was spotted coming from a hold.

Last night the Fire Service was officially treating the cause of the smoke as doubtful, although it is thought it could have been caused by a piece of cloth smouldering next to a hot pipe.

It is understood the ship's generator had been used during the day to raise the anchor before she was towed into Bermuda.

The Xing Da was brought into Marginal Wharf yesterday where she will be cleaned before being scuttled as a new diving attraction.

She berthed at about 3 p.m. and the Fire Service was called just before 5 p.m.

after smoke was seen coming from the ship.

Ten fire trucks and 27 men went to the scene and a team of firefighters wearing breathing apparatus went into Number 2 hold where the smoke was coming from.

It is thought part of the smoke was actually vapour from gas canisters used to clean the hold and part was from the smouldering piece of cloth.

Piles of possessions, including chop sticks, flower-pattered tin plates, blankets and clothes litter the deck.

The worst, though, was still to come. Number 2 hold, where the 83 passengers spent four months.

Peering in from the deck, a sort of sludge was visible at one end of the hold.

It looked like a mix of sand and mud, scattered with litter.

No-one seemed to exactly know what it was, but it looked like the human waste from the passengers who lived in the same hold, who made it their home and who put up bottles on the walls full of cooking oils.

Yesterday it was gassed to get rid of the bugs.

When it is finally cleaned the ship will be sunk somewhere off Bermuda to create a new diving attraction.

Tourism Minister David Dodwell said it would not only be a new attraction it would be one with a story.

It will have a story, one of the miseries human beings will endure in pursuit of a hoped-for better life.