Ancient India—Expedition of Sesostris—Doubts of Dr. Robertson with
regard to it—Hindustan, its early commerce, and the probability,
from its great value, of its having attracted Sesostris—The
conquests of Darius, and of Alexander—Trade with China—Its
maritime intercourse—A comparison of the Chinese boats with those
of the ancient Britons—The conquests of Alexander in India,
B.C. 327-5—The gain to commerce by his conquests—The spread of
knowledge—His march into India—Preparations for the voyage down
the Indus—Departure of his fleet from Nicæa, B.C. 326—Description
of the vessels employed—Progress of the fleet—Establishment of
new cities on the banks of the Indus—Character of the vessels
engaged on the voyage from the Indus to Susa—Time occupied—Future
voyages—Death of Alexander, B.C. 323—Eastern India—Ceylon—Internal
commerce of India—Manufactures of India—State of the trade
of India from the sixth to the ninth century—Change in the
course of trade—Persian trade with India—The Muhammedans, A.D.
622—The extent of their commerce with the East—The trade between
Constantinople and India and China.
[Sidenote: Ancient India.]
It is impossible to say at how early a period the commerce of India
assumed a civilized form, and from the rude barter of the savage became
a regular system of exchange and account. The opinion of ancient as
well as of modern writers, is almost unanimous in considering the
Hindus as one of the oldest civilized nations in the world; but their
most ancient records are so blended with fables, that it would be a
waste of time to attempt to separate fact from fiction. Nor shall we do
more than allude to the supposed conquests of Sesostris and Semiramis,
as these are now generally held to have no historical foundation. That
the civilization of India may reach back two or three thousand years
before the Christian era is, however, not improbable, as the oldest
of the Indian sacred writings, the Vêdas, are believed by the best
Sanscrit scholars to have been handed down by tradition from about B.C.
1500.[245]
The historian who attempts to trace the operations of men in their
commercial pursuits during very remote ages, and to mark the various
steps of their progress, will soon have the mortification of finding
that the period of authentic history is limited to the time assigned
to it in Holy Writ; and that all the speculations about the high
civilization of the Hindus before the period usually assigned to the
Deluge are mere dreams of antiquarian enthusiasm. There is no reason
to doubt that the narrative usually attributed to Moses is the most
ancient we can now obtain, whatever modern philosophers may say to
the contrary; and it is on the whole, unquestionably, the most in
conformity with the facts now deducible from antiquarian or linguistic
research. Many centuries must have intervened before the first heathen
historian, Herodotus, wrote; and it is simply idle to attempt to write
a consecutive record of commercial enterprise for any period preceding
written history, as even the sculptured monuments of Egypt and Nineveh
add scarcely anything to the pages of the Bible. Dr. Robertson, who
wrote before anything was known of the meaning of the hieroglyphic
writing of Egypt, expresses grave doubts about the Indian expedition of
Sesostris, resting as this story does on the unsupported testimony of
Diodorus Siculus; but, though portions of it may be fabulous, others
may be true.
[Sidenote: Expedition of Sesostris.]
[Sidenote: Doubts of Dr. Robertson with regard to it.]
“Credulity and scepticism,” he says,[246] “are two opposite extremes
into which men are apt to run, in examining the events which are said
to have happened in the early ages of antiquity. Without incurring any
suspicion of a propensity to the latter of these, I may be allowed to
entertain doubts concerning the expedition of Sesostris into India, and
his conquest of that country. Few facts in ancient history seem to be
better established than that of the early aversion of the Egyptians to
a seafaring life. Even the power of despotism cannot at once change the
ideas and manners of a nation, especially when they have been confirmed
by long habit, and rendered sacred by the sanction of religion. That
Sesostris, in the course of a few years, should have so entirely
overcome the prejudices of a superstitious people, as to be able to
fit out four hundred ships of war in the Arabian Gulf, besides another
fleet which he had in the Mediterranean, appears to be extremely
improbable. Armaments of such magnitude would require the utmost
efforts of a great and long established maritime power.”[247]
On the other hand, we may remark that, though the extent of his fleet,
especially of vessels large enough to undertake so distant a voyage
as that to India, is, under any circumstances, very questionable, the
aversion of the Egyptians to a sea-faring life, would not in itself be
an insuperable objection against the probability of great and distant
expeditions, since, as we have already shown, the Phœnicians must have
had considerable fleets at an early period; and Sesostris (or whoever
he may be supposed to represent), is said to have employed Phœnician
ships and sailors. Nor does Herodotus’s omission of the expedition
attributed to the Egyptian monarch, prove that no such undertaking
could have been carried into effect. We must, in fact, be wary of
rejecting the possibility of some conquest or of some expedition,
while we reject unhesitatingly what is on the face of it fabulous, as
the story of the seventeen hundred associates of Sesostris, who were
born on the same day as the king, and were still alive: moreover, with
regard to Strabo, it should be remembered, that he, like Herodotus, has
doubted more than one story, which there is, nevertheless, sound reason
for believing. The first duty of an historian is to separate, to the
best of his judgment, fact from fiction, and especially, not to reject
what may have taken place, because the account of it is mixed up with
questionable or exaggerated anecdotes.
[Sidenote: Hindustan, its early commerce, and the probability, from its
great value, of its having attracted Sesostris.]
There are many reasons for supposing that Hindustan, to this day famous
for its riches, was at a very early period the seat of a lucrative
commerce and of much accumulated wealth. As such it would be the envy
of other nations, and more especially of ambitious monarchs. The
narrative of Arrian shows that this commerce was then regulated by
sounder principles, and carried on in a more civilized manner, than it
was fifteen centuries afterwards when Vasco de Gama first visited the
shores of India. As numerous elements of wealth and luxury, usually
found scattered over various regions of the earth, were the natural
products of Hindustan, it might be expected that a country so highly
favoured should, through the mists which over-hang the dawn of history,
have loomed forth imposingly in very ancient times as the special abode
of luxury and refinement.
But while not admitting the extravagant descriptions in the Hindu
poets and historians of the glory and wealth of their country, any
more than the whole of the Egyptian story of Sesostris, there is no
reason to doubt that the civilization of India dates from a period as
early as that of Egypt, and that the fame of its riches may have led
to more than one attempt to achieve its conquest. The Râmâyana, one
of the most ancient Hindu books, where it informs us, in the glowing
language of its poetry, that Ayodhya[248] (Oude), one of the leading
commercial cities of India, was “filled with merchants and artificers
of all kinds”; that “gold, precious stones, and jewels were there found
in great abundance”; that “every one wore costly garments, bracelets,
and necklaces”; that “the town always resounded with the noise and
bustle of men and women, like the shouts of contending armies”; that
“the great men were ever going to and fro upon chariots, elephants,
and prancing steeds”; and that “the gardens of pleasure were always
crowded with eager inquirers after their friends and lovers,” may
have furnished an exaggerated description of its wealth, but far
from a fabulous one, as the fame of that great city seems to rest on
satisfactory evidence.
[Sidenote: The conquests of Darius, and of Alexander.]
Of the actual commercial resources of India we have, however, no
reliable accounts previous to the conquests of Darius and to the
successful navigation of the Indus by his fleets. In his time, the
country through which he passed was represented to be very populous and
highly cultivated; and though his conquests did not extend beyond the
district watered by the Indus, below Peucela, we cannot but form a high
opinion of its opulence in ancient times, as well as of the number of
its inhabitants, when we learn from Herodotus that the tribute Darius
levied upon it was nearly one-third of the whole revenue of the Persian
monarchy.[249] But it was only when Alexander, two hundred years later,
undertook his celebrated expedition, that sufficient knowledge of
India was obtained to enable us fully to realize the real amount of
its wealth, and some of the actual conditions of its civilization and
commerce. Up to that period the more valuable commerce between Europe
and India was conducted mainly by caravans passing through Bactra[250]
(Balkh), “the mother of cities,” as it has been called from its great
antiquity. From this important seat of inland Asiatic trade, the Oxus
on the N.W., the Indus on the E. and S., and the Ganges to the S.E.,
stretched long-branching arms, and thus afforded ready means for the
distribution of the contents of the caravans to the most populous
districts. Founded, as is believed, before the dawn of history, Bactra
was for many centuries the most flourishing mart of Eastern commerce;
the western and the northern roads into India passed through it; and
the ruins still surrounding it for miles attest its former size and
splendour.
[Sidenote: Trade with China.]
It was the obvious policy of the Bactrian people, holding as they
did in their own hands the advantage of a great trade, to give as
little information as they could of the actual sources whence came
the wealth or the luxuries in such demand with the merchants of the
West. Hence the dismal tales of the sandy deserts to be traversed, of
the many dangers to be surmounted, and of the terrible “griffins,”
which, according to Herodotus and Ctesias, were the guardians of the
gold-bearing districts.[251] Even Arrian, the shrewd Alexandrian
merchant, speaks of the land whence the glistening hanks of silk
were obtained—the land of _Thina_ (China), as a country practically
inaccessible. “It is not easy to get there,” he says, “and of those
who attempt the journey, few are ever seen again. Once a year there
come to the borders of _Thina_, a set of ill-formed, broad-faced, and
flat-nosed savages, who bring with them their wives and children, and
carry great burdens in mats. They stop short at a certain place between
their own territory and that of Thina, where, seated on their mats,
they celebrate a kind of festival, and then, having disposed of their
goods, of which their silk is the chief, to the people of Thina,
they depart to whence they came. The county situated beyond Thina is
unexplored, either in consequence of cold and severe frosts, which
render travelling thither very difficult, or because the immortals have
so willed it.”[252]
The early navigation of China, like its commerce and everything else
connected with the history of that remarkable country, is involved
in the utmost obscurity, but there is no reason for accepting the
extravagant antiquity to which the Chinese themselves pretend. Modern
researches bring down the period of early Chinese civilization to a
date comparatively recent; and, though it is likely that, from an
early period, some of their vessels may have reached Hindustan or
Ceylon, it is equally clear that their chief commercial operations with
the nations of the West, previous to the time when the merchants of
Alexandria established a regular trade with the coasts of Malabar, were
conducted by means of the caravans already described, and, at the same
time, with as much secrecy and mystery as possible.
[Sidenote: Its maritime intercourse.]
Our knowledge of the early maritime routes to the far East is almost
exclusively confined to what has been already stated with reference to
those between Europe and Arabia and the western shores of Hindustan.
Beyond those shores, all that is certain is, that vessels from China,
from Bengal, and from other parts of the East, traded with Ceylon,
and that some of the products of China found their way by circuitous
routes, probably after passing through many hands, to the great central
mart of Alexandria; nor, indeed, is there any greater certainty or
knowledge about the character of the early Indian vessels, for,
like the Egyptians, the Indians were not, and are not, as a nation,
a seafaring people. Those Indians who followed seafaring pursuits,
were then, as now, of the lowest caste; hence the inference is natural
that their shipping would exhibit a corresponding inferiority in
construction.
Pliny[253] says that their boats consisted chiefly of a large
description of cane or bamboo, split down the middle, and capable of
carrying three persons; and Arrian remarks that, in his time, the
vessels employed on the Malabar coast were very inferior to those
of most other nations. He says the small vessels, called _madara_,
have their planks sewn together with coir—the inner fibre of the
cocoa-nut—like some of the native vessels of Arabia. Others, he
adds, were long vessels, _trappaga_ and _cotymba_ (in the native
dialect),[254] used by fishermen and pilots of the port of Barygaza.
But besides these, there were double canoes, which were lashed
together, and were by his description not unlike, though much inferior
to, those of the South Sea Islands, of which, from Captain Cook’s
description, the following is an illustration (Page 131).
The Chinese junk of the present day probably affords a tolerably
accurate representation of the Chinese merchant vessel of two or
perhaps three thousand years ago; for all that is known of China, and
of the habits of its population, tends to show that they have adhered
to established types with even more than Oriental tenacity.[255] In
the “Asiatic Researches” (vol. vi. p. 204) is a representation of one
of the oldest Chinese merchant vessels which have been preserved: it
exhibits a model almost as perfect as any of their vessels of our own
time.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: SMALL JUNK. PARO.]
[Sidenote: A comparison of the Chinese boats with those of the ancient
Britons.]
Moreover, the ordinary junk now in use for the coasting and inland
navigation of that country, will be noticed as forming an exact
counterpart of many of the Egyptian vessels engaged on the trade of the
Nile, and, more especially, that called _paro_, another description
of trading craft very common in China; while the account given by Sir
George Staunton of some of the small vessels of China exhibits a
remarkable similitude between these and the ancient boats of Britain.
“The boats,” he says, “commonly in use among them, consist of five
planks only, joined together without ribs or timber of any kind. These
planks are bent to the proper shape by being exposed some time to a
flame of fire. They are brought to a line at each end, and the edges
are joined together with wooden pins, and stitched[256] with bamboo
split into flexible threads, and the seams afterwards smeared with a
paste made with quicklime from sea-shells and water. Others are made
of wicker-work, smeared all over, and rendered watertight, by the same
composition as is used for the former. The owners affect to paint
eyes upon the heads of all these boats, as if to denote the vigilance
requisite in the conduct of them. They are remarkable for standing the
sudden shock of violent waves, as well as for being stiff upon the
water, and sailing expeditiously. The boat belonging to the chief of
the district was built upon the same plan, but on a larger scale, had
a carved and gilt head, bearing some resemblance to that of a tiger,
and a stern ornamented with sculpture, and painted with a variety of
designs in lively colours. In these boats the principal sitters are
generally at the stem, instead of being near the stern, as is the
custom of Europe.”
Considering themselves to be the most ancient and the most learned of
people, the Chinese were too vain to learn from others; they thought
they knew more than anybody else, and they think so still; for, having
daily before them some of the most magnificent European ships of modern
times, they still retain the ancient form of the junk. To a people so
fond of money, and so industrious, one would have thought that the
fact of such vessels conducting the most valuable trade on the Chinese
coast, would have induced them to make some endeavour, by means of
shipping better found and better fitted than are any they possess, to
retain a trade for centuries originally and exclusively their own.
Nowhere are their failings in this respect better exemplified than in
the report of the embassy under Lord Macartney, sent from Great Britain
to Pekin in 1792. “It is not uncommon,” remarks the writer of this
report, “on board Chinese vessels to have maps or sketches of their
intended route, with the neighbouring headlands cut out or engraved
upon the back of empty gourds, the round form of which corresponds
in some sort to the figure of the earth. Such a similitude may have
sometimes contributed to render these sketches somewhat less erroneous,
but the advantage is accidental, for neither the astronomers nor
navigators of China have varied much from the first rude notions
entertained among mankind, that the whole earth was one flat surface,
in the middle of which the Chinese took for granted that their own
empire was situated, thence emphatically styled by them, the ‘empire
of the middle;’ all other countries surrounding it being, in their
estimation, comparatively small, and lying towards the edge, or margin
of the earth, beyond which all must be a precipitate and dreadful void.”
[Sidenote: The conquests of Alexander in India, B.C. 327-5.]
With the conquests of Alexander commence our first really historical
knowledge of India. For, if Alexander left behind him, at his premature
death, the fame of a mighty conqueror, he no less deserves that of a
great civilizer, by the wisdom he displayed in opening up new channels
of commercial intercourse.[257] In the foundation of Alexandria (B.C.
332) he showed how keenly he was alive to the value of the commerce
between Europe and the East, while he was, at the same time, the first
to lay down the principle that the command of the sea secures the
possession of the land; and to carry that principle into practice, by
raising his fleets from insignificance until they held dominion over
all waters accessible to them. Alexander saw that the extension of the
commercial intercourse of his people would do more to consolidate his
power than military conquest; hence he had the wisdom to establish in
the path of his conquests, ports, cities, and institutions, with which
his name has been, and will be, imperishably associated. Although
there will always be some persons who can see nothing but desolation
and ruin in the paths of a great conqueror, who deem great soldiers
the necessary enemies of mankind, and who cannot recognise either
the foresight or the motives of men such as Alexander the Great, yet
even they must admit that the world ultimately reaped a rich harvest
through the creation of Alexandria, and that his triumphs in Asia gain
additional renown from his efforts to increase geographical knowledge,
and to bring India, by means of a more rapid communication by sea,
nearer to Europe than it had ever been before his time.
Nor were the designs of this great conqueror confined to an increase
of facilities for conducting with greater rapidity and safety the
commercial intercourse of the nations of the West, requiring, as
these did for their daily wants, commodities India could alone
supply. Alexander created new channels of trade, and fresh wants, and
fresh hopes for each country he successively overcame. Instead of
devastation and misery marking his progress through Syria and Asia
Minor, these countries were greatly enriched by his sovereignty, while
their inhabitants secured more freedom and prosperity than they had
ever enjoyed under their native princes. Egypt, under the dynasty of
the Ptolemies, the first founder of which, Ptolemy the son of Lagos,
was one of Alexander’s most trusted generals, obtained a commercial
pre-eminence it had not enjoyed during any previous period of its
history. Again, when Alexander advanced into the district now known as
the Panjâb, he conferred many advantages on the natives, and imparted
to them much practical and valuable knowledge. Almost everywhere
he founded Greek cities or colonies (Plutarch gives their number as
seventy), diffusing the manners and customs of his own people over
the vast tracts of land from the temple of Ammon in the Lybian oasis
to the banks of the Indus. Thus he brought into contact with his own
refined and civilized Greeks, not merely Oriental nations that were
highly gifted in their own way, but also the semi-barbarous tribes of
many lands, teaching them the advantages of commercial intercourse,
and extending by its influence the comforts which habits of industry
can alone bestow, together with the many blessings civilization
confers. His conquests, like the discoveries of Columbus, made known
the existence of rich regions before unsuspected, and countries where
millions of the human race could find remunerative occupation.
[Sidenote: The gain of commerce by his conquests.]
Articles of commerce, of which the Western World had had no previous
experience, were thus brought to light. Rice produced from irrigated
fields; a cotton tree of a superior growth, which, from its fine
tissues, furnished the materials for the manufacture of paper;
various descriptions of spices and opium; wine made from rice, and
from the juice of palms;[258] wool from the great bombax tree;[259]
shawls made of the fine hair of the Thibetan goats; silken tissues of
various kinds; oil from the white sesamum; and perfumes of the richest
description. These and other products, for the most part new to the
Western World, soon became articles of universal commerce, while some
of them were transported to Arabia, and thence to the shores of the
Mediterranean.
[Sidenote: The spread of knowledge.]
But, beyond numerous commercial advantages, the Macedonian campaigns
opened a large and beautiful portion of the earth to the influence of a
highly-gifted race, who courted the society of the most learned men of
the countries they conquered. Hence the geographical knowledge of the
Greeks was more than doubled in the course of a very few years by the
extraordinary and enlightened conquests of their chief.
While the comparison of notes between the geometricians, naturalists,
and astronomers of two of the most learned nations of ancient times
proved of immense benefit to mankind, we cannot doubt that the
scientific knowledge of the Greeks, when brought to bear upon the
practical experience of the Hindus with regard to the prevailing winds,
mainly induced Nearchus to start without fear on his celebrated voyage,
and, at the same time, encouraged the merchants of Europe to seek out
new means of communication with a country producing in such abundance
the articles they prized so highly.
[Sidenote: His march into India.]
The expedition through the northern portions of India, and the voyage
from the Indus to the Euphrates, if not the greatest of the exploits of
Alexander, were certainly, in many ways, the most important up to that
time in the history of commerce and navigation.
Arrian, whom we have had so often the pleasure of quoting, has
preserved copious extracts from the journal of Nearchus, and the
information thus obtained has been thoroughly investigated by Dr.
Robertson, in his “Disquisition on the Knowledge the Ancients had of
India”; by Heeren in his “Asiatic Nations”; and most fully of all by
Dr. Vincent in his “Commerce and Navigation of the Ancients in the
Indian Ocean.”
With a view to secure the commerce Tyre had so long and so successfully
carried on with India, Alexander, early in his career, as has been
shown, established the great Egyptian port which still bears his
name; and other events soon gave him the opportunity of obtaining the
sovereignty of those regions that supplied the rest of the world with
so many precious commodities. After his victory over the Persians,
the pursuit of Darius led him across Asia, from the Caspian Sea to
Maracanda (Samarcand), and during this adventurous march he naturally
learnt many things, not only of the tribes through whom he passed,
but also of India itself, with which those tribes had much commercial
intercourse. Decisive and prompt in his resolutions, he accordingly
set out from Bactra (Balkh), crossed the great chain of mountains that
constitutes the north-western boundary of India, and, passing the
Indus, marched on towards the Ganges and the rich provinces of the
south-east, now comprehended under the general name of Hindustan.
[Sidenote: Preparations for the voyage down the Indus.]
Nor would he have hesitated in pushing onwards to the then capital
of India, Palimbothra (now Patna), had he not been compelled by the
remonstrances of his native troops to retrace his steps homewards.
Being, however, unable to persuade his troops to cross the Hyphasis
(now Setlege), and to pass on to the conquest of India, Alexander fell
back upon the Hydaspes (now Jelum), where he found that the officers
to whom he had entrusted the construction and collection of as many
vessels as could be got ready, had so well executed his orders, that
they had assembled a numerous fleet, consisting of two thousand
vessels, according to Strabo, or, according to Arrian,[260] of about
eight hundred boats, thirty-one of which were ships of war, and the
rest such as were usually employed in the navigation of the river. But,
whichever number be right—and with the dense population of the Panjâb,
the larger one, comprehending anything and everything that could float,
is doubtless possible—it is certain, if we except that of Xerxes, that
this flotilla was one of the largest which had as yet, at least within
historical times, been got together.
It is very likely that, by his eight hundred, Arrian may have meant
only those employed for transports and fighting vessels, not deeming
it worth while to reckon up every small craft Alexander may have
pressed into his service. Moreover, Strabo[261] has remarked that in
the neighbourhood of Nicæa, whence the army embarked, there was an
abundant supply of fir, pine, cedar, and of other timber, fit for the
construction of boats and barges; while Arrian further records the fact
that Alexander, before he himself had reached the Indus, had already
caused a number of vessels to be built in the country of the Assacani
(the Afghâns), and to be sent down the Kophen (or river of Kâbul) to
Taxila (Manykyala). It was, probably, during the preparation of this
great fleet that Alexander obtained his most valuable information
about the state of inner or further India, both with regard to the
commerce of the country, and to the different places with which the
natives traded. Many of the natives, too, embarked with him, either
for the purpose of conducting the fleet, or with a view to their own
advantage; and, besides the natives who rendered their services in
the collection, fitting out and navigating the fleet, it is further
stated that an ample supply of mariners was obtained from a number of
Phœnicians, Egyptians, Cypriotes, Ionians, and others from the shores
of the Hellespont, and from the Ægean islands, who had accompanied the
army, in various capacities, as camp followers.[262]
[Sidenote: Departure of his fleet from Nicæa, B.C. 326.]
[Sidenote: Description of the vessels employed.]
Thus prepared, the expedition started from Nicæa on the 1st October,
B.C. 326. The voyage down the river is described rather as a triumphal
procession than a military progress. The size of many of the transport
vessels, and of the barges for the conveyance of horses, the splendour
of the equipments, the clang of arms, and the sound of musical
instruments, attracted the natives in vast numbers to the banks of the
river, as wondering spectators to the pomp. Nor, probably, were they
less surprised at the measured chant of the rowers, and the dashing
of the oars in the still waters: subjects on which all the historians
of this remarkable expedition have dwelt in detail, doubtless thereby
conveying an accurate account of this remarkable exploit. But though
there can be no doubt of the general truth of the story as handed down
to us by Arrian, the descriptions of the vessels which composed it
are, in some respects, inconsistent with each other. The transports
were probably short flat vessels, to which the ordinary small barge of
the present day bears, perhaps, a greater resemblance than any other
craft. The galleys are said to have been long and sharp, some of them
having two banks of oars; others were “half-decked vessels;”[263]
while some of them had keels so deep, that they could not be beached
without risk of their destruction. “As the tide fell,” remarks Dr.
Vincent,[264] “the vessels were left on ground; but upon the return
of the flood those only that had settled upright in the mud or ooze,
escaped unhurt, while all that lay inclined upon the harder ground,
were exposed to the most imminent danger, and several were lost.” As
any vessel, however, that is of sufficient stability to float upright,
would, when the tide returned, rise to it, it is very probable that the
cause of these occasional accidents was leakage, through straining or
from carelessness in beaching them on uneven ground. The greater part,
however, of the craft consisted, no doubt, of open boats and barges,
and especially that portion of it which had been built on the upper
branches of the Indus, and then transported overland to the Hydaspes.
[Sidenote: Progress of the fleet.]
The expedition having been disposed of in various divisions, had orders
to observe a due distance from each other in their movements, so that
no confusion might arise, its speed being at the same time regulated
so as to accommodate itself to the motions of the army on the shore.
Three vast armies, moving in separate divisions, encumbered with
baggage as well as with munitions of war, with no roads prepared for
them, and, for the most part, following the sinuosities of the river,
must have had numerous difficulties to surmount. It is, therefore,
unlikely that they were able to maintain their combined movement with
anything like order, or to average in their progress as much as the
fifteen miles a day Dr. Vincent considers a fair estimate for them.
Still less is it possible that they could have accomplished the six
hundred stadia, or seventy miles, in the time Pliny has recorded. The
estimate of Curtius of forty stadia, or four miles and three quarters a
day, is unquestionably nearer the truth, as we know that the fleet was
nine months floating down a distance of little more than one thousand
miles. Moreover, there were constant delays and interruptions, arising
from the arrangements Alexander considered it necessary to make with
the different tribes and provinces through whose territory he had to
advance.
[Sidenote: Establishment of new cities on the banks of the Indus.]
At the junction of the Acesines with the Indus, Alexander established
his first city on the banks of that river. The site was judiciously
chosen, as a city placed in such a position would necessarily partake
of all the commerce that passed up the Indus, to be distributed by
means of its various tributaries, from Candahar and Kâbul on the west,
to Upper India and Thibet on the north and north-east: moreover,
being the centre where all the streams united, it must, consequently,
derive equal emoluments from the commerce that passed downwards to the
coast.[265] From the establishment of this and of other cities on the
banks of the Indus, all of which he fortified, it is evident that the
Macedonian conqueror destined that river to be the eastern frontier
of his empire, and saw that, by holding the command of it, he would
combine, by means of a river navigation to the eastern portion of
his dominions, a maritime commerce with the richest portions of the
interior of India.
On the arrival of the expedition at Pattala, in after days a place
of great commercial importance for the maritime trade with the West,
Alexander made arrangements for despatching Nearchus, with the
largest and best portion of his fleet, to the Euphrates, he himself
proceeding with the bulk of his army, by land, to Susa and Babylon.
The importance of Nearchus’ expedition cannot be too highly estimated,
as on its success greatly depended the carrying out, with thorough
efficiency, that widely extended system of commerce by sea, between
India and Europe, Alexander obviously had in view, and of which the
fleet, under the command of Nearchus, was to serve as the pioneer.
The opening of the Indus, on the one hand, and the establishment of
Alexandria in Egypt on the other, are evidences of a comprehensive
scheme of commercial intercourse between all the leading points of the
then known world. Alexander could scarcely have failed to perceive
that the junction of the great ports of the East and of the West, with
well selected stations, at proper intervals between them, would secure
the stability of his vast empire; indeed, no other device could have
provided for it so well, or could, at the same time, have enabled him
to hold in his own hands by far the largest and most valuable trade
known to the merchants of ancient times.
[Sidenote: Character of the vessels engaged on the voyage from the
Indus to Susa.]
[Sidenote: Time occupied.]
Although Nearchus in his journal enters into the most minute details
of his voyage from the Indus to Susa on the Choaspes, it is remarkable
that he has given no account whatever of the size or number of vessels
under his command. An attentive perusal of his story shows however,
clearly enough, that they were of the smallest description of craft
then in use for sea-going purposes. During the whole voyage they
closely hugged the land, invariably anchoring during the night; and
though occasionally, when the wind was fair and strong, the journal
records a run of sixty, and once of even eighty miles, the average
distance did not exceed twenty-five, add to which, the joy of the
crew when they reached Karamania, and formed a naval camp on shore,
indicates but too plainly that, on board, they had been uncomfortably
crammed from want of space.[266]
The voyage itself is recorded with great care by Nearchus; and Heeren,
in his “Asiatic Nations,”[267] gives a condensed account of it, which
is alike interesting and clear, especially in that portion of it
referring to the leading outlines of the coast. It is interesting
to read in the records of Nearchus that he speaks of the marauding
habits of a people who, having reached a high state of civilization,
and even refinement, seem to have degenerated from what they were two
thousand years ago, and to observe that, by even this circumstance,
the navigator by sea and the traveller by land, of our own time, can
recognize the accuracy of his description.[268]
The whole time occupied on the voyage from the mouth of the Indus
to Susa, appears to have been 146 days—five lunar months and six
days, and not seven months, as stated by Pliny.[269] In calling
attention to this fact, Dr. Vincent remarks that a modern vessel can
perform in three weeks the passage which Nearchus was five months in
accomplishing. “Within the memory of man,” he adds,[270] “a voyage to
India required eight or nine months; but Dr. Robertson mentions that,
in 1788, the _Boddam_ East Indiaman reached Madras in 108 days, and it
has since been performed in 96.” To this we may add that the voyage to
India (Bombay), by way of Marseilles, Egypt, and the Red Sea, is now
performed in 28 days; that auxiliary screw steam-ships from Liverpool
and London perform the voyage, by way of Gibraltar and the Suez Canal,
to Bombay and Ceylon, heavily laden with cargoes each way, and back
to England in 80 days; and that by means of the electric telegraph we
can now communicate with any portion of that vast empire in a day,
practically in a few minutes if there are no obstacles in the way.[271]
[Sidenote: Future voyages.]
But conquests in Asia and Western India were not sufficient to satisfy
the ambition of Alexander, which knew no limits short of the then
known world. Whether he really contemplated the circumnavigation of
Africa, and also its subjugation, is a matter of doubt, but it is a
well established fact that he had in view the conquest of the whole
of Arabia. With that object, he commissioned Nearchus, with the ships
he had brought from the Indus, supplemented by forty-seven vessels
from Phœnicia, which had been built in pieces and conveyed overland
to Thapsacus, and by others constructed on the spot, of cypress, the
only wood Babylon afforded, to form a fleet, and take command of this
second great maritime expedition. Two of the vessels brought from
Phœnicia are described as of five banks, three of four, twelve of
three, while thirty were rowed with fifteen oars on a side.[272] The
object of Alexander was evidently not so much conquest as colonization.
To prepare the way for Nearchus, three single vessels were despatched
at different times down the Arabian side of the Persian Gulf, to learn
the nature of the coast, the character of the soil, and the best
sites for stations or towns. One of these vessels had instructions
to circumnavigate Arabia, and to proceed up the Red Sea as far as
Suez,[273] though it does not appear whether she ever reached her
destination.
[Sidenote: Death of Alexander, B.C. 323.]
Nearchus would, no doubt, have accomplished the task allotted to
him by Alexander, but when the expedition was ready to start, the
Macedonian conqueror lay on his death-bed. In the midst of the fever
of which he died, he, according to the diary of one of his officers,
“transacted business with his officers, and gave directions about the
fleet.”[274] On the following day, though “the fever now ran very high,
and oppressed him much, he nevertheless ordered the principal officers
to attend, and repeated his orders in regard to the fleet”; and on
the day of his death, when unable to speak, it would appear by the
diary preserved in the extracts made from it by Arrian, that his last
thoughts were directed to the conquest and colonization of Arabia. His
untimely death, however, not only put an end to this project, but also
to all his other splendid schemes.
As is well known, the body of Alexander was hardly cold, ere the great
empire he had founded fell to pieces, and was parcelled out among those
who had been his ablest lieutenants; but, though for a while suffering
from the rude conflict of rival selfishness, it is a remarkable fact
that the commercial relations between the different provinces he had
overrun had been so well established by the sagacity of the conqueror,
that on the final restoration of tranquillity, the Macedonian dominion,
and with it Greek principles of trade and mutual intercourse, prevailed
throughout Asia, no province succeeding for many years in shaking
off the yoke. Even in the distant East, though those portions of it
subdued by Alexander for a while joined a native chief Sandracottus
(Chandra-gupta), the ruler of a powerful nation on the banks of
the Ganges, whose plan was to attack those parts of the Macedonian
dominions bordering on his territories, order was soon restored;
while Alexander’s immediate successor in the government of the East,
Seleucus, who had carefully studied the principles of his great
master, conceived so clear an idea of the importance of a commercial
intercourse with India, that he marched into that country, and,
entering into relations with Ptolemy the son of Lagos, established on a
firm basis the trade between the Red Sea and Hindustan, as described in
the previous chapter.
[Sidenote: Eastern India.]
Of the more eastern portions of India little was then known. Indeed, so
late as the geographer Ptolemy, so erroneous are his ideas of the size
and position of even the great island of Ceylon, and of the peninsula
of Hindustan, that it is certain he obtained the information he has
recorded from the reports of persons of no scientific acquirements.
His description of the character of the coasts and of the chief ports
are, on the other hand, more accurate than might have been expected,
considering that his only source of information was from the lips of
unscientific sailors or merchants who had merely visited the places he
notices. Thus, in his account of Ceylon, we find a fair description,
not only of the sea coast of the island, but of the trade then carried
on, and, especially of the nature of the intercourse conducted by the
different nations who frequented its excellent harbours. Ptolemy,
also, notices the productions for which Ceylon was then celebrated, as
rice, honey, ginger, aromatic drugs, pearls, and precious stones, and
especially the beryl and the hyacinth. He likewise mentions gold and
silver, with a special reference to its elephants and tigers. Indeed,
his description of the island resembles in all material points that
given by Cosmas Indicopleustes, four centuries later. Both agree in
stating that the shores were occupied by foreigners, who held the
harbours and the chief seats of commerce, leaving the interior to the
aboriginal inhabitants.
Ptolemy speaks also of many small islands west of Ceylon—doubtless the
Maldives—and of those to the eastward, now called the Sunda Islands,
more especially of Jabadia (now Java), which he describes as the
richest of them all. Many other islands are also noticed by him which
cannot now be identified; it seems also probable that he knew something
of the Straits of Sunda, between Java and Sumatra. Indeed, he mentions
boats peculiar to the Java sea, as observed also by Pliny, constructed
of planks fastened together by trenails instead of iron. Moreover,
his account of India beyond the Ganges, and of the various ports and
cities of the peninsulas of Malacca and Serica (China), proves at least
this, that long before his time these countries were accessible to
navigators, and that Ceylon was the common mart for the trade of all
the vessels bound thence to the westward.
[Sidenote: Ceylon.]
From the “Periplus” of Arrian still more accurate information is
obtainable, and especially with regard to the Malabar coast he himself
visited: from his report we learn that Cochin and Travancore then
carried on a flourishing trade, and that Palæsimundum, the capital
of Ceylon, was considered by him to contain upwards of two hundred
thousand inhabitants, an estimate more likely to be true of the whole
island than of the capital alone. Palæsimundum was on the northern side
of the island, probably on or near the bay of Trincomalee, one of the
finest harbours in India, although then, as now, the port and harbour
of Galle on the south appears to have been the chief rendezvous for
merchant vessels. A glance at the map will show that for this purpose
Galle is eminently well placed.
Nor can the commercial reputation of Ceylon be said to have ever waned;
for of this island alone it may be said that, during all the changes
in the course of commerce, since the Phœnicians of Gerrha first, as we
believe, explored the western shores of the Indian peninsula, Ceylon
has maintained her natural position as the great maritime entrepôt
between the East and the West. Here, doubtless, the voyagers from each
distant land met, as it were, on neutral ground, none of them, perhaps,
for many ages, extending their own commercial relations beyond it. We
have also Pliny’s statement that the Singhalese ambassadors to Rome, in
the reign of Claudius,[275] asserted that their countrymen had reached
China by an overland route through India and across the Himalaya,
before ships had attempted the voyage thither; while it is further
certain that Ceylon also reaped the full share of the advantages
maritime adventure derived from the discovery of the monsoons, and
that, during the period when Rome carried on, by way of the Red Sea, an
extensive commercial intercourse with the East, this island was, as it
had been for so long, the chief emporium of the far East.
[Sidenote: Internal commerce of India.]
Passing on to the time when the transfer of the seat of empire was
made from Rome to Constantinople, and when the Persians vied with the
merchants of Egypt and the ship-owners of Arabia to divert the course
of the Oriental trade from the Red Sea and Alexandria to the Euphrates
and the Persian Gulf, Ceylon continued to be the great rendezvous
alike for the traders of the West and the East.[276] Nor has it lost
in any way its ancient fame as a place of call. At the harbour of
Galle the steamships from Europe, by way of the Red Sea, destined
for Calcutta and the ports of China, now exchange their passengers
and specie with the lines of steamships which trade to the ports of
Australia; while traders from Bombay to Bengal, and other ports of
the East, still make it the centre to which, and from which, their
respective routes converge or diverge. Again, India within itself has,
from the earliest period of authentic history, carried on a large
internal commerce both by land and sea. Rice and other necessaries of
life must have been transported from the countries along the Ganges,
where they grow abundantly, to the sandy shores of the peninsula; and
cotton, though manufactured with the same activity on the coasts as in
the interior, differed so much in each district, in its texture and
mode of preparation, that a large interchange of its various kinds must
naturally have occurred. Again, the mode of life, especially in such
cities as Ayodhya (Oude) implies the existence of a multitude of wants,
natural and artificial, which could only be supplied by a corresponding
system of active commerce between the different parts of India.
It is clear, from Ptolemy, that along the shores of the Indian
peninsula there were a number of ports known to the traders of his
time by the name of “Emporia,” or places of rendezvous; but, as Dr.
Robertson has pointed out, we have no means now of determining whether
these, or most of these, were simply ports for native vessels, or for
the larger ships that conveyed the merchandise of Alexandria and of the
West. It seems, however, probable from his strange ignorance of the
real size of Ceylon (in which ignorance he nearly equals Arrian), that
even then direct communication with that island was not very common;
add to which, that, beyond the Golden Chersonesus, Ptolemy has noticed
but one emporium, a fact clearly showing that few, if any, reports had
reached him of the trade beyond the present site of Singapore.
[Sidenote: Manufactures of India.]
But, however little we may know of the outline of the coasts of India,
or of its harbours to the eastward of Cape Comorin, previous to the
Christian era, there can be no doubt of the comparatively high state of
civilization then prevalent among the Hindus generally, and of their
skill in manufactures.
So great was the variety of cloths manufactured by it even in the days
of Arrian, who gives them in detail, that we can hardly suppose the
number to have afterwards much increased. In the “Periplus”[277] we
read of the finest Bengal muslins; of coarse, middle, and fine cloths;
of coarse and fine calicoes; of coloured shawls and sashes; of coarse
and fine purple goods, as well as of pieces of embroidery; of spun silk
and of furs from Serica: and it is further recorded that the Greeks who
visited India in the train of Alexander the Great, were struck with the
whiteness and fineness of the texture of the cotton garments of the
Hindus. Moreover, it is quite possible that the “coloured cloths and
rich apparel,” noticed by Ezekiel as brought to Tyre and Babylon, were
partly, at least, the production of India. Again, frequent mention
is made of these coloured cloths and fine garments by the poet of the
Râmâyana, and of “the rich woollen stuffs,” perhaps the shawls of
Cashmir, still among the richest portions of female attire in Eastern
countries. Herodotus, also, speaks of the bark of trees being used
in India from very remote times, for the purpose of manufacturing a
species of cloth, extensively worn by pious hermits and penitents. All
these facts establish beyond any question the great antiquity of Indian
civilization.
India, like Asia Minor and Arabia, had its caravans. In those of the
south, elephants were chiefly employed; for the whole of the peninsula
being traversed by rocky mountains, could scarcely, if at all, admit
of the employment of camels. The Ganges and its tributary streams,
however, afforded great facilities for the commercial intercourse of
Northern India, though Arrian adds also, and truly, that many of the
rivers of the south were equally available for trade, and that along
the eastern and western coasts extensive use was made of country-built
boats. Indeed, when we consider the high antiquity of the pearl
fisheries of Ceylon, we cannot doubt that such a coasting trade was
carried on for many hundred years before his time.
At particular periods of the year caravans proceeded to Benares and
Juggernaut, sanctuaries to which hundreds of thousands of pilgrims
resorted for purposes of commerce and devotion long before the
Christian era; and, as markets and fairs were established, and depôts
for goods erected, partly in the interior, but particularly on the
coast, to meet the wants of the vast concourse of pilgrims and traders,
there must, at such times, have been considerable employment for the
native vessels, beyond what was required in the pearl fisheries and in
the ordinary course of traffic.
[Sidenote: A.D. 527-65.]
[Sidenote: A.D. 535.]
[Sidenote: A.D. 150.]
[Sidenote: A.D. 1271-95.]
Though from the age of Ptolemy the trade between Western Europe and
India was carried on by the way of Egypt, Rome and Constantinople
being alike supplied by the agency of the merchants of Alexandria,
we have not, till the reign of Justinian, any further information
concerning the progress of the over-sea trade, or of any discoveries
with reference to the more remote regions of the East. In the course,
however, of his reign, Cosmas (commonly called, from the voyages he
made, Indicopleustes, an Egyptian merchant), went on more than one
occasion to India; and when, in after days, he renounced the pursuits
of commerce, and became a monk, he composed in the solitude and leisure
of his cell, several works, one of which (his “Christian Topography”)
has been preserved.[278] It is not, indeed, a work of any special
merit, consisting, as it does, chiefly of fanciful views about the
shape of the globe. With a condemnation of the notions of Ptolemy, and
of other “speculative” geographers, it contains, however, much curious
and reliable information with reference to the countries he had himself
visited, and especially, to the western coast of the Indian peninsula.
Indeed, from the time of the merchant Arrian to that of Marco Polo,
Cosmas, who traded on the coast of Malabar about the middle of the
sixth century, is the only writer of note who gives any account of the
maritime and commercial affairs of India, during a period of twelve
centuries.
[Sidenote: State of the trade of India, from the sixth to the ninth
century.]
From Cosmas we learn that, in his day, great numbers of vessels from
all parts of India, Persia, and Æthiopia, were in the habit of trading
with Ceylon; and that the island itself had “numerous fleets of ships
belonging to its own merchants.” He reckons the tonnage of these
vessels “as generally of about three thousand amphoræ”;[279] adding
that “their mariners do not make astronomical observations, but carry
birds to sea, and letting them go, from time to time, follow the course
they take for the land.” Cosmas further remarks, that “they devote
only four months in the year to the pursuits of navigation, and are
particularly careful not to trust themselves on the sea during the next
hundred days after the summer solstice, for within those seas it is, at
that time, the middle of winter.” But the “numerous fleets of ships” he
refers to were, probably, the property of Arabian merchants settled in
the island, navigated by their own countrymen, and not by the natives
of Ceylon. The Singhalese, indeed, in ancient and modern times alike,
have shown an apathy in all matters connected with navigation, the
more remarkable as, by its position and the character of its coasts,
Ceylon is singularly well adapted to be the nursery of an able race of
seamen. The boats now found there are all copies from models supplied
by other nations; even their strange canoes, with out-riggers and a
balance log, are but repetitions of the boats of the islanders of
the Eastern Archipelago; while their _ballams_, canoes of a larger
and more substantial description, are borrowed from the vessels of
Malabar. It is curious that, to this day, the gunwales of their dhows
are frequently topped by wicker-work, smeared with clay to protect the
deck from the wash of the sea, much after the fashion of the bulwarks
of the mythical craft of Ulysses.
It is remarkable also that in the enumeration of the exports of
the island of Ceylon given by Arrian, no mention whatever is made
of cinnamon. Nor does Cosmas refer to it. “I have searched,” says
Sir Emerson Tennent, in his work on Ceylon, “among the records of
the Greeks and Romans from the earliest time, until the period when
the commerce of the East had reached its climax in the hands of the
Persians and Arabians: the survey extends over fifteen centuries,
during which Ceylon and its productions were familiarly known to the
traders of all countries, and yet in the pages of no author, European
or Asiatic, from the earliest ages to the close of the thirteenth
century, is there the remotest allusion to cinnamon as an indigenous
production, or even as an article of commerce, in Ceylon. I may add,
that I have been equally unsuccessful in finding any allusions to it in
any Chinese work of ancient date.”[280] This is, in fact, but another,
though a striking instance, of the secrecy with which the ancients
conducted the more valuable portions of their trade, and fully confirms
the notice of the cinnamon trade of Herodotus, who could only have
obtained his information about it from the merchants[281] or mariners
who traded along the shores of Malabar or of Æthiopia to the south
of Zanzibar. He speaks of it as so mysterious in its growth, and so
difficult to obtain, that the most exorbitant prices were given for it
in the markets of Europe; adding that, though in great demand in Tyre,
Carthage, Miletus, and Alexandria, the merchants kept the secret of
its _provenance_ as the Carthaginians kept that of British tin.
[Sidenote: Change in the course of trade.]
[Sidenote: Persian trade with India.]
The trade which the Romans “opened” with India by the way of the Red
Sea, was conducted by them with success for more than five centuries;
but we learn from Cosmas that, but a short time before his travels,
they had met with a new and powerful rival in the Sassanian rulers
of Persia, who, having overthrown the Parthians, and restored the
ancient faith and monarchy of Persia, made early and vigorous efforts
to acquire a share in the lucrative commerce of India. Following in
the course of the early Phœnicians, the Persians with their ships
commenced anew this eastern trade with India, and, in return for the
productions of their own country, received the precious commodities of
Hindustan, conveying them up the Persian Gulf, and, by means of the
rivers Euphrates and Tigris, distributing them through every province
of their empire. Rome being then in its decline, a powerful rival, such
as Persia, could hardly fail to injure, if not to entirely destroy, the
commerce the merchants of Alexandria had for ages nurtured with so much
care. Moreover, the voyage from Persia to India, being much shorter,
and attended with fewer dangers, led to an increase of the intercourse
between the two countries, which the Greek merchants of Alexandria
vainly attempted to resist. Even then, if Cosmas be trustworthy, few
Europeans visited the eastern part of India, but were content to
receive thence its silk, spices, and other valuable productions, either
by caravans or the agency of native vessels.
About this period, China carried on the most prosperous trade of any
of the nations of the East, both by land and sea. Her caravans passed
through Asia and Tatary, and her merchants conducted an extensive
business with the provinces bordering on the Caspian, and in some
cases with the more distant nations to the west and the north. Four
hundred Chinese vessels are said to have been seen in the port of
Ormuz, at the entrance of the Persian Gulf, and China is stated to
have then received ambassadors from all the countries of Asia, as
well as from Constantinople, and the Khalif of Baghdad, thus holding
a direct intercourse with the whole civilized world. The vessels of
China, however, had ceased to repair to the Persian Gulf long before
the Portuguese made their appearance in Calicut; but from the time
of Cosmas to that of Marco Polo they appear to have shared with the
Arabians and Persians the carrying trade of the East, and to have even
extended their voyages to the remote island of Madagascar.
[Sidenote: The Muhammedans, A.D. 622.]
Within a hundred years after the death of Justinian, an event
happened, which occasioned a revolution still more considerable in the
intercourse of Europe with the East. A prophet and a conqueror arose
in Arabia; and within forty years of his death a great part of Asia,
and Africa, with no inconsiderable portion of Europe, had been subdued,
and the dominion of the followers of Muhammed extended from the shores
of the Atlantic to the frontier of China, with a rapidity of success
to which there is nothing similar in the history of mankind. “Egypt,”
remarks Dr. Robertson, “was one of their earliest conquests; and, as
they settled in that inviting country, and kept possession of it, the
Greeks were excluded from all intercourse with Alexandria, to which
they had long resorted as the chief mart of Indian goods. Nor was this
the only effect which the progress of the Muhammedan arms had upon
the commerce of Europe with India. Prior to the invasion of Egypt, the
Arabians had subdued the great kingdom of Persia, and added it to the
empire of the Khalifs.”[282]
[Sidenote: The extent of their commerce with the East.]
Finding their new subjects engaged in the trade with India, and
sensible of the vast advantages to be derived from it, the Muhammedan
rulers turned their attention to it with even greater vigour than
ever the Persians had done; and pursuing the same course they had
followed, their enterprising merchants soon advanced far beyond the
boundaries of ancient navigation as known to the nations of the West,
bringing many of the most precious commodities of the East directly
from the countries in which they were produced. Having founded the city
of Bussorah on the western banks of the great stream formed by the
junction of the Euphrates and Tigris, they thus secured the command
of these two rivers, so that this entrepôt soon became the seat of a
maritime commerce second only to Alexandria in its greatest prosperity.
Although their knowledge of navigation scarcely exceeded that which
the Phœnicians possessed when they launched their expeditions from
Gerrha some two thousand years before, the followers of Muhammed had
extended, as early as the ninth century, their voyages beyond the Gulf
of Siam, carrying on with Sumatra, and other islands of the Indian
Archipelago, a regular commerce, and extending their trading operations
even to the city of Canton. At many of the intervening ports numerous
Arabian merchants and ship-owners settled with their families, so
that the Arabian language was understood, and spoken at most places
of any importance between the mouths of the Euphrates and Tigris, and
Canton.[283]
The Muhammedans were, however, not without rivals in this lucrative
trade, as the Chinese themselves, who, seemingly, were much more
enterprising then as navigators than they are now, no longer limited
their communications with the traders of the West to the Island of
Ceylon; but, rounding Cape Comorin, traded directly with the ports
of Malabar and of the Persian Gulf, sometimes proceeding as far as
the Euphrates, but more frequently terminating their voyage at Siraf,
near to the mouth of that gulf. While these Eastern nations were thus
extending their operations, the people of Europe found themselves
excluded almost entirely from any intercourse with either India or
China. The great port of Alexandria was under the control of the
Muhammedans, and they, and the Christian subjects of the Khalifs, had,
in their own extensive dominions, sufficient demand for all the Indian
commodities they could import. Consequently the trading towns of the
Mediterranean were obliged to seek fresh, or rather to re-open old,
routes to the East, to obtain their supplies. Nor was this a task easy
of accomplishment; and the difficulties surmounted in accomplishing it
furnish a proof that the luxuries of the East were then in as great
demand as they had ever been in ancient times.
[Sidenote: The trade between Constantinople, and India and China.]
Indeed the fabulous prices obtained for silk and various other articles
of Indian produce enabled the trader to overcome any difficulty.
Starting from the banks of the Indus, he found his way by one of the
early routes, already described, to the river Oxus, or directly to
the Caspian, and thence to Constantinople, which became, even more
than it had hitherto been, the great centre of European commerce. The
intercourse between Constantinople and China was much more difficult
and dangerous; as in this case the trader had to proceed to the western
provinces of the Chinese empire, and, having purchased his silk, to
convey it by caravans, for an average of ninety days, to the banks of
the Oxus, and along that stream to the Caspian; thence he followed
the course of the river Cyrus, as far it was navigable, and, after a
five days’ march overland, found his way to the Euxine, by the river
Phasis.[284]
Such were the different means of conducting the commercial intercourse
between Europe and the East in ancient times, and such they practically
continued, amid various minor changes and through many wars and
vicissitudes, up to the period when Vasco de Gama discovered the new
and better way to India by doubling the Cape of Good Hope. We shall
hereafter glance at the maritime commerce of India from the ninth
century up to the time when the Portuguese landed on its shores,
with some notices of the celebrated travels of Marco Polo, of the
expulsion of the Arabians from its trade, and of the decline of the
vast influence so long exercised by the Moors; but in the meantime we
must endeavour to trace the maritime commerce of Rome, and especially
of the Italian Republics, which afterwards exercised more influence in
commercial affairs than the “mistress of the world” had done during her
most prosperous days.
FOOTNOTES:
[245] The earliest dated MS. (a Syriac one, now in the British Museum)
is dated in the first decade of the fifth century of our era. The
Alexandrian codex may be a few years earlier. The oldest Egyptian
inscriptions may ascend to B.C. 2000: that on the Moabite stone,
perhaps, to B.C. 890.
[246] Robertson’s “Hist. Disquis. on India,” note i. p. 179 (ed. 1791).
[247] It may be added, that while Herodotus alludes to other portions
of the history of Sesostris, he omits the tale of his Indian conquests;
that Strabo rejects it altogether (xv. p. 85); while Arrian equally
doubts it.
[248] Heeren, vol. ii. p. 227, in his “Asiatic Researches,” believes
this city to have been founded from 2,000 to 1,500 years before the
Christian era.
[249] Herod. iv. 42-44; iii. 84.
[250] Pliny, who calls this city Bactrum, points out the peculiarity of
its double-humped camel, yet seen on the Bactrian coins (vii. 87).
[251] Herod. iii. 116; iv. 27. Ctesias, ap. Ælian. Nat. Animal. iv. 27
Mela, ii. c. 11.
[252] Arrian, “Periplus,” c. 64, 65
[253] Plin. xiv. 162. Cuvier (ap. Rawlinson’s Herod. iii. 98) speaks
of a bamboo (_Bambus arundinacea_) which grows to the height of sixty
feet. Colonel Yule states that the largest bamboos are in the Malay
Islands and Cambodia. He has seen them from eighty to one hundred feet
high. “Early Travels to India,” 1867, p. 93.
[254] Arrian, “Periplus,” c. 44.
[255] Sir John Herschel has called attention to the fact that the
Chinese have preserved registers of comets and other celestial
phenomena for more than a thousand years before the Christian Era.
“Familiar Lectures,” p. 94, 1868.
[256] Friar Oderic (ap. Colonel Yule, p. 57) speaks of vessels, like
the ancient boats at Rhapta, stitched with twine, without any iron,
employed along the coast approaching the modern site of Bombay.
[257] See an excellent life of Alexander by Archdeacon Williams,
“Family Library,” No. iii. 1829.
[258] Arrian, Ind. vii.
[259] Strabo, book xv. p. 694.
[260] Arrian, Exped. Alex. v. 3.
[261] Lib. xvi. p. 752.
[262] Vincent, vol. i. p. 122. It is worthy of remark that not a single
native of Southern Greece—even of Athens—is mentioned among the leading
followers of Alexander. Nearchus was a Macedonian of Amphipolis; three
other naval chiefs were from Cos, Teos, and Cyprus.
[263] Vincent’s “Commerce in India,” vol. i. p. 169.
[264] Ibid. vol. i. p. 171.
[265] Vincent, i. p. 136. No modern site has as yet been recognised for
this city; nor is Wilson sure. Ariana Antiq. p. 207.
[266] Vincent, “Commerce in India,” vol. i. p. 326.
[267] Ibid. vol. i. chap. ii. p. 431.
[268] In 1838, the author, then a young man in command of the _Olive
Branch_, a barque of four hundred tons, sailed along the whole of
this coast, frequently following the route which Nearchus had taken,
and sometimes obliged to anchor on account of the intricacy of the
navigation, as Nearchus had done, overnight. He can, therefore,
confirm the accuracy of Heeren’s condensed description of the voyage
in its difficulties and dangers; and can testify to the abundance of
the dates, which formed a portion of the author’s return cargo to
Bombay; and also, he may add, to the “robbers” by whom he was attacked
when conveying, from an inland town in the vicinity of Bushire, some
treasure which was destined for his ship.
[269] Lib. vi. p. 136.
[270] Vincent, vol. i. p. 695.
[271] _The Telegraph._ Telegraphic communication with India is now so
far perfect, that electricity outstrips the speed of the earth, as it
frequently happens that messages transmitted from Calcutta at noon to
London are delivered by the Indo-European Telegraph Company at 10.30
A.M. Communication between London and Teherán (the terminus of the
Indian Government lines) is actually instantaneous.—_Times_, 5 April,
1870.
[272] Vincent, vol. i. p. 509.
[273] Pliny, xii. c. 11.
[274] Arrian, “Exp. Alex.” vii. 25.
[275] Pliny, vi. 88.
[276] Ammianus speaks of ambassadors from Ceylon to the Emperor Julian,
xx. 4.
[277] Arrian, “Periplus,” 13 to 36.
[278] This treatise of Cosmas exists in Montfaucon: Bibl. Nov. Patrum.
ii. p. 336.
[279] One thousand amphoræ are equal to about thirty-three tons.
[280] Tennent’s “Ceylon,” vol. i. p. 575.
[281] Herod. iii. 111.
[282] History of India, s. iii. p. 99.
[283] The Malay and many local dialects are still chiefly written in
Arabic characters.
[284] Robertson’s “History of India,” p. 106.