the purposes of
commerce and navigation, for ships, of course, could not go above it.
The house which was now provided for Peter was near the royal
ship-yard. There was a back gate which opened from the yard of the
house into the ship-yard, so that Peter could go and come when he
pleased. Peter remained in this new lodging for some time. He often
went into the ship-yard to watch the men at their operations, and while
there would often take up the tools and work with them. At other times
he would ramble about the streets of London in company with his two or
three particular friends, examining every thing which was new or
strange to him, and talking with his companions in respect to the
expediency or feasibility of introducing the article or the usage,
whatever it might be, as an improvement, into his own dominions.

In these excursions Peter was sometimes dressed in the English
citizen's dress, and sometimes he wore the dress of a common sailor.
In the latter costume he found that he could walk about more freely on
the wharves and along the docks without attracting observation, but,
notwithstanding all that he could do to disguise himself, he was often
discovered. Some person, perhaps, who had seen him and his friends in
the ship-yard, would recognize him and point him out. Then it would be
whispered from one to another among the by-standers that that was the
Russian Emperor, and people would follow him where he went, or gather
around him where he was standing. In such cases as this, as soon as
Peter found that he was recognized, and was beginning to attract
attention, he always went immediately away.

Among other objects of interest which attracted Peter's attention in
London was the Tower, where there was kept then, as now, an immense
collection of arms of all kinds. This collection consists not only of
a vast store of the weapons in use at the present day, laid up there to
be ready for service whenever they may be required, but also a great
number and variety of specimens of those which were employed in former
ages, but are now superseded by new inventions. Peter, as might
naturally have been expected, took a great deal of interest in
examining these collections.

In respect to all the more ordinary objects of interest for strangers
in London, the shops, the theatres, the parks, the gay parties given by
the nobility at the West End, and other such spectacles, Peter saw them
all, but he paid very little att