Ramesses II wasthe Egyptian pharaoh who outdid all other pharaohs. He lived to the age of 92, reigned for 67 yearsand built more templesand monuments than any other pharaoh. But his reputation as the greatest of kings rests on his military exploits. Ramesses was a warrior, driving his chariot into the thick of battle and leading his troops to victories talked about for millennia. Most famous of all was his fight against the Hittites at Qadesh, a battle recorded for posterity in so many temple carvings and inscriptions that 19th-century Egyptologists couldn鈥檛fail to be impressed: it was they who added the Great to his name. Yet, 30 years ago, Ramesses was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis, a form of arthritis that would have caused him excruciating pain, restricted his movements and left him incapable of riding in a chariot. Had the Egyptologists been taken in by ancient propaganda?
IF YOU study a map of America, the name Fremont is hard to avoid. John C. Fremont, soldier, explorer and map-maker, gave his name to towns, cities, mountains, rivers and canyons all over the American west. But Fremont 鈥� pathfinder of the American west 鈥� was a pioneer in another way. He was the first to try river-running in a rubber raft.
The conventional wisdom among river rafters is that rubber rafts were invented in the late 1930s and became popular after the second world war, when people began to make their own from war surplus inflatable pontoons used to build floating bridges. But almost a century earlier, Fremont had signed a $150 purchase order for 鈥�1 air army boat or floater鈥� from Horace Day, a rubber manufacturer in New Jersey. Along with the boat, Fremont purchased a repair kit consisting of 鈥�2 pieces India rubber cloth鈥� for $19.99 each, plus 鈥�2 pots rubber composition鈥� for 50 cents apiece.
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Fremont鈥檚 primary duty was to survey the country. In 1842, and again in 1843, he and a grouchy German cartographer called Charles Preuss made thousands of meticulous measurements that yielded the first mass-produced maps of the American west. But Fremont was first and foremost an adventurer. One of his goals was to try out the raft in a series of canyons in present-day Wyoming. There, the North Platte river cuts through a string of granite and sandstone ridges, dropping 300 feet in 15 miles by Fremont鈥檚 estimate 鈥� a gradient that鈥檚 manageable in a modern boat but inadvisable in a crude and untested raft.
According to Fremont鈥檚 journal and Day鈥檚 patent, the raft was made of rubberised linen. At the time, Day was trying to discover the secrets of Charles Goodyear鈥檚 vulcanisation process for making superior-grade rubber, and while it is doubtful that Day鈥檚 boat could have held up if it was made of untreated rubber, his patent merely describes the boat as being made of sheets of 鈥淚ndia-rubber fabric鈥�.
The raft was rectangular, 5 feet by 20 feet, with the floor suspended below the flotation chambers. Its four separate air chambers, inflated with a hand bellows, featured tightly sewn seams that had taken two months of work to make airtight. John Allen, a geographer at the University of Wyoming, believes the raft may have had a wooden frame for added rigidity.
Whatever the details of its construction, the boat reeked of chemicals. When Fremont took delivery and triumphantly unpacked it in his parlour, the fumes overcame his pregnant wife Jessie and rendered the house temporarily uninhabitable.
Fremont used the raft twice before venturing into the unscouted canyons of the North Platte. In Kansas he used it as a ferry when he found his way blocked by a wide, rain-swollen river 鈥渨ith an angry current, yellow and turbid鈥�. Undeterred, he unpacked his boat and began ferrying ox carts across, one at a time. Then, with daylight fading, he decided to double the load for the final passage.
鈥淎 wooden boat would have been dashed to splinters but the raft seemed fairly to leap over the falls鈥�
The raft promptly flipped, dumping crew and equipment into the water. The rescue was tense, but in the end the only major casualties were a quarter of the expedition鈥檚 sugar and most of its coffee, a loss 鈥渨hich none but a traveller in a strange and inhospitable country can appreciate鈥�, wrote Fremont.
His second attempt was in Wyoming, on the Sweetwater river, a knee-deep trickle that Fremont hoped to float down to its confluence with the North Platte. But the water was too shallow. After dragging the raft over two miles of sandbars, he gave up, repacked it, and trudged on by foot.
At dawn, Fremont sent most of his men overland, planning to meet them for breakfast at the downstream end of the North Platte鈥檚 first major canyon. In a foolhardy moment of optimism, he packed much of his surveying equipment on the raft, along with irreplaceable botanical specimens and the journals containing his notes.
Soon he was facing the first major rapids, where in places the current was pinched into passages so narrow the boat barely fitted between the rocks. A wooden boat, Fremont declared, would have been dashed to splinters. But the raft 鈥渟eemed fairly to leap over the falls鈥e were so delighted with the performance of our boat, and so confident in her powers, that we would not have hesitated to leap a fall of 10 feet with her.鈥�
鈥淲e鈥� may have been an overstatement. In one particularly nasty section, Preuss was stumbling along the river bank, trying to keep the expedition鈥檚 chronometer from getting a soaking. When the narrowing canyon made this impossible, he stuffed the instrument inside his shirt and hoped for the best. Still, Preuss agreed that each successfully negotiated set of rapids produced 鈥渓oud jubilation鈥�.
No living rafter has seen Fremont鈥檚 rapids, which in 1909 disappeared beneath the waters of the Pathfinder Dam. But Preuss described drops of up to 4 feet and water moving 鈥渨ith great rapidity鈥�. The previous day, Fremont had noticed that the river 鈥渟eemed, from its turbid appearance, to be considerably swollen,鈥� another danger sign he may not have fully appreciated.
With an experimental boat and a crew of landlubbers, there was only one possible outcome. After a short respite, the river entered a second canyon, worse than the first. Briefly, the joyride resumed. Then the boat struck a big rock. A heartbeat later everyone was in the water. Fremont and one of the crew fetched up in an eddy on one side of the river; everyone else and the boat fetched up on the other.
Fremont had tried to lash down his equipment, but to no avail. 鈥淭he current was covered with floating books and boxes, bales of blankets, and scattered articles of clothing,鈥� he wrote. Their precious chronometer, vital for measuring longitude, was ruined. Journals and botanical specimens were missing, and instruments were at the bottom of the river.
The boat, however, had proved that rubber did have advantages by surviving the flip and the subsequent pummelling. Two of Fremont鈥檚 men retrieved the raft and set off again, trying to rescue as much equipment as possible. But at the next set of rapids, at least one air chamber blew, and the party had to hike out of the canyon. Hours later, safely in camp, Fremont reported that he slept soundly 鈥渁fter one of the most fatiguing days I have ever experienced鈥�.
Fremont never blamed the boat for the journey鈥檚 ignominious end. Even after the wreck, he described its performance as 鈥渢riumphant鈥�. Preuss also seemed pleased with the boat, blaming Fremont instead for being 鈥渟o foolhardy where the terrain was absolutely unknown鈥�.
The following year, Fremont made one more serious attempt at rafting in a new rubber boat. He took it on an easy float downriver to Utah鈥檚 Great Salt Lake. On the lake, however, Fremont and his companions almost died when they were caught in a storm on a dangerous expanse of open water. As they paddled madly for the shore, the air compartments began to leak badly. In the rush to make the boat, the seams had been glued instead of stitched.
After that, rubber rafts appear to have been used only as ferries. In part, that was because Fremont pushed the technology too far. Rubber rafts need to be firmly inflated for best handling, and the technology of the 1840s simply wasn鈥檛 up to creating an airtight seam that would withstand the stress, Allen says. But Allen also notes that later explorers were hard-headed engineers conducting railroad surveys. 鈥淭hey simply weren鈥檛 into the adventure, as Fremont was. So most people continued to stick with old, tried-and-true methods.鈥�
