UNDER PETER THE GREAT

3

trade, and occasionally for transporting an Army.Part were launched, rigged, and sent down toAstrakhan ; some they since essayed to bring up theVolga, and by the channels 1 of other rivers, in con-junction with the Ladoga Lake, to St. Petersburg:but the frequent shallows rendering the designabortive the ships lie rotting near Vishni-Volochokin the road from Moscow to St. Petersburg. Theremainder, about 50 in number, were to be seen lastyear 2 at Usleno, three leagues from Kazan, built atthe same time, but never launched, on account, assupposed, of their too great bulk and drawing toomuch water. For the Volga, emptying itself byseveral mouths into the Caspian Sea, casts upsands to that degree, that four or five leagues fromland they often find no more than eight foot ofwater, to their extreme difficulty and danger innavigation. The Tsar being the only Prince thathas ships on that Sea, there is the less occasion forvessels of much burthen ; chalks and evers 3 sailingwith one mast, and requiring little water, plyingconstantly to and fro to transport passengers andmerchandise betwixt Persia and Astrakhan.

Three or four snows 4 and as many yachts of tenor twelve guns apiece, have also been employed forsome years past in making discoveries. All thevessels used in this Sea are built at Kazan, about

1 Word in MS. imperfect. 2 1723.

3 Ever : ‘ A vessel used on the Lower Elbe, mostly forpassages from Hamburg to Haarburg and neighbouring places.She is sharp-ended forward and abaft, has a flat bottom, and isfurnished with oars and one sail' (Zedler’s Grosses vollstandigesuniversal Lexikon : Leipzig and Halle ; vol. viii.; 1734 ; p. 2094).

4 Snow, Schnau ; Er. senau; Dut. Snaw : ‘A long swift boatused by the Flemings ; but, at the most, cannot carry more than25 men' (Zedler, vol. xxxv.). This was different from theEnglish ‘snow,’ which is really a brig with a main-trysailmast anda main trysail instead of a large boom-mainsail (Burney’s editionof Falconer’s Dictionary , 1815, p. 487).