It has been disputed by what road St Thomas came into India.  The heathen history says, that he and Thaddeus being in Mesopotamia, they parted at the city of Edessa, whence St Thomas sailed with certain merchants to the island of Socotora where he converted the people, and then passed over to Mogodover Patana, a city of Paru, in Malabar, where he built a church.  When at this place, a heathen, who had struck St Thomas in the king’s presence, going to fetch water had his hand bitten off by a tiger; and running to the palace to tell his misfortune, a dog followed him with the hand in his mouth, on which the saint set on his hand again, so that no mark remained.  He went afterwards to Calicut, where he converted king Perimal.  There is an account that he went to the Moguls country, where Chesitrigal then reigned, whence going into China, he returned through Thibet into India, and went to Meliapour, where he ended his days.

In the year 800, a rich Armenian Christian, named Thomas Cananeus, arrived at Mogodover or Patana.  Having acquired the favour of the king by his presents, he received a grant of Cranganor and the city of Patana, in which there were scarcely any vestiges remaining of the church there established by St Thomas.  On these foundations the Armenian built a new church, and another at Cranganor, which he dedicated to St Thomas, and which is still standing on the outside of the Portuguese fort.  He likewise built two other churches, one dedicated to the Holy Virgin, and the other to St Cyriacus.  All of these have been erroneously ascribed to St Thomas, when in fact they were the works of Thomas Cananeus, the Armenian.  It may reasonably be believed that the temple or pagoda, into which Vasco de Gama entered, as he went from Calicut to the palace of the zamorin, may have been one of these churches, because the image of the Virgin was there called Mary by the heathens.  It is believed that one of the three kings who went to Bethlem, at the nativity of our Lord, was king of Malabar.  The heathens celebrate yearly a festival in honour of St Thomas, for the preservation of their ships, because formerly, every year, many of them used to be lost while sailing to Parvi.

From this long digression we return to the government of the viceroy Don Antonio de Noronha, who arrived in the beginning of September 1564, as formerly mentioned.  In consequence of the cruelties exercised on the Moors of Malabar by Mesquita, as formerly mentioned, those of Cananor had besieged the Portuguese fort at that place, and had destroyed above thirty vessels which were under its protection.  After a siege of some endurance, the Portuguese fleet destroyed many of the paraos belonging to the enemy, while the besieged garrison of Cananor killed great numbers of their assailants, besides cutting down above 40,000 palm trees[375] to the infinite injury of the natives, who depend upon these trees as their principal sustenance.  The natives were so exasperated at this that, collecting