8 9 8 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Dec. 8, 1906. 
boat banged into the pier and shook things. 
We scrambled to the wheel, and a minute later 
got clear, and away we went, not once looking 
back at the pier where we heard manifestations 
of joy above the sound of the motor. 
It was now 9:30 o’clock A. M., April 5. Be¬ 
fore us was a run of more than fifty miles, part 
of it out in the main Chesapeake Bay. The tide 
was low, and we had to run far out from the 
land around a gas lighthouse. For long stretches 
we could see the bottom, bare, and sandy in 
places, and in others gloomy with sea weed. 
The air was perfectly calm. The water was 
glassy. A schooner was floating out with the 
tide, her sails hanging-like curtains. I sat at 
the wheel and kept off or up as Rusk com¬ 
manded. We stopped to take off the muffler be¬ 
cause it cost considerable power to keep it on. 
The noise of the rapid fire explosions seemed to 
increase in volume, certainly in effect, till the 
whole river seemed to resound from the beat. 
There were upward of three hundred shocks a 
minute, each one as loud as a .38-55. After half 
an hour, we just had to replace the muffler. 
The run to Cook’s Point was made without 
particular incident, then we bailed. In throwing 
out the water spme splashed on the timer on 
the shaft and the engine died. We tried to start 
up, but without avail. Across the silence came 
the yelping of great flocks of sou’southerlys from 
just inside the point. Looking to see them, the 
fact that we were drifting toward the big bay 
was apoarent, so over went the anchor while we 
fussed with the motor. 
Here we lay an hour, finally disconnecting the 
propeller shaft, and taking the timer apart, wip¬ 
ing it dry and connecting up again. Once as¬ 
sembled, away went the motor, and I hustled up 
the little anchor. Making a turn we headed 
toward the bay once more, and passed the point 
into the wide, wide water. 
Across the entrance to the Choptank between 
two long points is about four miles. As we 
rounded the point, we could see Sharp’s island 
almost west of us, and a bit west of south was 
Hill’s point, as the maps indicated. We kept 
down rather close to shore, but keeping our eyes 
on the charts, one must have a Government chart 
for comfortable traveling along the eastern 
shore. Along shore on the maps were shaded 
places with figures indicating the depth in feet. 
It was disquieting to see “1” a mile from shore. 
We were drawing more than twice that. 
Our calm was unbroken even by a zephyr. Far 
out on the bay were steamers shooting up or 
down. To the left were farm lands, the edges 
of which we could see beginning to curl down 
because the shore was washing away—the bay 
making in, as the expressive term of the bay- 
men has it. Along all the shore lines that we 
passed, the bay was making in—islands were 
washing away, points and mainlands dissolving 
under the impact of waves and tides. In this 
respect, a voyage on the Chesapeake waters will 
at times give one a depressing thought like those 
raised by the sight of the great caving bends 
down the Mississippi. Here, as on the Missis¬ 
sippi, some attempt to stay the tide is- being 
made. One sees piles of brush pinned out from 
the banks by stakes. A few have built sea walls 
of stone. They serve the purpose to some ex¬ 
tent, but effort to save the land is so seldom 
made, that it amounts to little compared to the 
aggregate of unprotected shore front. The land 
washed out into the bay, Shoals it, and there are 
miles of water only a few inches or feet deep. 
For these shoals we had to keep watch. 
We cut across the mouth of Bannock’s- Bay. 
Its whole surface was dotted with duck blinds. 
The water ranges from seven feet down to inches, 
and into it flock the wild fowl during storms, 
and when on their migration flights. Each blind 
has its owner, and to the bay come the hunters 
from afar and near. On favorable days, the roll 
of gun shots does not cease from dawn to dusk. 
But they were quiet now for the birds were most 
of them gone north, or were out in the big water 
free from disturbance. 
We ran in to Hill’s point for lunch. It is 
not pleasant snatching for one’s - grub between 
engine strokes and turns of the wheel. We ran 
in rather further than we meant to, for the 
bottom suddenly jumped up, and scraped our 
keel. We stopped, clawed back over the reef 
and came to anchor. As we ate, the tide carried 
past us feathers which wild fowl had preened 
from their breasts, and the oily slicks, which the 
birds caused spread away in great patches, some 
of them covering acres. It was a most interest¬ 
ing spectacle, and quite as thrilling as a deer 
track, or rabbit bed in the snow. 
We headed into Little Choptank Bay, around 
Hill’s point, and ran down to some tongers who 
were miles from land. It seemed as though they 
must be over water many fathoms deep, but those 
we came to were using nine or ten foot tongs. 
We stopped to have a talk, to get the lay of the 
shore, and to tell of gasolene engines. These 
men had batteaus, or plank boats. Only two 
or three had canoes. There were fashions in 
boats, it appeared, and this is not the least in-* 
teresting of the bay phenomena. One cannot 
travel far on the bay waters without discover¬ 
ing places where the heavy log canoes give way 
to lighter skipjacks, where the spanker gives way 
to the jigger, where progress is seen in the com¬ 
ing of motor boats. One could not find a more 
interesting collection of craft than are to be seen 
on the Chesapeake Bay to-day. Some of the old 
types are sinking out of sight now. Here and 
there one will find a one-log dugout, here and 
there a two-log canoe, but new ones are not made, 
and the old ones are fast passing out of exist¬ 
ence. 
The museum authorities should awaken to this 
fact. The pongy was the craft in which pirates 
AN OYSTER DREDGER. 
went afloat in the old days; at least one of these 
should be put upon a shelf. Why should not a 
bugeye, a bugeye with a bustle, a three-log canoe, 
a five-log one, a Pocosin, a maulhead, a jigger 
rig, a spanker rig, and all the other small boat 
rigs of Chesapeake Bay be hung as. they are 
rigged for the edification of the near generation 
which will have forgotten these strange craft? 
Sailing craft we shall always have with us, but 
not such rigs as these, effective though they are. 
It is not too much to say that there are more 
than a dozen, probably more than a score of 
kinds of log boats used on the Chesapeake Bay 
which will pass out of existence before the young 
men of these days have grown old. Let the 
museums look alive. A museum of small boats, 
containing pirogues of Louisiana, Mississippi 
bottom dugouts, Chesapeake Bay canoes, Florida, 
Maine, Michigan, Arkansas, Alabama and a thou¬ 
sand other kinds of local craft, has now a vanish¬ 
ing opportunity to make a complete collection, 
but the time is passing very rapidly. Where can 
one see an old time keel boat? Where is a Mis¬ 
sissippi “ark” to be found? Who can point to 
a pioneer bullhide boat? While going to the 
South Seas and to the Eskimos for odd craft, 
some of our own oddities seem likely to pass out 
of existence unnoticed and forgotten. 
The tongers pointed the way across Little 
Choptank Bay. A clump of trees was our- guide 
mark, and we were to head straight for it, and 
take to a little creek which would open up before 
us. We started on without difficulty. A few 
minutes later a puff of wind breezed across the 
surface, raised a few little wrinkles which soon 
flattened out. A mile further, and we struck 
another catspaw. Then the gusts came oftener 
and oftener, until the wind was steadily rising, 
and down in the west was a dark and threaten¬ 
ing murk of storm. 
"Keep up to windward,” Rusk said, “under 
the lee of those islands it isn’t so rough, and if 
anything happens, you have further to drift be¬ 
fore you hit the shore.” 
We were running across the wind, but the 
waves began to have crests of froth, from which 
gusts snatched spray and threw it against our 
faces like wet salt. We were heading up into 
the wind, to- get out of the trough of the sea. 
When, just as we reached the seaway between 
two islands, with open water for miles across 
the Chesapeake, and only five miles down wind 
from us, a shore on which the waves were tumb¬ 
ling, the engine gave a back-fire puff and came 
t® a stop. The absence of the ensrine sounds 
showed us how loud the wind roared. Rusk 
took up the cast iron crank, gave the wheel a 
■turn, but it did not go. He gave another, harder 
turn, still the engine did not start. He gave a 
third twist, and instead of going ahead, the wheel 
started backward. We had to come to anchor 
to find out what was the matter. Finally we 
started, hauled up the anchor and the engine 
stopped again. Then it gave a vicious back kick, 
threw the crank against'the balance wheel, and 
the head broke off at the neck. 
We were in a quickening sea, and the usual 
means of starting the engine was broken past 
repair. Over went the anchor, up breezed the 
wind and Rusk rubbed his nose reflectively. He 
had in mind to make a crank out of wood, but 
ten or fifteen minutes later I happened to give 
the balance wheel a little jerk with my hands 
and the motor ceased to- balk. It puffed, and 
backfired a bit, but did not stop. I yanked up 
the anchor, and we headed away for the creek 
once more, Rusk hovering over the needle valve 
ready to remedy any signs of too much or too 
little gasolene. In ten minutes we ran into 
Slaughter Creek, a narrow waterway, and tied 
to the steamer dock. We had only ju.st reached 
the shelter when a gale came howling down out 
of the west which, with only a hundred yards 
clearway, raised waves that tossed and jumped 
our big log canoe. 
Rusk’s first task was to find a blacksmith to 
•make a new crank, with which to start the engine. 
He did not find the smith, who was back on the 
island somewhere, but he brought down to the 
boat seven engine observers, who stood in the 
lee of the Taylor Island wharf house and peered 
down at the engine. Most of them were young 
men who tonged and crabbed for a living. Bv 
working steadily, they could make two or three 
dollars, even more, a day during seasons. It was 
more money than they knew how to spend, so 
they gambled much of it away. One man at 
Taylor’s Island was progressive. He was the 
storekeeper, and our astonishment was great 
when we found that he had an artesian well and 
that his island home, store and other buildings 
were lighted by electricity, and boasted sundry 
other improvements. 
At first sight it seemed to Rusk that every one 
on Taylor’s Island would like a gasolene motor 
boat, but if the baymen wanted the boats they did 
not have the money to buy. The best place to 
sell motors is not where there are none, but 
where many have already been introduced. It is 
a curious fact that the tourists frequently pave 
the way for improvements in local specialties. It 
was the sportsman who carried small bore smoke- 
