PECTINIDiE. SCALLOP. 
107 
mention is made of a similar coffin (discovered in the 
parish of Stepney, Middlesex, in the district known to 
occupy the site of one of the cemeteries of Roman Lon- 
don), the upper part ornamented with scallop shells ; 
having at the head and foot two jars ; on the sides a 
number of bottles of glistening red earth, some of 
which were painted, and also some glass phials. The 
chest, or coffin, contained the body of a woman. Leaden 
coffins have been found at York, and in a Roman tomb 
at Southfleet, Kent, and other places, as well as in 
France; and Mr. C. Roach Smith says, ^^that they 
may, most of them, possibly be assigned to the Roman - 
British period. 
The scallop shell appears legitimately to have be- 
longed to pilgrims to the shrine of St. James of Com- 
postella, as may be gleaned from the following legend, 
given by old Spanish writers : — 
When the body of the saint was being miraculously 
conveyed in a ship without sails, or oars, from Joppa 
to Galicia, it passed the village of Bonzas, on the coast 
of Portugal, on the day that a marriage had been cele- 
brated there. The bridegroom with his friends were 
amusing themselves on horseback on the sands, when 
his horse became unmanageable, and plunged into the 
sea ; whereupon the miraculous ship stopped in its voyage, 
and presently the bridegroom emerged, horse and man, 
close beside it. A conversation ensued between the 
knight and the sainPs disciples on board, in which 
they apprised him, that it was the saint who saved him 
from a watery grave, and explained the Christian religion 
to him. He believed, and was baptized there and then, 
and immediately the ship resumed its voyage, and the 
knight came galloping back over the sea to rejoin his 
