aching that city fifteen days before the
embassy. "He flew through the city," says one of the annalists of
those days, "like lightning," and proceeded to a small but active
sea-port town on the coast, Zaandam. The first person they saw here
was a man fishing from a small skiff, at a short distance from the
shore. The tzar, who was dressed like a common Dutch skipper, in a red
jacket and white linen trowsers, hailed the man, and engaged lodgings
of him, consisting of two small rooms with a loft over them, and an
adjoining shed. Strangely enough, this man, whose name was Kist, had
been in Russia working as a smith, and he knew the tzar. He was
strictly enjoined on no account to let it be known who his lodger was.

A group soon gathered around the strangers, with many questions. Peter
told them that they were carpenters and laborers from a foreign
country in search of work. But no one believed this, for the
attendants of the tzar still wore the rich robes which constituted the
costume of Russia. With sympathy as beautiful as it is rare, Peter
called upon several families of ship carpenters who had worked for him
and with him at Archangel, and to some of these families he gave
valuable presents, which he said that the tzar of Russia had sent to
them. He clothed himself, and ordered his companions to clothe
themselves, in the ordinary dress of the dockyard, and purchasing
carpenters' tools they all went vigorously to work.

The next day was the Sabbath. The arrival of these strangers, so
peculiar in aspect and conduct, was noised abroad, and when Peter
awoke in the morning he was greatly annoyed by finding a large crowd
assembled before his door. Indeed the rumor of the Russian embassage,
and that the tzar himself was to accompany it, had already reached
Amsterdam, and it was shrewdly suspected that these strangers were in
some way connected with the expected arrival of the embassadors. One
of the barbers in Amsterdam had received from a ship carpenter in
Archangel a portrait of the tzar, which had been for some time hanging
in his shop. He was with the crowd around the door. The moment his eye
rested upon Peter, he exclaimed, with astonishment, "_that is the
tzar!_" His form, features and character were all so marked that he
could not easily be mistaken.

No further efforts were made at concealment, though Peter was often
very much annoyed by the crowds who followed his footsteps and watched
all his actions. He was persu