14 FIFTY YEARS IN WESTERN CANADA

in the morning of July 26, exactly one month after
they had left France.

The first impression the new place made on Brother
Morice was one of stillness, if not sleepiness and back-
wardness, which notably contrasted with the bustle
characteristic of the American cities. Victoria then
boasted some fifty-eight hundred inhabitants, most of
whom seemed to have been asleep when the French
trio landed in their place, and none of whom appeared
to hurry about anything once they did get up.

Most of its present beautiful edifices, such as the
superb Parliament Buildings, the Catholic Cathedral,
Convent and Hospital, the Metropolitan Methodist
Church, St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, the Post
Office and Drill Hall, the Provincial Jail, as well as the
various more or less palatial hotels, chief among which
is easily the majestic Empire Hotel, were not then
in existence, nor even thought of.

A few moments after landing, the three young
travellers found themselves in the Bishop’s humble
residence, adjoining his modest cathedral, a frame
building on the shore of the now filled-in bay. Bishop
John B. Brondel was then (1880) the titular of the
Catholic See of Victoria; but he happened to be absent
when the strangers arrived.

They noticed, instead, by the side of one or two
older priests, a young, tall and delicate-looking clergy-
man, apparently stationed there only a very few
months. Father Morice remembers how his confreres
were teasing him on his shyness and dilatoriness in
starting to preach in Chinook to the swarthy natives
settled in the city. This was Father John Nicholas
Lemmens, a Dutch priest who was, in course of time,
to become Bishop of Victoria. He died ultimately in
Guatemala.