We learn from authentic records that Peter the Great, Czar of Russia, entered himself, in the year 1697, on the list of ship's carpenters at the Admiralty Office of Amsterdam, in Holland. This is true; but before Peter so enrolled himself, he had made an attempt to fix his abode, for the purpose of study, at Saardam, or Zaandam, a little town situated on the river Zaan, about half an hour's voyage, by steam, from the populous and wealthy city of Amsterdam.
Zaandam, though then, as now, one of the most primitive, original little towns in Europe, had for some time held important commercial intercourse with Russia; and Peter had long seen the advantage to be derived from studying at its head-quarters the art which he felt sure would elevate his country in an extraordinary way. He therefore opened a private correspondence with some trusty friends in Holland, and set forth, with his hand of intelligent companions, early in the summer of 1697; in the autumn of the same year he disembarked at Zaandam, and, alone and unattended, sought an humble lodging from a man of the name of Gerrit Kist, who had formerly been a blacksmith in Russia, and who, as may well be imagined, was astonished at the "imperial apparition;" indeed he could not believe that Peter really wished to hire so humble an abode. But the Czar persevered, and obtained permission to occupy the back part of Kist's premises, consisting of a room and a little shed adjoining, Kist being bound to secresy as to the rank of his lodger: Peter's rent amounted to seven florins (about eleven shillings) a week.
The maisonnette, or hut, of Peter the Great now stands alone, and has been encased in a strong wooden frame in order to preserve it. It is in much the same state as when occupied by the Czar. The chief apartment is entered by the door you see open, the projecting roof covers the room probably occupied by Peter's servant, and on the left of the larger room is the recess or cupboard in which Peter slept. Formerly the rear of this abode was crowded with inferior buildings; it is now an airy space, with trees waving over the wooden tenement, and a garden full of sweet-scented flowers embalms the atmosphere around it. A civil old Dutchwoman is the guardian of the property, which is kept up with some taste, and exquisite attention to cleanliness.
The maisonnette has but one door. In Zaandam the old Dutch custom of closing one entrance to the house, except on state occasions, is still kept up; the purpose of the other, the porte mortuaire, or mortuary portal, is sufficiently explained by its name.
After Peter's departure, his dwelling passed from hand to hand, and would have fallen into oblivion had not Paul the First of Russia accompanied Joseph the Second of Austria and the King of Sweden to Zaandam, on purpose to visit the Czar's old abode. After this it became a sort of fashion to make pilgrimages to the once imperial residence; and it acquired a still greater celebrity when the Emperor Alexander visited it in 1814, and made a great stir in the waters of the Zaan with a fleet of three hundred yachts and innumerable barges, gaily decked with flying pennons. In 1818, William the First of Holland purchased the property, and gave it to his daughter-in-law, the Princess of Orange and a royal Russian by birth: it is to her care the building owes its present state of preservation. Her royal highness appointed a Waterloo invalid as first guardian of the place.
Bonaparte brought Josephine here in 1812. Poor Josephine had no idea of old associations; she jumped from the sublime to the ridiculous at once on entering the "mean habitation," and startled the then proprietor by a burst of untimely laughter.
Many royal and illustrious names may be read on the walls of the principal chamber, and in the book in which the traveller is requested to write his name. Verses and pictures challenge, somewhat impertinently, the attention of the wayfarer; but as we sat down in the triangular arm-chairs, and turned from the dark recess in which Peter slept, to the ingle-nook of the deep chimney, and from the ingle to the dark recess again, we could realize nothing but Peter in his working dress of the labours of the day. There he was in the heat of an autumnal evening still at work, with books and slates, and instruments connected with navigation, before him on the rude deal table, and he plodding on, as diligently as a common mechanic, in pursuit of that knowledge by which nations are made great.
SUPPLY OF WATER FOR LONDON IN OLDEN TIMES.