Page:The history of yachting.djvu/262

 126 records that, "Peter gave himself up to his favorite pursuits. He navigated a yacht every day up and down the river. His apartment was crowded with models of three-deckers and two-deckers, frigates, sloops, and fire-ships. The only Englishman of rank in whose society he seemed to take much pleasure was the eccentric Caermarthen, whose passion for the sea bore some resemblance to his own, and who was very competent to give an opinion about every part of a ship from the stem to the stern."

Czar Peter, however, had been a yachtsman long before he came to England. It is related that "when a boy he was one day walking with Francis Timerman, who then lived with him as his tutor, about the grounds of Ishmaeloft, an old palace of the family near Moscow, when, among other things, he happened to notice a boat, and asked Timerman what it was, and how they made use of it. His tutor explained that it went with a sail, with the wind or against it, which made him greatly wonder, and, as though not credible, raised his curiosity to see a proof of it." Carsters Brand, a shipwright from Holland, who had been employed by Peter's father, was accordingly directed to repair the boat and fit her out. He then sailed up and down the Yause, a small river near Moscow, in Peter's sight, "which was a great wonder to the Czar, and pleased him exceedingly."

As may be supposed, Peter wished, like any other well-regulated boy, to sail this boat himself; and he also considered the waters of the Yause too narrow for successful navigation; so he ordered