184 H. HOSTEN ON 



and thus, like the Lord Jesus' very faithful servant, he spent his goods and his life. 

 Doubtless, he deserved to enter into the joy of his Lord. He was buried in the Chapel 

 (in templo) he had built, and he asked Father Xavier to write over his tomb : 'Here 

 lies Martin {Martinus), the slave of the Lord Jesus.' This was done, and after his 

 death all that remained of his goods was partly spent in building and adorning the 

 Chapel, as he had ordered, partly given to the poor, whom he had appointed heirs to 

 his property." 



Is it not pathetic that the inscription on that good man's grave should have 

 been so long a puzzle to antiquarians, or that his good deeds should be made public 

 again after an oblivion of three centuries ? The inscriptions on his tomb, both in 

 Armenian and Persian, are near the right-hand recess of the octagonal chapel, as one 

 enters. These lines, the oldest in the Cemetery, will have been read at times with 

 incredulity, as a piece of vain boasting. How modest an expression they are of great 

 realities and of the gratitude of the poor ! ' 



We should think that the translation of the remains of the Christians to the new 

 Cemetery took place on November 2nd, 1610, or November 2nd, 1611. Where was 

 the older Cemetery ? Here is a clue, perhaps. During my stay at Agra at the end 

 of December 1912, I interviewed several times the Rev. Mother St. Lucy, the Pro- 

 vincial of the Sisters of Jesus and Mary, who came out in 1854, and was shut up in 

 the Fort during the Mutiny. Not in 1861 or 1862, as the Rev. Mother Provincial 

 put it, but in 1875 or 1876, as a Nun, then a child, remembered, they found while 

 digging a well near the convent, and they pointed to the well before the south veran 

 dah, close therefore to the Cathedral compound, 3 stones, each marked with a cross. 

 The stones were about 3 ft. long and i| ft. broad. 



There were on the stones inscriptions in European characters, and a Capuchin 

 Father, Louis Nuchatelli ( ?) , said : ' ' Look here, these stones are of the 16th century.' ' 

 — " Did he say 16th or 17th century? " — " He said 16th century, if I remember well." 

 — " Strange, because 1600 is the 17th century, and I do not see how the Jesuit 

 Fathers could have had a Church or Chapel at Agra before that date. All the same, 

 they speak of a small Chapel which existed before the one Prince Salim helped them 

 to build in 1604. * What did you take those stones for ? Tombstones?"—" Yes," 

 interposed the other Nun," for after that the girls used to say that the convent was 

 built on a grave-yard.' ' — ' ' In what language were those inscriptions ? Portuguese ? " 

 "I think so." — " Were the stones thick? In the shape of cenotaphs?" — "No, 

 slabs." — ' ' What colour ? Red sandstone ? White marble ? " — ' ' Not red ; whitish, 

 but not marble." — "And where are those stones?" — "Who knows? They may 

 have been kept. They ought to have been. The Fathers were much interested in 

 them, and so were we." — " How often," concluded the younger Nun, "have I not 

 spoken of those stones ever since ! " I wrote down this conversation on the very 



1 For the Armenian and Persian inscriptions on the tomb cf. E. A. H. Brunt's List of Inscriptions on Christian 

 Tombs . . . in the U.P., Allahabad, 1911, p. 32, No. 74, where Mortenepus should be read : Martinus. The Armenian has 

 Martyrose, and this would best explain the name " Martyr's Chapel." 



2 J.A.S.B., 1896, pp. 89-90. The Church for which Salmi gave a substantial sum was begun before September 6th, 

 1604, cf. ibid., p. 93. 



