DOOR-WAY OF PETER'S HOUSE AT ZAANDAM, HOLLAND.
"I have read about it," said Frank, "and it was to learn the art of ship-building that he went to England and Holland."
"That is what history tells us," the Doctor answered. "He realized the inferior condition of a country without a navy, and sent intelligent young Russians to study the art of building and navigating ships. Not satisfied with what they learned, he left Russia for about a year and a half, which he spent in acquiring useful knowledge. He worked in a ship-yard in Holland disguised as a common workman, though it is generally believed that the officers in charge of the yard knew who he was. Afterwards he spent three months in an English ship-yard; and when he returned to his country he was accompanied by some five hundred shipwrights, riggers, sail-makers, and other laborers required in an establishment such as he wished to create. From this beginning came the navy of Russia. The foundation of the great fleet before us was laid by Peter the Great.
"The English and Dutch origin of Russian ship-building is shown in the English and Dutch names for the different parts of a ship. The deck, keel, mast, and many other nautical things are the same in Russian as in English; the Russians had no equivalent words, and naturally adopted the names from the country that supplied the things named.
A STUDENT OF NAVIGATION.
"And I can tell you something still more curious," the Doctor continued, "as it was told to me by a Russian captain. While the ship-builders of Peter the Great were from England and Holland combined, the men to navigate the ships after they were built came almost wholly from the latter country. The result is that nearly all the evolutions of a ship, and the movements of the sailors to accomplish them, are in Dutch, or rather they have been adopted from Dutch into Russian. The Russian captain I have mentioned stated it to me in this way: