he worms in hell," &c.

It has been disputed by what road St Thomas came into India. The heathen
history says, that he and Thaddeus being in Mesopotamia, they parted at
the city of Edessa, whence St Thomas sailed with certain merchants to
the island of Socotora where he converted the people, and then passed
over to Mogodover Patana, a city of Paru, in Malabar, where he built a
church. When at this place, a heathen, who had struck St Thomas in the
king's presence, going to fetch water had his hand bitten off by a
tiger; and running to the palace to tell his misfortune, a dog followed
him with the hand in his mouth, on which the saint set on his hand
again, so that no mark remained. He went afterwards to Calicut, where he
converted king _Perimal_. There is an account that he went to the Moguls
country, where Chesitrigal then reigned, whence going into China, he
returned through Thibet into India, and went to Meliapour, where he
ended his days.

In the year 800, a rich Armenian Christian, named Thomas Cananeus,
arrived at Mogodover or Patana. Having acquired the favour of the king
by his presents, he received a grant of Cranganor and the city of
Patana, in which there were scarcely any vestiges remaining of the
church there established by St Thomas. On these foundations the Armenian
built a new church, and another at Cranganor, which he dedicated to St
Thomas, and which is still standing on the outside of the Portuguese
fort. He likewise built two other churches, one dedicated to the Holy
Virgin, and the other to St Cyriacus. All of these have been erroneously
ascribed to St Thomas, when in fact they were the works of Thomas
Cananeus, the Armenian. It may reasonably be believed that the temple or
pagoda, into which Vasco de Gama entered, as he went from Calicut to the
palace of the zamorin, may have been one of these churches, because the
image of the Virgin was there called Mary by the heathens. It is
believed that one of the three kings who went to Bethlem, at the
nativity of our Lord, was king of Malabar. The heathens celebrate yearly
a festival in honour of St Thomas, for the preservation of their ships,
because formerly, every year, many of them used to be lost while sailing
to Parvi.

From this long digression we return to the government of the viceroy Don
Antonio de Noronha, who arrived in the beginning of September 1564, as
formerly mentioned. In consequence of the cruelties exercised on the
Moors of Malabar by