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.