[Illustration:  St. Thomas Localities at Madras.]

As Diogo de Couto relates the story of the localities, in the shape which it had taken by the middle of the 16th century, both Little and Great Mounts were the sites of Oratories which the Apostle had frequented; during prayer on the Little Mount he was attacked and wounded, but fled to the Great Mount, where he expired.  In repairing a hermitage which here existed, in 1547, the workmen came upon a stone slab with a cross and inscription carved upon it.  The story speedily developed itself that this was the cross which had been embraced by the dying Apostle, and its miraculous virtues soon obtained great fame.  It was eventually set up over an altar in the Church of the Madonna, which was afterwards erected on the Great Mount, and there it still exists.  A Brahman impostor professed to give an interpretation of the inscription as relating to the death of St. Thomas, etc., and this was long accepted.  The cross seemed to have been long forgotten, when lately Mr. Burnell turned his attention to these and other like relics in Southern India.  He has shown the inscription to be Pehlvi, and probably of the 7th or 8th century.  Mr. Fergusson considers the architectural character to be of the 9th.  The interpretations of the Inscription as yet given are tentative and somewhat discrepant.  Thus Mr. Burnell reads:  “In punishment (?) by the cross (was) the suffering to this (one):  (He) who is the true Christ and God above, and Guide for ever pure.”  Professor Haug:  “Whoever believes in the Messiah, and in God above, and also in the Holy Ghost, is in the grace of Him who bore the pain of the Cross.”  Mr. Thomas reads the central part, between two small crosses, “+ In the Name of Messiah +.”  See Kircher, China Illustrata, p. 55 seqq.; De Couto, u.s. (both of these have inaccurate representations of the cross); Academy, vol. v. (1874), p. 145, etc.; and Mr. Burnell’s pamphlet “On some Pahlavi Inscriptions in South India.”  To his kindness I am indebted for the illustration (p. 351).

["E na quelle parte da tranqueira alem, do ryo de Malaca, em hum citio de Raya Mudiliar, que depois possuyo Dona Helena Vessiva, entre os Mangueiraes cavando ao fundo quasi 2 bracas, descobrirao hua + floreada de cobre pouco carcomydo, da forma como de cavaleyro de Calatrava de 3 palmos de largo, e comprido sobre hua pedra de marmor, quadrada de largura e comprimento da ditta +, entra huas ruynas de hua caza sobterranea de tijolos como Ermida, e parece ser a + de algum christao de Meliapor, que veo em companhia de mercadores de Choromandel a Malaca.” (Godinho de Eredia, fol. 15.)—­MS. Note.—­H.Y.]

The etymology of the name Mayilappur, popular among the native Christians, is “Peacock-Town,” and the peafowl are prominent in the old legend of St. Thomas.  Polo gives it no name; Marignolli (circa 1350) calls it Mirapolis, the Catalan Map (1375) Mirapor; Conti (circa 1440) Malepor; Joseph of Cranganore (1500) Milapar (or Milapor); De Barros and Couto, Meliapor.  Mr. Burnell thinks it was probably Malai-ppuram, “Mount-Town”; and the same as the Malifatan of the Mahomedan writers; the last point needs further enquiry.