Having finished my business at Madraspatnam, I continued my journey with as much expedition as possible, for the whole colony was in the utmost confusion. Mohamed Aly Khan had under various pretences, as already mentioned, taken possession of the city and kingdom of Tanjaur, on the 17th of September 1773. Lord Pigot, however, by the express command of the court of London, restored to the throne Tullasuragia, the lawful sovereign, in the month of April 1776, amidst the thunder of cannon and the acclamations of an immense concourse of people; but he and that prince became the sacrifices of this measure, as wise as it was just, and Mohamed Aly Khan again made himself master of the kingdom. The fortress of _Arrucate_, from which he takes the title of Nabob, lies west from Madraspatnam on the river _Paler_ or _Palarru_, in the latitude of 13° North. On my return to Maïlapuri I resolved to visit the small mountain in that district on which the apostle St. Thomas suffered martyrdom. I placed myself, therefore, in my _Dooly_, and after two hours arrived at the bottom of this steep hill. It consists of several rocks, which altogether form only one group. Having clambered up to the top, not without considerable difficulty, I came to a small church, formed according to the modern plan, but, like many ancient Indian temples, of which I shall speak hereafter, hewn out in the solid rock. In an adjacent apartment I found an English Catholic, who resided there from devotion. The surrounding district abounds with coco-nut trees, and a number of beautiful houses belonging to the English, who retire hither to enjoy the pleasures of a rural life. Below these trees several cotton-weavers and spinners had erected their low hovels of the leaves and branches of the palm-tree plaited through each other; and I here had an opportunity of seeing every thing that belongs to a cotton manufactory. All the Indians, Christians as well as Pagans, unanimously assured me, that this was really the mountain on which the apostle Thomas (not that Thomas who was a disciple of Manes, and who is entirely unknown to them,) had been martyred. The Christians who reside on the coast of Malabar, and even the Christians of St. Thomas, though Nestorians, make many pilgrimages to the grave of this apostle, and, through religious zeal, carry home with them small bits of earth which they pick up near it, and which they afterwards use for preparing their holy water. This has been done since the earliest periods, not by a few, but by many thousands; so that the question whether St. Thomas actually lost his life on this mountain, cannot any longer be a subject of the smallest doubt. The event took place under the government of the Indian king _Salivahan_ or _Salbahan_, who, according to the Indian tradition, died in the sixty-eighth year of the Christian æra. On _Mont Grand_, also, there is a church, much frequented by pilgrims, and where the Catholics from Bengal,