Sisters of Notre Dame to stay with them. It would be hard to imagine the joy that we all felt. Each one made up his or her little bundle, and shortly we were on American soil.
Our Fathers received us with a warmth that I could never describe. We found them all together: they had just finished a retreat, to which Reverend Father Verdugo, the Provincial, had called them. Though considerably straitened, and having hardly subsistence for themselves, they forced us to lodge with them and strove to see who could render us the most services. We found in them true brothers and friends -veritable children of St. Ignatius, corde et ammo.
The Reverend Fathers of the order of Picpus have had a college at Valparaiso for some years past, and are rendering considerable services to religion. The Sisters of Notre Dame will never forget the friendly reception that they met with at the hands of the French nuns. Neither did they leave that abode until they had reanimated them
selves with a retreat of some days. They were edified by the good examples, but confused by the excess of kindness and attentions with which they were unceasingly surrounded by these good ladies.
On Tuesday, the 16th of the same month, I set out from Valparaiso for Santiago, the capital of Chile. Fathers Landau and Vercruysse were in one carriage, Father Gomila, Superior of the Missions, and myself, in another. Each carriage was drawn by two horses, one of which, that of the postilion, was attached only by a single rope. A second conductor, likewise on horseback, is to help the first in get
ting up and down mountains. Four loose relay horses also accompanied us, sometimes ahead and sometimes behind, without once straying in the distance of thirty-two leagues
which we had to travel. The skill and swiftness with which these postilions take you along are really admirable. The whole trip was accomplished in less than twelve hours. Where this road crosses two mountain chains, branches of