19233. ] St. Thomas and San Thomé, Mylapore. 157 
for mutual protection near their churches, and the Portuguese 
did boast at times that, as in Portugal, only Catholies lived in 
their fortresses. gree had a “Portuguese fortress only 
100 families liviae hee ae as the ere was other church 
vet than that of the tomb, and perhaps the tae Church of the 
Franciscans, ' they must have liv ed close to the tomb. Was the 
aS Many as a thousand ‘ Nestorians ’ Did they too congregate 
round the tomb ? Very likely ; especially as we hear of no 
church at Little Mount or at St Thomas’ Mount in Nicolo de’ 
Conti's time. In earlier times, when the church at St. Thomas’ 
Mount still existed, there would have been probably a small 
ikea Se lapse in that direction too. 



An inscription at the Luz sateehi Mylapore, runs thus: Fre Pedro 
da y Reve Reli® Observtede S. Fra ne?/Edificou u esta Igreja/de Nossa Senhr« 
a Luz em/1516./ This means ‘‘ Friar Pedro ervan- 
tine Religious of = oebir built this church of Our Lady of Light in 
1516.” From a tograph in Report of the fourth Centenary a 
. he ane Chetek, Ce 6 th. August, 1916. Madras, Good Pas 
roa 
A a nde rful inscription, if correct. Its correctness is rejected b 
Sigs Love in his Vestiges of Old Madras, I. 289-290, and I _—s rightly 
A Church at the Luz emplacement in 1516 sete mean % 
an a there at that date or even earlier, with a Missi ssionary in atten h 
ance. But why should the Christians not have turned into a Chure 
the ruined Chur. the tomb rath an 
8 the re ae ca b left in ruins till 1522? Simply because 
there were no Christians yet. The first uese visitors to Mylapore in 
1514, 1517, 1519, -23 are ominously silent a’ we = ners and 
t Franciscans at Mv. e. Sois St. Francis Xavi x 
Franciscans do not svat to have settled at Mylapore before 1540. T a 
18 not the place to work this out more ful ides, oe Senhora da 
Luz is such a common title that the legend of the racted by 
a 
i i are ratte a a title in- 
vented. po soma Ae in une oe aeons Ae n his Oriente U'on- 
somev de near 
Goa, and that story would seem to have been carr ylaj : te 
2 A letter by Vath her —— (Ricei 2), dated Cochiz, cite — 
eaks of Pulic cat (Paliacate tch by the gi 
jeliedia. of MSS. in St. J sire s College, er ) 
