Four Months in a Sneak-Box | Page 3

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.
Having owned, and thoroughly tested in the waters of Barnegat and Little Egg Harbor
bays, five of these boats, I became convinced that their claims for the good-will of the
boating fraternity had not been over-estimated; so when I planned my second voyage
from northern America to the Gulf of Mexico, and selected the great water-courses of the
west and south (the Ohio and Mississippi rivers) as the route to be explored and studied, I
chose the Barnegat sneak-box as the most comfortable model combined with other
advantages for a voyager's use. The sneak-box offered ample stowage capacity, while
canoes built to hold one person were not large enough to carry the amount of baggage
necessary for the voyage; for I was to avoid hotels and towns, to live in my boat day and
night, to carry an ample stock of provisions, and to travel in as comfortable a manner as
possible. In fact, I adopted a very home-like boat, which, though only twelve feet long,
four feet wide, and thirteen inches deep, was strong, stiff, dry, and safe; a craft that could
be sailed or rowed, as wind, weather, or inclination might dictate,--the weight of which
hardly exceeded two hundred pounds,--and could be conveniently transported from one
stream to another in an ordinary wagon.
A Nautilus, or any improved type of canoe, would have been lighter and more easily
transported, and could have been paddled at a higher speed with the same effort expended
in rowing the heavier sneak-box; but the canoe did not offer the peculiar advantages of
comfort and freedom of bodily motion possessed by its unique fellow-craft. Experienced
canoeists agree that a canoe of fourteen feet in length, which weighs only seventy pounds,

if built of wood, bark, canvas, or paper, when out of the water and resting upon the
ground, or even when bedded on some soft material, like grass or rushes, cannot support
the sleeping weight of the canoeist for many successive nights without becoming
strained.
Light indeed must be the weight and slender and elastic the form of the man who can
sleep many nights comfortably in a seventy-pound canoe without injuring it. Cedar
canoes, after being subjected to such use for some time, generally become leaky; so, to
avoid this disaster, the canoeist, when threatened with wet weather, is forced to the
disagreeable task of troubling some private householder for a shelter, or run the risk of
injuring his boat by packing himself away in its narrow, coffin-like quarters and
dreaming that he is a sardine, while his restless weight is every moment straining his
delicate canoe, and visions of future leaks arise to disturb his tranquillity.
The one great advantage possessed by a canoe is its lightness. Canoeists dwell upon the
importance of the LIGHT WEIGHT of their canoes, and the ease with which they can be
carried. If the canoeist is to sleep in his delicate craft while making a long journey, she
must be made much heavier than the perfected models now in use in this country, many
of which are under seventy-five pounds' weight. This additional weight is at once fatal to
speed, and becomes burdensome when the canoeist is forced to carry his canoe upon his
OWN shoulders over a portage. A sneak-box built to carry one person weighs about three
times as much as a well-built cedar canoe.
This remarkable little boat has a history