The Sydney left here at 11 A.M.  Tuesday in the hope of picking up any of the survivors of the Buresk, the collier that had been in attendance on the Emden and was sunk after an engagement on the previous day.  Finally, with a number of wounded prisoners on board, the Sydney left here yesterday, and our few hours of war excitement were over.

Crowds See the Niger Sink

[By a Correspondent of The London Daily Chronicle.]

DEAL, England, Nov. 11.—­By the destruction of the British torpedo gunboat Niger, which was torpedoed and sunk by a submarine in the Downs this afternoon, the realities of war were brought home to the inhabitants of Deal and Walmer.

A loud explosion was heard from the gunboat as she lay off the Deal pier, and great volumes of smoke enveloped the vessel.  When the smoke cleared the Niger was observed to be settling down forward.  Men, women, and children rushed to the sea front, exclaiming that the vessel had been torpedoed or mined.  They soon realized that the Niger was doomed.  The Deal and Kingsdown lifeboats as well as boats from other parts of the beach were launched in an effort to save the sailors.

Consternation and almost panic prevailed among the hundreds who stood watching the ghastly sight from the beach.  Fortunately, the North Deal galley Hope, commanded by Capt.  John Budd, lay at anchor near the spot, waiting to land the pilot from a London steamer which was going down the channel.  When the boatmen realized that the Niger had been hit by a submarine or mine, to use their own expression, they rowed like the very devil.

“We saw the sailors,” said Capt.  Budd, “jumping from the vessel’s side in dozens.  As we neared the fast-disappearing vessel we came upon swarms of men struggling in the sea and heroically helping to support each other.  Some were fully dressed, others only partly so.  They were clinging to pieces of wreckage and deck furniture, and some were in lifeboats.

“It was a heartrending spectacle.  The men were so thick in the water that they grasped at our oars as we dipped them in the sea.  We rescued so many and our own boat got so choked that we could not move.  With our own gunwale only just out of the water, we were in danger of sinking ourselves.

“We called to the men that we could take no more in or we should sink ourselves, but they continued to pour over the sides, and some hung to the stern of our boat.  We had about fifty on board.  Never had there been so many in the boat before.  One burly sailor, whom we told to wait until the next boat came along, laughingly remarked [Transcriber:  original ‘remared’] while he was in the water, ’All right, Cocky, I will hold on by my eyebrows,’ and he drifted to another galley.  Another Deal boat then came along and relieved us of some of our men.