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JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). [VOL. XL 



after the death of Adam. Adam being made by the hand 

 of God, came out of the earth so complete and perfect in 

 stature, features, proportion, and beauty, that none of the 

 perfect men succeeded in keeping up that perfection, and 

 such terrible hugeness would savour more of the monster 

 than of man ; and if the giants had come first they would 

 have produced ugliness and not beauty. 



This is the pretence under which they worship the footprint. 

 The Calvinists (for we leave them in an error, which they do 

 not prove) follow the false ideas of the Moors, who make out 

 that in this place was the terrestrial paradise, which fable 

 they strengthen with the name, the fertility, and situation 

 of the Island and of the four rivers which water it, whose 

 sources are in Adam's Peak. If there are authors who 

 confirm this, it is contradicted in a manner by all the 

 learned, who demonstrate it by the most solid arguments, 

 being contrary to what Holy Scriptures say, and he would 

 be a bold man who would swear to its truth. 



Diego de Couto presumes that the footprint might be 

 that of the Apostle St. Thomas. 



In proof of this notion, it is true that in the province of 

 Tucuman,* on the American mainland, and in Peru, are shown 

 in several places impressions of footprints stamped on the 

 ground and similar to this one, as some persons affirm who 

 have seen them, of whom Diego de Couto does not speak ; 

 and although the natives are barbarians without religion, 

 and live according to their natural and corrupt laws in the 

 depraved vices with which the devil has steeped them, they 

 have a tradition that the footprints are those of the glorious 

 Apostle St. Thomas. It is also true that close to Bahia, 

 in a hermitage of St. Thomas, is another footprint, which it is 

 said belongs to the same saint. Others assert that from its 

 worship began the idolatry of India ; but who can get at the 

 facts of a thing of such antiquity surrounded with doubt 

 and difficulty ? The truth is, that the devil, always on the 



* In Rio de la Plata. 



