as well of Protestants as of Catholics. I owe the greatest gratitude to the venerable Archbishop of Oregon and to Monseigneur the Bishop of Nisqually, for the truly paternal kindness that they showed me - their Grandeurs overwhelmed me with charities in their hospitable residences at Portland and Vancouver. At Portland I had the pleasure of meeting a fellow-countryman, the Reverend and worthy Mr. Fierens, curate of the cathedral.
On the 13th of October I set sail from Portland for San Francisco. We passed the dangerous bar at the mouth of the Columbia in safety. The steamer touched at Victoria, the capital of Vancouver Island, one of the new towns, admirably well situated, from both practical and picturesque standpoints. Its commerce is already important, and growing day by day by reason of its nearness to the mines on Fraser river and in the Caribou Mountains.
The worthy Monseigneur Demers, Bishop of Vancouver Island and the western part of the Rocky Mountains, in the English possessions, resides at Victoria. Besides the cathedral and the attached school, the Reverend Oblat Fathers have opened a college and church here. The Sisters of Jesus and Mary have a boarding-school, very well patronized, and a school for the instruction of girls. These worthy religieuses, like the respectable Sisters of Charity of the Asyle de la Providence of Montreal, are doing an immense
amount of good in these remote regions. Monseigneur was absent, and had extended his apostolic tour in search of his flock as far as to the miners of the Caribou Mountains. The Reverend Oblat Fathers have several missions among the savages of the interior of the island and on Fraser river, where they are working with the greatest zeal and the happiest results; numerous conversions have everywhere crowned their noble efforts.
The steamer left Victoria on the 16th, and after a fortunate voyage, although with some severe gales, I arrived in San Francisco on the 21St-happy to find myself once more in the midst of my dear brothers in Jesus Christ.