(See Examen, etc., II. 244-245)
CHAPTER XXIII.
OF THE COUNTRY CALLED COMARI
Comari is a country belonging to India, and there you can see something of
the North Star, which we had not been able to see from the Lesser Java
thus far. In order to see it you must go some 30 miles out to sea, and
then you see it about a cubit above the water.[NOTE 1]
This is a very wild country, and there are beasts of all kinds there,
especially monkeys of such peculiar fashion that you would take them for
men! There are also gatpauls[NOTE 2] in wonderful diversity, with
bears, lions, and leopards, in abundance.
NOTE 1. - Kumari is in some versions of the Hindu cosmography the most
southerly of the nine divisions of Jambodvipa, the Indian world. Polo's
Comari can only be the country about Cape COMORIN, the [Greek:
komaria akron] of Ptolemy, a name derived from the Sanskrit Kumari, "a
Virgin," an appellation of the goddess Durga. The monthly bathing in her
honour, spoken of by the author of the Periplus, is still continued,
though now the pilgrims are few. Abulfeda speaks of Ras Kumhari as the
limit between Malabar and Ma'bar. Kumari is the Tamul pronunciation of
the Sanskrit word and probably Comari was Polo's pronunciation.
At the beginning of the Portuguese era in India we hear of a small Kingdom
of COMORI, the prince of which had succeeded to the kingdom of Kaulam.