In a message dated 4/23/2007 3:23:45 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

I don't  recall reading of any first hand experience Twain had with raft
building or rafting on the MIssissippi. I know he nearly drowned nine  times
and
his mother declared that "a pe4rson born to hang is safe  around water."

Thanks for any assistance or source material you can  point me to.

ACR



Well, you might check Wecter; I assume that any and  all the boys in
Hannibal
would have had rafting experience; it's simply one  thing that boys did on
the River. Besides the thousand or so steamboats that  docked in Hannibal,
there
must have been all shapes and sizes of watercraft,  even crude rafts of all
sorts. So, Sam's "first hand experience" was in growing  up on the river.
And
we all know of his powers of observations. So many  details in Sam's fiction
were taken from his boyhood, even if seasoned with his  imagination, that
it's
difficult to believe he didn't know a bit about making  and using a raft.

I'd recommend *Dark Waters* by Powers as well. And  there was that rafting
episode with Twichell on their "tramp" adventure through  the Black Forest.

DHF