Page:The Boy Travellers in the Russian Empire.djvu/255

Rh have happened in an American navy-yard fifteen or twenty years after the war of 1812, between the United States and Great Britain.

"An Englishman was visiting the navy-yard, and while wandering among the cannon which lay peacefully in one of the parks, he found one which bore the British crown, with the stamp 'G. R.' beneath it. The stamp and crown told very plainly the history of the gun, but the Briton was doubtful. Turning to a sailor who was standing near, he remarked,

It's easy enough to put that stamp on a gun of Yankee make.'

How long do you think it would take?'

About half an hour.'

Well,' replied the sailor, 'we took forty-four of those guns, with the stamps already on, in just seventeen minutes.'

"The stranger had no more conundrums to propose.

"There are seven monster cannon in front of one of the arsenals in the Kremlin that have probably never enjoyed the honor of being fired; certainly some of them would be likely to burst if filled with an ordinary charge of powder. The smallest weighs four tons and the largest forty