Paris, May 24.
The Jeddah correspondent of "Lo Petit Parisien" wires that a gallant rescue of five terror-stricken Mecca pilgrims from the French steamer Asia, which caught fire at Jeddah fon Wednesday evening, was made by two British officers of the steamship Arabistan.
he officers, he says, scrambled up 'a cable and picked up and lowered the fainting pilgrims one by one to a boat below.
Survivors of the disaster, in which it is now feared that 200 persons. perished, relate that the heat was 50 terrific that the skulls of many. victims lying on the blazing decks burst like pistol-shots and the brains seethed out like boiling lead.
Fifty pilgrims, who tried to escape by an iron ladder, were driven back by the heat and committed suicide by cutting their throats.
Two boats wore swamped through a panic-stricken crowd jumping in and many persons were drowned. Many others refused to try to escape and remained on board praying, their faces turned to Mecca.
Although the fire broke out. on Wednesday evening, the vessel was. still a raging inferno yesterday morning. There were some fifteen hundred passengers on board, all of whom were Mecca pilgrims from Red Sea ports returning to their
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