1923.] St. Thomas and San Thomé, Mylapore. 177 
relied on, he undertook with the Great Factor of Portugal a 
journey to Palestine, Egypt, Arabia, and even the Great Indies, 
between 1481 and 1484, or some 16 years before Vasco da 
Gama’s expedition. From Arabia the party, which appears to 
have gone in search of Prester John, went eastwards, traversed 
many countries, and came to Makeria {dans la Makeria), a 
place which Emmanuel Neeffs, beyond whose study we have 
no information, identifies with the country of Mekran, on the 
coast of the Persian Gulf. This country was dotted with fine 
towns, and the party took nine days to cross it ! 
“Suddenly and without giving any detail, the MS. takes 
us to the Great Indies, to the town of Calamina, where St. 
Thomas suffered martyrdom, and where he reposes in flesh and 
bone in a beautiful reliquary (chasse). The Assyrians indeed 
had one day translated in great pomp the Apostle’s relics to 
Edessa, but thev had stibsequently been brought back to 
Calamina. The hand and the arm with which the unbelieving 
Apostle had touched the Redeemer’s wounds are not enclosed 
in the tomb where his body is kept.2- The judge of the place 
uses them like an instrument which decides altercations and 
points out in doubtful cases which of the two parties is in the 
right. The suitors write down their complaints, and, when 
they deposit these writings into the martyr’s hand, it rejects 
the document containing the inadmissible plea.” 
Neeffs, who rarely quotes the MS. verbatim, rightly com. 
pares this statement with Sir John de Mandeville’s. To us the 
two statements sound so much alike, and so much in Jean 
Aerts’ account appears to be fanciful that we doubt his having 
visited Calamina or Mylapore, and many other places which 
he mentions.® 
Hardly less curious than our extract from Sir John de 
Mandeville is what we read in Barbosa, a Portuguese, who 
wrote in India between 1500 and 1516. Though there is noth- 
ing to show that Barbosa visited Mylapore, his work bears 
evidence of painstaking study. He is extremely well informed 
on India and the Far East. In his account of Mylapore and 
Emmanuel Neeffs, Louvain, Ch. Peeters, 1873. The name of the factor 
is nowhere given. t p. 32 we hear of the Duke of Permeren. F.C. 
Danvers, The Portuguese in India, London, 1894. I. 29, speaks of the 
FS ' Might this Makeria not be Malabar or Maabar (the Coromandel 
oast) ? 
2 What about the inconsistency of saying in one place that the body _ 
Was In 4 reiiquary, and in the next that it was in a tomb ? ae 
3 We must return to him elsewhere and show that he has copie 
from others some of his information. 
