A little Finlander sharp-shooter

"Oh, then," said M. Struve, after hearing a portion of the above, "a pretty mistake your British inventor, and the officer too, would have made upon some of our Russian soldiers, according as they had seen in the distance either one of the Brèo-brèjenski Guard, who stands with his bear-skin shako, above seven feet hig ; or a little Finlander sharp-shooter, who, with his flat blue-cloth cap and short stature, is under four and a half feet. Yes indeed, a pretty mistake; for the real distance might have been almost double, or only half, of whatever the telescope and its micrometer wires had caused it to appear."

Charles Piazzi Smyth: Three cities in Russia, Volume 1