The Comercio publishes an account by one of the survivors of the burning of the Don Juan, Having given brief particulars of the voyage from Manila to Hongkong to Amoy—1,000 cases of kerosene having been taken on board at Hongkong which were stowed in the tween decks forward—the writer proceeds We arrived at Amoy on the morning of of the Ist inst. and left on the evening of the same day, having taken on board a large amount of general cargo and 237 Chinese passengers, The sea as smooth asa Jake of vil and the voyage was most agreeable, The same weather continued on the Qud and 3rd. Ata quarter-past seven ov the evening of the 3rd, a crowd of Chinamen rushed aft, where the captain and the officers off duty were, crying out that fire hind broken out in the tween decks on the port side, where the kerosene was, and at the same time a mass of flame shot up. We, with the exception of the Chinese, rushed to the scene of the disaster, which in the first moments assumed colossal proportions, duo to the fact of the fire having broken out amongst the kerosene. To extinguish the flames was impossible and it was useless tu think of it. No human force could have coped with such a conflagration, 'This, the captain recognised, and after a short cone sultation with the first and second officers, the third being on the bridge, he called out the terrible order, '*Sulvese el que peda,' From this moment, seeing that it was impossible to save the ship, no one thought of anything but his own safety, the danger of death being im minent, Fate offered us the alternative of death by two elements, fire and water, which it was necessary to evade at any cust. 'The Chinese were panic-stricken and many of them threw themselves into the water at the first alarm, others climbed up the masts and rigging, but the greater num ber of them ecole' aft, which at that ti was the safest place. Their despairing cries were horrible; some wept, others cursed, but all fled from the fire as far as possible, a providential circumstance, to which undoubtedly we owed our safety, since it allowed the Inunching of the boat, which was near the seat of the fire, to be conducted with relative quietness, the rush which usually takes place in such cases, a horrible and deadly rush in which only the strongest succeed, being thus avoided. The captain, officers, engineer, doctor, the first class passengers and some of the crew, nearly all firemen, were able safely to climb down the side of the Don Jwm with much precaution, as it was necessary to avoid the gangway, which was jammed with Chinese who would have sprung into our Doat, in which case all would undoubtedly have perished. Some, though very few, made a spring for the buat, but they could not reach it and fell in the water.
Before abandoning the vessel the captain saved the register, ordered the engines to be stopped and the safety valve to be opened sv that no explosion might take place, threw into the water various objects that would float and so serve to support any who might seize thet and distributed fifty life belts, all this being done in less time than it taxes to write it. One of these life belts was fastened round the writer by a humble but heroic boy in the service of the captain, who, on hearing theorder"Letevery ove look out fur himself" said Senor, save yourself; there go the officers and captain; save yourself for God's sake he, and Grd grant he may not have been a victim of his generosity.
When we got a few metres from the ship, which was now on fire in several places, we remained a long time spell-bound con templating the dreadful spectacle, in which there were heart-rending details, as the ing into the water or on to the deck of hal taken refuge in the fore-mast, the fire uow having caught the Here the interest in the account end: he remainder, wd much the longer port being devoted to the passage of the boat to the shore and to a description of how those saved fared when they got there. It seems the boat was overcrowded and had to be bailed out all the time, Subsequently they heard that two other boats had reached shore with ten of the crew and three Chinesepassengers, making with the twenty-one in the first boat a total of forty-two, The San Antonio as alrendy reported, reached the wreck in time to take off number of these still on board, and as far as was known " total of 143 have been saved the 288 persons on board.—Daily
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.