Standing miracles are, however, to be seen there, in respect both of the opening of the sea, and of the peacocks.' Moreover whatever quantity of that earth be removed from the grave one day, just as much is replaced spontaneously against the next. And when this earth is taken in a potion it cures diseases, and in this manner open miracles are wrought both among Christians and among Tartars and Pagans.2
1 " Tam de apertione maris quam de pavonibus." There is nothing before about this opening of the sea, and the meaning is dark. John of Hese has a foolish story about St. Thomas's tomb being on an island in the sea, and that every year a path was laid dry for fifteen days for the pilgrims to pass through the sea. But Marignolli who had been at the place could not mean such stuff as this. Maffei however mentions that St. Thomas, in erecting a cross at Meliapor, which was then ten leagues from the sea (!), prophesied that when the sea should reach that vicinity white men should come from the world's end and restore the law which he had taught. Perhaps there is an allusion to such a tradition here. There is also a curious Tamul legend bearing upon this which is cited in Taylor's Catalogue Raisonné of Or. MSS. (Madras, vol. iii, p. 372). Mailapur was anciently inhabited by Jainas. One had a dream that in a few days the town would be overwhelmed by the sea. Their holy image was removed further inland, and three days later the old town was swallowed up. Thé temples were then reestablished in a town called Mailamanagara, where exactly the same thing happened again. It is added that tradition runs in reference to the whole coast from San Thomé to the Seven Pagodas, that extensive ruins exist beneath the sea and are sometimes visible.
2 The mention of Tartars here is curious, and probably indicates that the Chinese ships occasionally visited Mailapur. The Chinese are constantly regarded as Tartars at this time.
The Roman Catholic ecclesiastical travellers and $agiologists seem to have striven who should most expand the missionary travels of Thomas the Apostle. According to an abstract given by Padre Vincenzo his preaching began in Mesopotamia, extended through Bactria, etc., to China, " the States of the Great Mogul" (!) and Siam : he then revisited his first converts, and passed into Germany, and thence to Brazil, as relates the P. Emanuel Nobriga," and from that to Ethiopia. After thus bringing light to Asia, Europe, America, and Africa, the indefatigable Apostle retook his way to India, converting Socotra by the way, and then preached in Malabar and on the Coromandel coast, where he died as here related.
It is a somewhat remarkable circumstance in relation to the alleged mission of Thomas to India, that whilst. the Apocryphal Acts of the
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