INTRODUCTION

XVII

his accessibility to Western influences, and had dis-carded the old Russian for the Western dress.' Ina corner of an ‘old building in the flax-yard'—asort of lumber-room—there lay, turned bottomupwards, a boat unlike the flat-bottomed, square-sterned craft used on the neighbouring rivers,Moskva and Yauza. It is believed that this boathad been sent from England by Queen Elizabeth,as a present to the Tsar Ivan the Terrible. Itmay be remarked that at this time Peter had neverseen the sea. He wished, however, to try theboat at once; but it was too much in need ofrepair. Karsten Brant, the Dutch shipwright beforementioned, who had been brought over to Russiafor the service of the Tsar Alexis, was sent for ; herepaired the boat, fitted her with a mast and sail,and showed Peter how to manœuvre her on theriver. The water there not being spacious enough,she was transported to a lake near Pereyaslavl.Here Brant and a companion named Kort built twoor three other boats. It is from September 12,1689, that the beginning of Peter’s reign reallydates. The immediate exigencies of his position,whilst expelling his sister Sophia from the thronewhich she had virtually occupied, and in establishinghis own government, prevented an uninterruptedindulgence of the aquatic tastes, the possession ofwhich he had so unexpectedly shown, and thestrength of which diminished scarcely at all through-out his life.

In the spring of 1691 he was able to sail abouton a sheet of water on his estate of Kolomensk. Hedid something more than amuse himself; he began