The precise number and identity of the passengers who landed on these shores are as uncertain as the notion that they arrived here at all. Sailing from the Holy Land aboard a frail craft equipped with neither oars nor sail, they number variously from six to eleven.Three at least were called Mary : Mary Jacobé, sister of the Virgin Mary, Mary Salomé, mother of apostles James and John (Joses?), and Mary Magdalene, best known as a sinner. (On arrival she trekked across country with Saint Maximin, a fellow passenger, to the mountain cave of the Sainte Baume in the Var).

Also on the passenger manifest : Martha, sister of Lazarus, who is also aboard noted principally for being raised from the dead, Sarah, their Egyptian servant, long cited but venerated only in 1935 by the gypsies when, associated with the rellics of the saints her statue was borne in solemn procession to the sea.

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