A PAIR of letters written onboard a ship helmed by a Bolton captain that saved hundreds of survivors from the Titanic are set to go up for auction.

Eleanor Danforth, a passenger of Sir Arthur Henry Rostron's RMS Carpathia, described seeing the "glimmer" of the iceberg the liner struck on April 14, 1912.

Her account of the rescue is dated three days after the collision, which claimed the lives of more than 1,500 passengers and crew.

In one 11-page letter, on Royal Mail Steamship Carpathia stationery, Miss Danforth told how she awoke at 2.30am.

"I realised that the engine had quickened the speed and it flashed into my mind that possibly we were hurrying to some ship in distress," she wrote.

"I tried to get it out of my mind, but I finally rang for the steward and then minutes later we were dressing with all haste. I went on deck, and even in the darkness I could see the glimmer of the iceberg they had struck -then some five miles away."

She told how she was taken back to her room but discovered a port hole in a passageway where she could see.

"I watched the first boat come in, the people climbing the ladder up the side of the ship or being pulled up in a swing sort of thing," she wrote.

"A bag was let down for the babies and children. Shortly after we went up on deck again, and the boats came in one by one. We seemed to be so perfectly helpless, there didn't seem to be much to do except stand around and watch."

The letters could fetch up to £8,000 and will go under the hammer on Saturday.