WRECK OF THE KARS AND LOSS OF 260 LIVES.

Grey River Argus, Volume XV, Issue 1927, 9 October 1874, Page 2

WRECK OF THE KARS AND LOSS OF 260 LIVES.

The "Levant Herald" of June 24 gives the following account of this disaster : — The Azizieh Company's steamer Ears, Captain Constants which left Constantinople on Friday afternoon with passengers and merchandize for Salonica, was run into and sauk shortly after midnight in the Sea of Marmora, by the incoming Egyptian steamer Behera, Captain Antonio Leva. The sinking of the vessel has been attended with the loss of fully 260 lives. The Kars had about 300 passengers and crew on board, and of those only thirty-seven are known to be saved. Captain Constant! and nearly all the officers of the sunken vessel perished. The Egyptian steamer Beh*-ra was on its way from Alexandria to the Bosphoras, when at about one o'clock on Saturday, while some two miies on the other side of the island of Marmora, the look-out observed the light of an out-ward-bound vessel bearing down upon the Behera. Capfcaui Leva at once took measures to avoid a collision, but the Kars is represented to have been manoeuvred so unskilfully as to have been placed athwart the bows of the Behera, and although the latter's engines were reversed, a collision became inevitable—the Kars was cut into amidships as if by a' gigantic hatchet, and sank in ten minutes. The Egyptian vessel disengaged herself speedily from the sinking Kars, and sent boats to pick up a number of people who were floating about on barrels, spars, and such like. A few also reached the Behera in one of the Kar's boats ; and in all thirtyseven of the passengers of the ill-fated vessel were saved. The passengers were nearly all deck passengers, consisting of the most part of Roumpliote day laborers, Turks, and Greeks, who, after working in Constantinople during the winter, were returning to their homes for the harvest. The only male firstclass passenger was a Turkish major, proceeding with his family to enter upon the duties of a military appointment he had received at Salonica. Nearly all the women perished. The Kars had a considerable sum in money-groups on board, and these and her merchandise were insured in the Lyons and Gironde companies for an aggregate sum of about 80,000 f(L 3200). The Behera herself sustained some damage by the collision. The collision took place when most of the passengers were asleep. The saved consist of eighteen of the crew (the third officer, the first engineer, three stokers, and thirteen sailors), as also nineteen passengers. Four of these were Turkish officers, of whom there were fifteen on board, and one Turkish woman, who lost her reason on learning that her husband and two children were amongst the drowned. Captain Constanti, a Cephaloniote Greek, might, it is said, have saved himself ; but he deemed it a poiat of honor to stick by bis vessel to the last while there was a hope of saving any on board, and he went down with her. Thirty Turkish ladies, comprising the harem and entire female household of Mustapha Assym Pasha, the Governor-Gnneral of Jeoina, were among the passengers, and all perished, with the exception of a slave girl, who was found clinging to a spar. This is the second vessel of the name of Kars which the Azizieh Company have lost at sea.