Of such disagreeable disputes, in which I was involved with the subaltern magistrates, I could relate various instances. The cause of them was the oppression and extortion which these people were always exercising against some of the Christian congregations. I was constantly employed, by day as well as by night, either in accommodating quarrels between congregations, or putting a stop to the irregularities of the Christians, and the rapacity of the officers of government, who endeavoured to procure money, both from individuals and congregations, sometimes by cunning and sometimes by open force. It may with truth be asserted, that nothing is the cause of the eternal disputes between the Indian Christians and the Pagans, but hatred on the part of the inhabitants, and avarice on the part of the sovereign and his ministers, I must, however, render homage to truth, by acknowledging that the latter do not go unpunished, when their knavery is made known, and communicated to the king. It is probable that a great part of the Christians of St. Thomas in India came from Persia or Chaldea. I conclude so from the following circumstances: 1st, because the Arabs established in India are also foreigners; 2d, because the Jews there were originally from Persia; 3d, because the Christians of St. Thomas, as well as those of the same sect in Persia, follow the Syrio-Chaldaic ritual; 4th, because their bishops formerly were ordained in Persia; and, 5th, because the Christians of St. Thomas in India, like those of Persia, were in the earliest periods Nestorians; and because, on accurate examination, a great similarity is observed in the worship and religious practices of both. The rites, liturgy, ceremonies and books of these Christians, bear evident marks of a Chaldaic or Persian extraction. Though the Malabar dialect is at present the mother tongue of the Christians of St. Thomas in India, they, however, employ Chaldaic phrases when they speak of sacred and religious objects. Thus, for example, they call God _Alaha_; the Holy Ghost, _Ruha_; the grace of God, _Taibusa_; baptism, _Mamodisa_; the cross, _Shliva_; and mass, _Curubana_. Had they been originally Indians, why should they make use of such Chaldaic expressions, and not much rather of words peculiar to the Malabar or Samscred languages? It is, therefore, not improbable, that a considerable number of Christians went from Persia and Chaldea to India, and united themselves to the small body of the original Indian Christians, whose ancestors were formerly converted to the Christian faith by the apostle Thomas at _Mailapuri_, which they unanimously consider as the place that first gave birth to Christianity in India. This much is certain, that all these Christians, in the year 1502, at which period Vasco de Gama came a second time to Malabar, were Nestorians. Some of them denied the divinity of Christ, and could not endure images; but, on the other hand, they shewed a greater reverence for the holy cross.