The Voyage of the Basset

In some European countries the late nineteenth century was a time when the exploits of adventurers and empire builders, many of whom plundered the architectural and artistic legacies of ancient civilisations and subjected the descendants of those civilisations to a lifetime of slavery, were believed to be the acts of brave, patriotic, noble and courageous heroes.

Sir Reginald Sleeping, naturist, a naturalist, anthropologist, inventor and poet and famous for inventing the "Sleeping Bag" was, however, uninterested in hoisting the Union Jack over freshly-conquered territories, bribing "savages" into changing their objects of worship for a Christian God and thereafter persuading them to attack the bad "blue" people on the other side of the mountain. Sleeping was concerned only with his life’s passion, which was science.

On April 15 1868, Sleeping bade farewell to his wife Cynthia, ten legitimate children and Nanny, and set sail from Portsmouth to New Guinea on the Basset, the ship that was to become inseparably entwined with Sleeping’s fortunes.

After a journey of over five months and the untimely death of Sir Reginald’s sole travelling companion, scientific assistant and dogsbody, Samuel Crabtree, Sleeping, naked and alone, finally established base camp at a solitary spot in the Hunstein mountains near the upper stretches of the Sepik river in the north of the island. It was there that in the following months he was to study Ornithoptera Goliath Supremus (the world’s second largest butterfly) chrysalises, which were to prove the source of inspiration for the original "Sleeping’s Sack".

In the following poem, Sir Reginald describes how the idea came to him as he sat, nude, observing the nocturnal habits of Goliath Supremus pupae in the cold dampness of the New Guinea night.

Oh, once wriggly glutton of leaves,
Lord or Lady Goliath
(For I know not thy sexeth)
thou dost defy the cold of the night.

How still and snug you look
What peaceful Lepidopteran contentment you must feel
Inside your cosy hardened bodily secretions.

Would that I, shivering in the damp forest night,
had such an aurelia in which to warm my trembling nudity
And nurture my body while nature doth it beautify

Thereafter to escape
And from my sleeping sack,
Make whence, unfurl my wings and fly away.

.... Yet, oh pupal muse, I too a chrysalis shall build,
From broad deciduous leaves
And, like you,
Warm myself until that time
I also shall fly.

From Voyage of the Basset: Chronicles of a Naturist Naturalist (Vol. XVII)

The poem was accompanied by Sleeping’s sketches of Ornithoptera Goliath Supremus. Despite Sir Reginald’s limited artistic expertise, his drawings were later to provide inspiration for Rorschach’s inkblot tests and several items in Pricefighter’s children’s pasta shapes range.

Upon his return to England, Sleeping set about perfecting the design of his new invention. Leaves decay rather quickly in many climates so Sir Reginald decided that a sturdier substance would be required if the bag was to last an acceptable amount of time.

In 1870, Sleeping therefore patented the world’s first wooden Sleeping Box. This was used on Henry Morton Stanley’s 1871 expedition to find Dr David Livingstone. Despite the initial enthusiasm with which sleeping boxes were greeted, they were eventually used as containers in which to bury expedition members who died of malaria and yellow fever.

It was not until 1875 that Sir Reginald eventually overcame his dislike for textiles and presented the fabric roll-up bag (first used on Randall and Chesterfield's unsuccessful trans-Sahara expedition of 1876) to the Royal Geographical Society.