family and acquaintances and left Belgium. My journey to Paris and thence to Havre was agreeable and without ac cident. On the 3oth I took my place on board the steamer Fulton, with my three companions. On Easter Sunday I had the consolation of offering the holy sacrifice of the mass, to commend us especially to God in the long and dangerous
journey by land and sea that we had before us. On the 2d of April about noon the vessel ran in to Southampton, where it lay at anchor a good part of the day waiting for pas
sengers and the mail. In the evening of the 4th we lost the coasts of England from view. It was still winter on the Atlantic and we had rough weather, but everything passed
off favorably and without accident. The days passed agreeably on board, in the society of very intelligent people, among whom I had the happiness of finding several old and good acquaintances. Nothing especially noteworthy came up to break the habitual monotony of a long ocean voyage. I will only mention that in latitude 42° 11' and longitude 65° 39' we passed near an immense solitary iceberg, which resembled an ancient cathedral in ruins or an old chateau with dilapidated towers. So novel a sight, in the absence of any other, was certainly not without interest. We reached New York during the night of the 14th-15th of April.
A few hours before the arrival of the Fulton the great American metropolis had been thrown into the utmost confusion and consternation by the news that Fort Sumter, in South Carolina, had been captured and the great starspangled banner of the Union lowered and torn to pieces by the Southern rebels - an irremediable and ineffaceable insult in the eyes of all America.
When the insulting and arrogant outrage to the national flag was known, a number of the American passengers on the Fulton wept with rage, uttering imprecations and threats against the South. The scenes of which I was an eye-wit