28 BAKUy THE CITY OF OIL WELLS
of an Eastern town transformed into a Western city, or; rather, of a modern city of nearly a quarter of a million population sprung up out of an ancient settlement. ^ There is a common belief that the natural fires in its vicinity were associated from the earliest antiquity with the ancient worship of the Zoroas- trians, but of this unproved claim I shall speak below. A local tradition maintains that the town existed under the name of Khansar long before the time of Alexander the Great though it then occupied a position somewhat south of the present site ; and the account also narrates a fanciful legend how 'Aristoon ' (Aristotle), at Alexander's bidding, destroyed the place by means of some artifice, after which the present Badkiibah (Baku) came into existence. ^ In any event we have material in the early Arab-Persian geographers to trace the history of the town back for a thousand years.
Thus, Masudi (943 a.d.) speaks of Baku as having been ravaged by the Russians; he calls it *the place of naphtha' {naffdtat)? alludes to its 'volcanoes,' and adds, 'there are wells of fire coming out of the ground, and there are islands opposite the naphtha-place in which there are wells of great fires that can be seen at a distance in the night'; he also mentions the
- white naphtha' produced here.* Istakhri (951 a.d.) likewise
tells of the presence of naft\^ while Mukaddasi (895 a.d.) draws attention to the significant fact that Baku is a seaport town.6 Yakut (1225 A.D.) states that one of the oil wells daily produces oil to the value of ' a thousand dirhams ' (about $200) — a mere bagatelle today — and adds that another well,
1 These figures include the suburbs, 2. 26-26. A remarkable pyrotechnic Henry, Baku^ p. 11. display of the oil burning on the waters
2 See Kazem-Beg, Derbend Ndmeh, in the Bay of Baku is sometimes made p. 142, St, Petersburg, 1851, where the by throwing a lighted torch into the legend is recounted in detail. waves. This phenomenon is described
8 Masudi, Prairies d'or, tr. Barbier by some of the writers mentioned be-
de Meynard, 2. 18-25, Paris, 1865. low: Dumas (2. 43-44), Ussher (p.209),
- Masudi, Muraj adh-Dhahab, ed. Orsolle (p. 139), Henry (pp. 27-28).
De Goeje, Bibl. Geog. Arab. 8. 60, and 6 istakhri, ed. De Goeje, 1. 190.
Prairies d' or, tr. Barbier de Meynard, e Mukaddasi, ed. De Goeje, 3. 876.
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