[Map of routes followed by N. H. Bishop in paper canoe “Maria Theresa” And duck-boat “Centennial republic” 1874-1876]

Four Months in a Sneak-Box

CHAPTER I.

THE BOAT FOR THE VOYAGE

Canoes for shallow streams and frequent portages.—­ Sneak-boxes for deep watercourses.—­ History and description of the Barnegat sneak-box.—­ A walk down eel street to Manahawken marshes.—­ Honest George, the boat-builder.—­ The building of the sneak-box “Centennial republic.”—­ Its transportation to the Ohio river.

The reader who patiently followed the author in his long “Voyage of the paper canoe,” from the high latitude of the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the warmer regions of the Gulf of Mexico, may desire to know the reasons which impelled the canoeist to exchange his light, graceful, and swift paper craft for the comical-looking but more commodious and comfortable Barnegat sneak-box, or duck-boat.  Having navigated more than eight thousand miles in sail-boats, row-boats, and canoes, upon the fresh and salt watercourses of the North American continent (usually without a companion), a hard-earned experience has taught me that while the light, frail canoe is indispensable for exploring shallow streams, for shooting rapids, and for making long portages from one watercourse to another, the deeper and more continuous water-ways may be more comfortably traversed in a stronger and heavier boat, which offers many of the advantages of a portable home.

To find such a boat—­one that possessed many desirable points in a small hull—­had been with me a study of years.  I commenced to search for it in my boyhood—­twenty-five years ago; and though I have carefully examined numerous small boats while travelling in seven foreign countries, and have studied the models of miniature craft in museums, and at exhibitions of marine architecture, I failed to discover the object of my desire, until, on the sea-shore of New Jersey, I saw for the first time what is known among gunners as the Barnegat sneak-box.