Hamilton’s account of the east indies. 393

before he was iheltered, and there'they run him through with a lance; and, in thefau-e place where he was killed, he lies buried.

When the Portuguefe fir ft fettled there, they built a church over the cave and wellon the little mount, and alfo one over his grave on the great one, where the lancethat killed the apoftle, is ftill kept there as a relief; but how the Portuguefe came bythat lance is a queftion not yet well refolved. In that church there is a ftone tin&uredwith the apoftle’s Hood, that cannot be walhed out. I have often been at bothmounts, and have feen thofe wonderful pieces of antiquity.

At the foot of the great mount the company has a garden, and fo have the gen-tlemen of figure at Fort St. George, with fome fummer-houfes where ladies and gen-tlemen retire to in the fummer, to recreate themfelves, when the bufinefs of the townis over, and to be out of the noife of fpungers and impertinent vifitants, whom thiscity is often molefted with.

The city of St. Thomas was formerly the belt mart town on the Chormondel coaft,but, at prefent has very little trade, and the inhabitants, who are but few, are re-duced to great poverty. The Englifh fettling at Fort St. George were the caufe of its"ruin, and there is little profpect of its recovery.

Chap. XXIX. — Gives a Jhort Defcription of Fort St. George , its firjl Settlement and

and Rife , its Situation and Sterility , and fome Remarks on its Government , and the

Adlions of fome of its Governors.

FORT St. George or Maderafs, or, as the natives call it, China Patam, is a colony'and city belonging to the Englifh Eaft-India Company, fituated in one of the moil:incommodious places I ever faw. It fronts the fea, which continually rolls impetu-oufly on its ihore, more here than in any other place on the coaft of Chormondel.The foundation is in fand, with a falt-water river on its back fide, which obftructs allfprings of freih-water from coming near the- town, fo that they have no drinkableWater within a mile of them, the fea often threatning deftrudfion on one fide, and theriver in the rainy feafon inundations on the other, the fun from April to Septemberfcorching hot; and if the fea-breezes did not moiften and cool the air when they blow,the place could not poflibly be inhabited. The reafon why a fort was built in thatplace is not w'ell accounted for; but that tradition fays, that the gentleman whoreceived his orders to build a fort on that coaft, about the beginning of King CharlesIk’s reign after his reftoration, for protecting the Company’s trade, chofe that placeto ruin the Portugueze trade at St. Thomas. Others again alledge, and with moreprobability, that the gentleman aforefaid, which I take to be Sir William Langhorn,had a miftrefs at St. Thomas he was fo enamoured of, that made him build there, thattheir interviews might be the more frequent and uninterrupted ; but whatever his rea-fons were, it is very ill fituated. The foil about the city is frdry and fandy, that ithears no corn, and what fruits, roots and herbage they have, are brought to maturityhy great pains and much trouble. If it be true, that the Company gave him powerto fettle a colony in any part of that coaft that pleafed him beft, I wonder that hechoofed not Cabelon, about fix leagues to the fouthward, where the ground is fertile,and the water good, with the conveniency of a point of rocks to facilitate boats land-j n g, or why he did not go nine leagues farther northerly, and fettle at Policat on thehanks of a good river, as the Dutch have done fince, where the road for flapping isv ol. vin. 3 f. made