Page:The Boy Travellers in the Russian Empire.djvu/145

Rh returned to his country he was accompanied by some five hundred ship-wrights, 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.

"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:

A Dutch pilot or captain could come on my ship, and his orders in his own language would be understood by my crew: I mean simply the words of command, without explanations. On the other hand, a Dutch crew could understand my orders without suspecting they were in Russian.'"

"It is no wonder," said Fred, "that the Russians honor the memory of the great Peter, and that their largest ship of war bears his name. Am I right in regard to the ship?"

"It is the largest at present," replied the Doctor, "but there are three ships—the Tchesme, Sinope, and Catherine II.—to be completed in 1887, which will be larger than the Peter the Great. The latter is an iron-clad turret-ship of 8285 horse-power and 10,000 tons displacement. She