The Voyage of the Ursulines [pp. 18-24]

'The Voyage of the Ursulines.
dure and to perform in the great work which
she has undertaken, may plainly be discerned in her letter. She describes the joy
of the community at the summons on board
as too great to be told; as for herself, it is
moderated by her sorrow at leaving her father
and her dear mother, whose lively memory
she will preserve all her life. Nothing but
the voice of God could separate her from
parents whose tenderness she has proved a
thousand times. Her last words to them
must have wrung their hearts, as they thought
of the dread uncertainty of the fate before
her-danger from shipwreck; danger from
savages; danger from climate; a voyage to a
region concerning which so little was known
that her father could not purchase a chart
which showed the location of the little city
to which his daughter had gone; a land
which, however full of promise for adventur ers and laborers, must prove full of hard ships for those whose experience had been
confined within convent walls. Even if the
stories of danger were exaggerated, there was
enough of doubt in the situation to stir up
the hearts of these parents, as they read the
closing lines of this letter:
"Adieu, my dear father. I beg of you,
send me dear news. There is nothing in the
world dearer to me than yourself and my
dear mother. Rest assured that nothing
less than the glorification of God and the
salvation of his poor savages could separate
me from your dear selves. I assure you
that I shall only be separated from you in
body. In spirit and heart I shall always be
united with you; but as I can do nothing
myself, I address myself to heaven, the source
of all blessings. I pray each day for the
preservation of your health and the sanctifi cation of your souls. I beseech you not to
forget a daughter who will all her life enter tain for you the most profound respect and
perfect gratitude."
The "Gironde" was slow, but she was a
strong and well built vessel. Her captain
may have been a competent sailor, but some
of the disasters which occurred during the
vogage were plainly chargeable to the neglect
of precautions which would have averted
them. Of her crew we hear no complaints.
They responded promptly and willingly to
the demands upon them, and their only
fault seems to have been that in times of
excitement they flavored their conversation
with too much profanity to suit the tastes of
a community of nuns.
The fair wind which caused the closing
up of letters, and the hurrying aboard of
passengers, on the 22d of February, soon
drew ahead, and a postponement of the hour
of starting gave the nuns an opportunity, before they plunged into the Atlantic swell, to
settle down in the little cabin, eighteen feet
long, and seven or eight wide, which had
been partitioned off for them between decks.
Six bunks had been built on each side this
narrow space, in tiers of three. Here, for
the next five months, a large part of which
was to be spent in the tropics, were to be
packed thirteen people. One of the party
had to sleep on the deck.
On the 23d, at two o'clock in the afternoon,
the day being fair and the wind propitious,
the "Gironde" weighed anchor and started
on her voyage. Their first experience of the
character of the ship and of its manager was
to be felt while still in sight of Lorient. The
nuns were assembled on the poop, taking
their last look at their native land. The
ship had reached a point where she began
to feel the ocean swell, when all felt a sharp
shock, and twice the vessel struck on a rock.
All was dismay and confusion among the
spectators on the shore, as well as among
the inmates of the ship. A hasty examina tion was made, and upon its being discov ered that no serious harm was done, the ves sel started once more on her tedious voyage.
The strain occasioned her to leak somewhat,
but not enough to make them apprehend se rious danger.
Unfortunately, rumors of the disaster, mag nified and distorted by repetition, as such ru mors always are, reached the ears of those
left behind, and it was to be many a weary
month before they should learn the truth.
The fair wind soon deserted them, and
they were tossed about for a fortnight, baf fled by tempestuous weather and contrary
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