Suram mountain on the railway line nearer
Tiflis; 2 so that their tank cars, bringing the oil from the refineries
1 There are at Batum eighty-five iron reservoirs, with a tankage capacity of
138,000 tons.
2 Messrs. Nobel's pipe line is forty miles long, from Michaelovo to Kvirili, has
a diameter of four inches, and can convey 700 tons of oil daily.