One bright morning, in the early part of the fall of 1875, I trudged
on foot down one of the level roads which lead from the village of
Manahawken through the swamps to the edge of the extensive salt
marshes that fringe the shores of the bay. This road bore the
euphonious name of Eel Street,--so named by the boys of the town. When
about half-way from its end, I turned off to the right, and followed a
wooded lane to the house of an honest surf-man, Captain George Bogart,
who had recently left his old home on the beach, beside the restless
waves of the Atlantic, and had resumed his avocation as a sneak-box
builder.

The house and its small fields of low, arable land were environed on
three sides by dense cedar and whortleberry swamps, but on the eastern
boundary of the farm the broad salt marshes opened to the view, and
beyond their limit were the salt waters of the bay, which were shut in
from the ocean by a long, narrow, sandy island, known to the fishermen
and wreckers as Long Beach,--the low, white sand-dunes of which were
lifted above the horizon, and seemed suspended in the air as by a
mirage. Across the wide, savanna-like plains came in gentle breezes
the tonic breath of the sea, while hundreds, aye, thousands of
mosquitoes settled quietly upon me, and quickly presented their bills.

In this sequestered nook, far from the bustle of the town, I found
"Honest George," so much occupied in the construction of a sneak-box,
under the shade of spreading willows, as to be wholly unconscious of
the presence of the myriads of phlebotomists which covered every
available inch of his person exposed to their attacks. The appropriate
surroundings of a surf-man's house were here, scattered on every side
in delightful confusion. There were piles of old rigging, iron bolts
and rings, tarred parcelling, and cabin-doors,--in fact, all the