s ago, and is a charming study. It is here, shortly after
Vasco da Gama had completed the first round-the-Cape journey, that
this house of God was erected by his followers. Two centuries later,
the Dutch came, conquered the Portuguese, occupied their house of
worship, and desecrated their tombs. In that church to-day one can
find tombstones inscribed on one side by the Portuguese to their
departed friends, and, on the other side, in Dutch, to commemorate
departed Hollanders.

But the most interesting sight, by far, in this quiet old Indian town,
is the community of white Jews who live on its southern side. No one
knows when they came here. They probably arrived at the Dispersion of
the first century of our era; or it may be later. But the community
must have been reenforced from time to time, as they have maintained,
in a marvellous way, the fairness of their complexion. It will not
require much imagination, as one enters their synagogue, to think of
the synagogue of Nazareth of old. As we ascend the stair-way into the
little schoolroom above, and hear the little ones reciting, in pure
Hebrew, passages from the Pentateuch, we can easily imagine that we
are listening to the voice of a dear little Boy, nineteen centuries
ago, reciting to His master those same passages in that same tongue in
Palestine. There is hardly a place on earth where Judaism has met with
fewer vicissitudes and changes than on this western coast of India.

It is only a couple of hundred yards farther away that we find the
synagogue of the black Jews--the descendants of those who were given
by the ancient king to be slaves to the white Jews. They adopted the
religion of their masters, and are still praying, like their masters,
for the coming of the Messiah, of whose arrival and triumphs in India
they seem to be oblivious.

Leaving Cochin, we pass along the coast as far as Bombay, which has
been called the "Eye of India," and also the "Gateway of India," two
names which are equally appropriate to this beautiful city. There is
hardly another city on earth where more races and religions blend. And
its streets are made exceedingly picturesque by the many costumes of
its polyglot population. Before the arrival of the plague, some eight
years ago, Bombay was perhaps the most populous city in India. But
this fell scourge has decimated its population and has robbed it of
much of its ambition.

Perhaps the most interesting people that we see here are the P