C a p e C om o r
i n .
travelling, within our own diftricts, about feventy miles in
“ the twenty-four hours.”
C a p e -Comorin, the moft fouthern part o f Hindoo/lan, is in
Lat. 8'. It is level low land at its extremity, and covered with
trees, and not vilible from the deck more than four or five
leagues. Mr. nomas Daniell* , to whom I am indebted for
numbers o f informations, informs me, that the loftieft part is
the highland o f Comorin, which is twelve hundred and ninety-
four yards h ig h : and quite fmooth and verdant to the very
fummit. Near the bafe, burfts forth a moft magnificent cata-
r a i l : and near that is a Choultry for the accommodation of travellers.
A l i t t l e to the northward is the termination o f the
Ghauts, which may be feen nine or ten leagues at fea. This
was the Comar o f Arrian, ii. 175, where there was a caftle
and a port. The fea adjacent was fuppofed to have been endued
with peculiar virtues; it was a great refort for the pur-
pofes o f ablutions, and luftrations, by all fuch perfons who
had determined to pafs a religious and folitary life. The female
fex performed the fame rites. Written hiftory had, even in
Arrian's time, delivered a legend of a certain goddefs having
here performed the ablutions every month. The diftridt was
called Comari Regio ; but this holy water reached, fays Arrian,
as far as Colchos, the modern Mingrelia. Al. Edriji fpeaks, p. 31,
o f a Comr. Infula, and gives it a vaft extent. There is a little
* Words are wanting to exprefs the merit, beauty, and elegance of his prefent publication
of the views in Hindoo/lan,
9 h i l l
hill to the north o f the cape, which from the fea appears in-
fulated : poflibly the Nubian Geographer might have received
an account o f that eminence, miftaken for an ifland, .and its
fize exaggerated.
C a p e Comorin is the termination o f the kingdom o f 1’ravan-
core, which extends along the weftern coaft, from that of Cran-
ganore, as far as this headland, a hundred and forty miles. In
1730 it began to rife into importance, by the abilities o f its monarch,
who reigned forty years. In giving audience to two
embafiadors, whom he forefaw would weary him with prolix
harangues, he cut the firft fliort with this fenfible remark ; “ Be
not tedious,” fays he, “ life i s J h o r tHe raifed a fine army, and
well difciplined, and meditated the conqueft of Malabar. Amidft
all his great talents, he mingled the weaknefs of being alhamed
o f his cajl or tribe. He wiihed to be a Brahmin ; he ordered a
golden calf to be made, he entered at the mouth, and came out
at the oppofite part; this was his Metempfychofis; and he dated
all his edidts from the days, fays Abbé Raynal, of this glorious
regeneration.
T h i s kingdom begins in Lat. io° 18', near Cranganore.
The breadth is greatly contracted, by reafon of the approach
o f the Ghauts towards the ihore. Interfered by rivers, and
covered with thick woods, it feems almoft unconquerable.
The Rajah, whom I have mentioned, gave his country additional
ftrength, by which he faved his fucceflor from the
Oppreffion of the rifing ufurper, Ayder Alii. « Around his
“ capital, and chief province;” fays the author o f the War in
AJia, i. p. 266, “ he fuffered the woods to grow for a number of
" years,
K in g d o m o f
T r a y a n c o h e .