Adventurous Life.

Mountevans was involved in relief expeditions for both of the Scott journeys. He writes with good humor and amusing anecdotes. He tells one involving a salvage expert, Commodore Sir Frederick Young, about the Magellan Straits and a salvage ship on which the Commodore happened to see a notice from the Independent Press Association offering a £500 reward for anyone who could “discover and forward to them the Bible of the explorer Louis de Rougemont which was lost in the steamer, Ananias, wrecked in Magellan Straits. The Bible can well be identified, since the explorer’s name is written on the fly-leaf in his own blood.” The Commodore and fellow sailors decided to create one, found a Bible, soaked it in sea water, found de Rougemont’s signature in a signed article in Wide World Magazine, and used the Commodore’s blood (he was chosen by lot) to forge Rougemont’s signature on the fly-leaf. They then sent the Bible off to the Press Association and claimed the reward. After two months they received this reply: …I am also directed to state that although the sea has worked many marvels, the Directors of the Independent Press Association cannot believe that it has succeeded in translating completely a French Bible into English!” (p. 134-36)