Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile/Volume 1/Book 2/Chapter 1
BOOK II.
Account of the first ages of the indian and african trade - the first peopling of abyssinia and atbara - some conjectures concerning the origin of language there
CHAP. I.
Of the India trade in its earliest ages — Settlement of Ethiopia - Troglodytes — Building of the first Cities.
THE farther back we go into the history of Eastern nations, the more reason we have to be surprised at the accounts of their immense riches and magnificence. One who reads the history of Egypt is like a traveller walking through its ancient, ruined, and deserted towns, where all are palaces and temples, without any trace of private or ordinary habitation. So in the earliest, though now mutila ted, accounts which we have of them, all is power, splendour, and riches, attended by the luxury which was the necessary consequence, without any clue or thread left us by which we can remount, or be conducted, to the source or fountain whence this variety of wealth had flowed; without ever being able to arrive at a period, when these people were poor and mean, or even in a state of mediocrity, or upon a footing with European nations.
The sacred scriptures, the most ancient, as well as the most credible of all histories, represent Palestine, of which they particularly treat, in the earliest ages, as not only full of polished, powerful, and orderly states, but abounding also in silver and gold *[1], in a greater proportion than is to be found this day in any state in Europe, though immensely rich dominions in a new world have been added to the possession of that territory, which furnished the greatest quantity of gold and silver to the old. Palestine, however, is a poor country, left to its own resources and produce merely. It must have been always a poor country, without some extraordinary connection with foreign nations. It never contained either mines of gold or silver, and though, at most periods of its history, it appears to have been but thinly inhabited, it never of itself produced wherewithal to support and maintain the few that dwelt in it.
Mr de Montesquieu †[2], speaking of the wealth of Semiramis, imagines that the great riches of the Assyrian empire in her reign, arose from this queen's having plundered some more ancient and richer nation, as they, in their turn, fell afterwards a prey to a poorer, hut more warlike enemy. But however true this fact may be with regard to Semiramis, it does not solve the general difficulty, as still the same question recurs, concerning the wealth of that prior nation, which the Assyrians plundered, and from which they received their treasure. I believe the example is rare, that a large kingdom has been enriched by war. Alexander conquered all Asia, part of Africa, and a considerable portion of Europe; he plundered Semiramis's kingdom, and all those that were tributary to her; he went farther into the Indies than ever she did, though her territories bordered upon the river Indus itself; yet neither Macedon, nor any of the neighbouring provinces of Greece, could ever compare with the small districts of Tyre and Sidon for riches.
War disperses wealth in the very instant it acquires it; but commerce, well regulated, constantly and honestly supported, carried on with œconomy and punctuality, is the only thing that ever did enrich extensive kingdoms; and one hundred hands employed at the loom will bring to a country more riches and abundance, than ten thousand bearing spears and shields. We need not go far to produce an example that will confirm this. The subjects and neighbours of Semiramis had brought spices by land into Assyria. The Ishmaelites and Midianites, the merchants and carriers of gold from Ethiopia, and more immediately from Palestine, met in her dominions; and there was, for a time, the mart of the East India trade. But, by an absurd expedition with an army into India, in hopes to enrich herself all at once, she effectually ruined that commerce, and her kingdom fell immediately afterwards.
Whoever reads the history of the most ancient nations, will find the origin of wealth and power to have risen in the east; then to have gradually advanced westward, spreading itself at the same time north and south. They will find the riches and population of those nations decay in proportion as this trade forsakes them; which cannot but suggest to a good understanding, this truth constantly to be found in the disposition of all things in this universe, that God makes use of the smallest means and causes to operate the greatest and most powerful effects. In his hand a pepper-corn is the foundation of the power, glory, and riches of India; he makes an acorn, and by it communicates power and riches to nations divided from India by thousands of leagues of sea.
Let us pursue our consideration of Egypt. Sesostris, before the time we have been just speaking of, passed with a fleet of large ships from the Arabian Gulf into the Indian Ocean; he conquered part of India, and opened to Egypt the commerce of that country by sea. I enter not into the credibility of the number of his fleet, as there is scarce any thing credible left us about the shipping and navigation of the ancients, or, at least, that is not full of difficulties and contradictions; my business is with the expedition, not with the number of the ships. It would appear he revived, rather than first discovered, this way of carrying on the trade to the East Indies, which, though it was at times intermitted, (perhaps forgot by the Princes who were contending for the sovereignty of the continent of Asia), was, neverthe less, perpetually kept up by the trading nations themselves, from the ports of India and Africa, and on the Red Sea from Edom.
The pilots from these ports alone, of all the world, had a secret confined to their own knowledge, upon which the success of these voyages depended. This was the phenomena of the trade-winds*[3] and monsoons, which the pilots of Sesostris knew; and which those of Nearchus seem to have taught him only in part, in his voyage afterwards, and of which we are to speak in the sequel. History says further of Sesostris, that the Egyptians considered him as their greatest benefactor, for having laid open to them the trade both of India and Arabia, for having overturned the dominion of the Shepherd kings; and, lastly, for having restored to the Egyptian individuals each their own lands, which had been wrested from them by the violent hands of the Ethiopian Shepherds, during the first usurpation of these princes.
In memory of his having happily accomplished these events, Sesostris is said to have built a ship of cedar of a hundred and twenty yards in length, the outside of which he covered with plates of gold, and the inside with plates of silver, and this he dedicated in the temple of Isis. I will not enter into the defence of the probability of his reasons for having built a ship of this size, and for such a purpose, as one of ten yards would have sufficiently answered. The use it was made for, was apparently to serve for a hieroglyphic, of what he had accomplished, viz. that he had laid open the gold and silver trade from the mines in Ethiopia, and had navigated the ocean in ships made of wood, which were the only ones, he thereby insinuated, that could be employed in that trade. The Egyptian ships, at that time, were all made of the reed papyrus *[4], covered with skins or leather, a construction which no people could venture to present to the ocean.
There is much to be learned from a proper understanding of these last benefits conferred by Sesostris upon his Egyptian subjects. When we understand these, which is very easy to any that have travelled in the countries we are speaking of, (for nations and causes have changed very little in these countries to this day), it will not be difficult to find a a solution of this problem, What was the commerce that, progressively, laid the foundation of all that immense grandeur of the east; what polished them, and cloathed them with silk, scarlet, and gold; and what carried the arts and sciences among them, to a pitch, perhaps, never yet surpassed, and this some thousands of years before the nations in Europe had any other habitation than their native woods, or eloathing than the skins of beasts, wild and domestic, or government, but that first, innate one, which nature had given to the strongest?
Let us inquire what was the connection Sesostris brought about between Egypt and India; what was that commerce of Ethiopia and Arabia, by which he enriched Egypt, and what was their connection with the peninsula of India; who were those kings who bore so opposite an office, as to be at the same time Shepherds; and who were those Shepherds, near, and powerful enough to wrest the property of their lands from four million of inhabitants.
To explain this, it will be necessary to enter into some detail, without which no person dipping into the ancient or modern history of this part of Africa, can have any precise idea of it, nor of the different nations inhabiting the peninsula, the source of whose wealth consisted entirely in the early, but well-established commerce between Africa and India. What will make this subject of more easy explanation is, that the ancient employment and occupations of these people in the first ages, were still the same that subsist at this day. The people have altered a little by colonies of strangers being introduced among them, but their manners and employments are the same as they originally were. What does not relate to the ancient history of these people, I shall only mention in the course of my travels when passing through, or sojourning amongst them.
Providence had created the inhabitants of the peninsula of India under many disadvantages in point of climate. The high and wholesome part of the country was covered with barren and rugged mountains; and, at different times of the year, violent rains fell in large currents down the sides of these, which overflowed all the fertile land below; and these rains were no sooner over, than they were succeeded by a scorching sun, the effect of which upon the human body, was to render it feeble, enervated, and incapable of the efforts necessary for agriculture. In this flat country, large rivers, that scarce had declivity enough to run, crept slowly along, through meadows of fat black earth, stagnating in many places as they went, rolling an abundance of decayed vegetables, and filling the whole air with exhalations of the most corrupt and putrid kind. Even rice, the general food of man, the safest and most friendly to the inhabitants of that country, could not grow but by laying under water the places where it was sown, and thereby rendering them, for several months, absolutely improper for man's dwelling. Providence had done this, but, never failing in its wisdom, had made to the natives a great deal more than a sufficient amends.
Their bodies were unfit for the fatigues of agriculture, nor was the land proper for common cultivation. But this country produced spices of great variety, especially a small berry called Pepper, supposed, of all others, and with reason, to be the greatest friend to the health of man. This grew spontaneously, and was gathered without toil. It was, at once, a perfect remedy for the inclemencies and diseases of the country, as well as the source of its riches, from the demand of foreigners. This species of spice is no where known but in India, though equally useful in every putrid region, where, unhappily, these diseases reign. Providence has not, as in India, placed remedies so near them, thus wisely providing for the welfare of mankind in general, by the dependency it has forced one man to have upon another. In India, and similar climates, this spice is not used in small quantities, but in such, as to be nearly equal to that of bread. In cloathing, Providence had not been less kind to India. The silk worm, with little fatigue and trouble to man, almost without his interference, provided for him a stuff, at once the softest, the most light and brilliant, and consequently the best adapted to warm countries; and cotton, a vegetable production, growing every where in great abundance, without care, which may be considered as almost equal to silk, in many of its qualities, and superior to it in some, afforded a variety still cheaper for more general use. Every tree without culture produced them fruit of the most excellent kind; every tree afforded them shade, under which, with a very light and portable loom of cane, they could pass their lives delightfully in a calm and rational enjoyment, by the gentle exercise of weaving, at once providing for the health of their bodies, the necessities of their families, and the riches of their country.
But however plentifully their spices grew, in whatever quantity the Indians consumed them, and however generally they wore their own manufactures, the superabundance of both was such, as naturally led them to look out for articles against which they might barter their superfluities. This became necessary to supply the wants of those things that had been with-held from them, for wise ends, or which, from wantonness, luxury, or slender necessity, they had created in their own imaginations.
Far to the westward of them, but part of the same continent, connected by a long desert, and dangerous coast, was the peninsula of Arabia, which produced no spices, tho' the necessities of its climate subjected its inhabitants to the same diseases as those in India. In fact, the country and climate were exactly similar, and, consequently, the plentiful use of these warm productions was as necessary there, as in India, the country where they grew.
It is true, Arabia was not abandoned wholly to the inclemency of its climate, as it produced myrrh and frankincense, which, when used as perfumes or fumigations, were powerful antiseptics of their kind, but administered rather as preventatives, than to remove the disorder when it once prevailed. These were kept up at a price, of which, at this day, we have no conception, but which never diminished from any circumstance, under which the country where they grew, laboured.
The silk and cotton of India were white and colourless, liable to soil, and without any variety; but Arabia produced gum and dyes of various colours, which were highly agreeable to the taste of the Asiatics. We find the sacred scriptures speak of the party-coloured garment as the mark of the greatest honour *[5]. Solomon, in his proverbs, too, says, that he decked his bed with coverings of tapestry of Egypt †[6]. But Egypt had neither silk nor cotton manufactory, no, nor even wool. Solomon's coverings, though he had them from Egypt, were therefore an article of barter with India.
Balm, or Balsam ‡[7], was a commodity produced in Arabia, sold at a very high price, which it kept up till within these few centuries in the east; when the Venetians carried on the India trade by Alexandria, this Balsam then sold for its weight in gold; it grows in the same place, and, I believe, nearly in the same quantity as ever, but, for very obvious reasons*[8], it is now of little value.
The basis of trade, or a connection between these two countries, was laid, then, from the beginning, by the hand of Providence. The wants and necessities of the one found a supply, or balance from the other. Heaven had placed them not far distant, could the passage be made by sea; but violent, steady, and unconquerable winds presented themselves to make that passage of the ocean impossible, and we are not to doubt, but, for a very considerable time, this was the reason why the commerce of India was diffused through the continent, by land only, and from this arose the riches of Semiramis.
But, however precious the merchandise of Arabia was, it was neither in quantity, nor quality, capable of balancing the imports from India. Perhaps they might have paid for as much as was used in the peninsula of Arabia itself, bus, beyond this there was a vast continent called Africa, capable of consuming many hundred fold more than Arabia; which lying under the same parallel with India, part of it still farther south, the diseases of the climate, and the wants of its numerous inhabitants, were, in many parts of it, the same as those of Arabia and India; besides which there was the Red Sea, and divers communications to the northward.
Neither their luxuries nor necessaries were the same as those of Europe. And indeed Europe, at this time, was probably inhabited by shepherds, hunters, and fishers, who had no luxury at all, or such as could not be supplied from India; they lived in woods and marshes, with the animals which made their sport, food, and cloathing.
The inhabitants of Africa then, this vast Continent, were to be supplied with the necessaries, as well as the luxuries of life, but they had neither the articles Arabia wanted, nor those required in India, at least, for a time they thought so; and so long they were not a trading people.
It is a tradition among the Abyssinians, which they say they have had from time immemorial, and which is equally received among the Jews and Christians, that almost immediately after the flood, Cush, grandson of Noah, with his family, passing through Atbara from the low country of Egypt, then without inhabitants, came to the ridge of mountains which still separates the flat country of Atbara from the more mountainous high-land of Abyssinia.
By casting his eye upon the map, the reader will see a chain of mountains, beginning at the Isthmus of Suez, that runs all along like a wall, about forty miles from the Red Sea, till it divides in lat. 13°, into two branches. The one goes along the northern frontiers of Abyssinia, crosses the Nile, and then proceeds westward, through Africa towards the Atlantic Ocean. The other branch goes southward, and then east, taking the form of the Arabian Gulf; after which, it continues southward all along the Indian Ocean, in the same manner as it did in the beginning all along, the Red Sea, that is parallel to the coast.
Their tradition says, that, terrified with the late dreadful event the flood, still recent in their minds, and apprehensive of being again involved in a similar calamity, they chose for their habitation caves in the sides of these mountains, rather than trust themselves again on the plain. It is more than probable, that, soon after their arrival, meeting here with the tropical rains, which, for duration, still exceed the days that occasioned the flood, and observing, that going through Atbara, that part of Nubia between the Nile and Astaboras, afterwards called Meroë, from a dry climate at first, they had after fallen in with rains, and as those rains increased in proportion to their advancing southward, they chose to stop at the first mountains, where the country was fertile and pleasant, rather than proceed farther at the risk of involving themselves, perhaps in a land of floods, that might prove as fatal to their posterity as that of Noah had been to their ancestors.
This is a conjecture from probability, only mentioned for illustration, for the motives that guided them cannot certainly be known; but it is an undoubted fact, that here the Cushites, with unparalleled industry, and with instruments utterly unknown to us, formed for themselves commodious, yet wonderful habitations in the heart of mountains of granite and marble, which remain entire in great numbers to this day, and promise to do so till the consummation of all things. This original kind of dwellings soon ex tended themselves through the neighbouring mountains. As the Cushites grew populous, they occupied those that were next them, spreading the industry and arts which they cultivated, as well to the eastern as to the western ocean, but, content with their first choice, they never descended from their caves, nor chose to reside at a distance on the plain.
It is very singular that St Jerome does not know where to look for this family, or descendents of Cush; though they are as plainly pointed out, and as often alluded to by scripture, as any nation in the Old Testament. They are described, moreover, by the particular circumstances of their country, which have never varied, to be in the very place where I now fix them, and where, ever since, they have remained, and still do to this present hour, in the same montains, and the same houses of stone they formed for themselves in the beginning. And yet Bochart *[9], professedly treating this subject, as it were industriously, involves it in more than Egyptian darkness. I rather refer the reader to his work, to judge for himself, than, quoting it by extracts, communicate the confusion of his ideas to my narrative.
The Abyssinian tradition further says, they built the city of Axum some time early in the days of Abraham. Soon after this, they pushed their colony down to Atbara, where we know from Herodotus *[10] they early and successfully pursued their studies, from which, Josephus says ‡[11], they were called Meroëtes, or inhabitants of the island of Meroë. The prodigious fragments of colossal statues of the dog-star, still to be seen at Axum, sufficiently shew what a material object of their attention they considered him to be; and Seir, which in the language of the Troglodytes, in that of the low country of Meroë, exactly corresponding to it, signifies a dog, instructs us in the reason why this province was called Sirè, and the large river which bounds it, Siris.
I apprehend the reason why, without forsaking their ancient domiciles in the mountains, they chose this situation for another city, Meroë, was owing to an imperfection they had discovered (both in Sirè and in their caves below it) to result from their climate. They were within the tropical rains; and, consequently, were impeded and interrupted in the necessary observations of the heavenly bodies, and the progress of astronomy which they so warmly cultivated. They must have seen, likewise, a necessity of building Meroë farther from them than perhaps they wished, for the same reason they built Axum in the high country of Abyssinia in order to avoid the fly (a phænomenon of which I shall afterwards speak) which pursued them everywhere within the limits of the rains, and which must have given an absolute law in those first times to the regulations of the Cushite settlements. They therefore went the length of lat. 16°, where I saw the ruins supposed to be those of Meroë*[12], and caves in the mountains immediately above that situation, which I cannot doubt were the temporary habitation of the builders of that first seminary of learning. It is probable that, immediately upon their success at Meroë, they lost no time in stretching on to Thebes. We know that it was a colony of Ethiopians, and probably from Meroë, but whether directly, or not, we are not certain. A very short time might have passed between the two establishments, for we find above Thebes, as there are above Meroë, a vast number of caves, which the colony made provisionally, upon its first arrival, and which are very near the top of the mountain, all inhabited to this day.
Hence we may infer, that their ancient apprehensions of a deluge had not left them whilst, they saw the whole land of Egypt could be overflowed every year without rain falling upon it; that they did not absolutely, as yet, trust to the stability of towns like those of Sirè and Meroë, placed upon columns or stones, one laid upon the other, or otherwise, that they found their excavations in the mountains were finished with less trouble, and more comfortable when complete, than the houses that were built. It was not long before they assumed a greater degree of courage.
- ↑ * Exod. xxxviii 39.
- ↑ † Lib. 21. cap. 6.
- ↑ * These are far from being synonymous terms, as we shall see afterwards.
- ↑ * See the article papyrus in the Appendix.
- ↑ * Gen. xxxvii. 3 and 2 Sam. xiii. 18.
- ↑ † Prov. vii. 16.
- ↑ ‡ Vide Appendix, where this tree is described.
- ↑ * The quantity of similar drugs brought from the New World.
- ↑ * Boch. lib. 4. cap. 3.
- ↑ † Herod. lib.2, cap. 29.
- ↑ ‡ Joseph. antiquit. Jud.
- ↑ * At Gerri in my return through the desert.