doubt that she was indeed a native of Galicia. Florez begins his account by a disquisition upon her name; he tells us that Morales spoke of her as Echeria, that Tamazo called her Eucheria, and that the Toledo manuscripts have her name as Egeria and Etheria. Florez had the same manuscript to go by as Morales had had two centuries earlier--that of the Cistercian Monastery of Carracedo in Bierzo, so he decided to adopt the name Echeria in writing of her. As, however, it is now agreed that her right name was Etheria, we will adopt that in preference. A certain monk, Valerius, wrote a letter in Latin, in the second half of the seventh century, to the monks of the Bergidensis, telling them about the pilgrimage of Etheria, and holding her up to them as a model of fortitude and perseverance. He spoke of her as “the most blessed Etheria,” and related how, fired with religious enthusiasm, she had undertaken a perilous journey to the East, in order that she might see for herself the sacred land where her Saviour had lived and suffered for the redemption of the world. He told of the difficulties she had faced and the risks she had encountered in that long and fatiguing journey over sea and land, over river and mountain, to Palestine and Egypt. She felt that, like Abraham, she had received a call, and neither the weakness of her body nor the love of her home could hinder her from answering it, that is, from setting out on what, in those days, was, for a woman, an unheard-of journey. Etheria crossed seas and ascended mountains, no obstacle, no difficulty, no hardship could stop her till she reached at length that holy spot where Christ was born, suffered, and rose again. On her way Etheria visited the tombs of many martyrs and prayed beside them, often going considerably out of her way to do so. She carried with her as her guide both the Old and the New Testaments. To reach the places mentioned in the Bible, she boldly crossed the most dangerous deserts, and travelled by the most perilous roads; she visited many isolated monasteries, and conversed with the most inaccessible hermits in their cells.[52] She refreshed her soul, says Valerius, with the sweet teachings of these seraphic beings. She also studied with particular care the Book of Exodus, and followed the very road that the Children of Israel took when they set out for the Land of Promise. She reached at length the spot where Moses drew water from the rock, and there she refreshed herself with the Water of Life. She came to the desert, where the manna fell and where the foolish multitudes had sighed for the flesh-pots of Egypt, being weary of their celestial food; here she fed her spirit with the precious word of God. The pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night which led the Israelites through the desert did not prevent them from remembering all that they had left behind them in Egypt. But Etheria had but one desire, to reach Mount Sinai. On