Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile/Volume 1/Book 2/Chapter 5

by James Bruce

CHAP. V.

Fluctuating State of the India Trade — Hurt by Military Expeditions of the Persians — Revives under the Ptolemies — Falls to Decay under the Romans.

THE prosperous days of the commerce with the Elanitic Gulf seemed to be at this time nearly past; yet, after the revolt of the ten tribes, Edom remaining to the house of David, they still carried on a sort of trade from the Elanitic Gulf, though attended with many difficulties. This continued till the reign of Jehosaphat *^[1]; but, on Jehoram's succeeding that prince, the Edomites †^[2] revolted and chose a king of their own, and were never after subject to the kings of Judah till the reign of Uzziah ‡^[3], who conquered Eloth, fortified it, and having peopled it with a colony of his own, revived the old traffic. This subsisted till the reign of Ahaz, when Rezin king of Damascus took Eloth ║^[4], and expelled the Jews, planting in their stead a colony of Syri ans. But he did not long enjoy this good fortune, for the year after, Rezin *^[5] was conquered by Tilgath-pileser; and one of the fruits of this victory was the taking of Eloth, which never after returned to the Jews, or was of any profit to Jerusalem.

The repeated wars and conquest to which the cities on the Elanitic Gulf had been subject, the extirpation of the Edomites, ail the great events that immediately followed one another, of course disturbed the usual channel of trade by the Red Sea, whose ports were now consequently become unsafe by being in possession of strangers, robbers, and soldiers it changed, therefore, to a place nearer the center of police and good government, than fortified and frontier towns could be supposed to be. The Indian and African merchants, by convention,, met in Assyria, as they had done in Semiramis's time; the one by the Persian Gulf and Euphrates, the other through Arabia. Assyria, therefore, became the mart of the India trade in the East.

The conquests of Nabopollaser, and his son Nebuchadnezzar, had brought a prodigious quantity of bullion, both silver and gold, to Babylon his capital. For he had plundered Tyre †^[6], and robbed Solomon's Temple ‡^[7] of all the gold that had been brought from Ophir; and he had, besides, conquered Egypt and laid it waste, and cut off the communication of trade in all these places, by almost extirpating the people. Immense riches flowed to him, therefore, on all sides, and it was a circumstance particularly favourable to merchants in that country, that it was governed by written laws that screened their properties from any remarkable violence or injustice.

I suppose the phrase in scripture, "The law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not *^[8]," must mean only written laws, by which those countries were governed, without being left to the discretion of the judge, as all the East was, and as it actually now is.

In this situation the country was at the birth of Cyrus, who, having taken Babylon †^[9] and slain Belshazzer ‡^[10], became master of the whole trade and riches of the East. Whatever character writers give of this great Prince, his conduct, with regard to the commerce of the country, shews him to have been a weak one: For, not content with the prodigious prosperity to which his dominions had arrived, by the misfortune of other nations, and perhaps by the good faith kept by his subjects to merchants, enforced by those written laws, he undertook the most absurd and disastrous project of molesting the traders themselves, and invading India, that all at once he might render himself master of their riches. He executed this scheme just as absurdly as he formed it; for, knowing that large caravans of merchants came into Persia and Assyria from India, through the Ariana, (the desert coast that runs all along the Indian Ocean to the Persian Gulf, almost entirely destitute of water, and very nearly as much so of provisions, both which caravans always carry with them), he attempted to enter India by the very same road with a large army, the very same way his predecessor Semiramis had projected 1300 years before; and as her army had perished, so did his to a man, without ha[v]ing ever had it in his power to take one pepper-corn by force from any part of India.

The same fortune attended his son and successor Cambyses, who, observing the quantity of gold brought from Ethiopia into Egypt, resolved to march to the source, and at once make himself master of those treasures by rapine, which he thought came too slowly through the medium of commerce.

Cambyses's expedition into Africa is too well known for me to dwell upon it in this place. It hath obtained a celebrity by the absurdity of the project, by the enormous cruelty and havock that attended the course of it, and by the great and very just punishment that closed it in the end. It was one of those many monstrous extravagancies which made up the life of the greatest madman that ever disgraccd the annals of antiquity. The basest mind is perhaps the most capable of avarice; and when this passion has taken possession of the human heart, it is strong enough to excite us to undertakings as great as any of those dictated by the noblest of our virtues.

Cambyses, amidst the commission of the most horrid excesses during the conquest of Egypt, was informed that, from the south of that country, there was constantly brought a quantity of pure gold, independent of what came from the top of the Arabic Gulf, which was now carried into Assyria, and circulated in the trade of his country. This supply of gold belonged properly and exclusively to Egypt; and a very lucrative, though not very extensive commerce, was, by its means, carried on with India. He found out that the people, possessing these treasures, were called Macrobii, which signifies long livers; and that they possessed a country divided from him by lakes, mountains, and deserts. But what still affected him most was, that in his way were a multitude of warlike Shepherds, with whom the reader is already sufficiently acquainted.

Cambyses, to flatter, and make peace with them, fell furiously upon all the gods and temples in Egypt; he murdered the sacred ox, the apis, destroyed Memphis, and all the public buildings wherever he went. This was a gratification to the Shepherds, being equally enemies to those that worshipped beasts, or lived in cities. After this introduction, he concluded peace with them in the most solemn manner, each nation vowing eternal amity with the other. Notwithstanding which, no sooner was he arrived at Thebes (in Egypt) than he detached a large army to plunder the Temple of Jupiter Ammon, the greatest object of the worship of these shepherds; which army utterly perished without a man remaining, covered, as I suppose, by the moving sands. He then began his march against the Macrobii, keeping close to the Nile. The country there being too high to receive any benefit from the inundation of the river, produced no corn, so that part of his army died for want of provision. Another detachment of his army proceeded to the country of the Shepherds, who, indeed, furnished him with food; but, exasperated at the sacrilege he had committed against their god, they conducted his troops through places where they could procure no water. After suffering all this loss, he was not yet arrived beyond 24°, the parallel of Syené. From hence he dispatched ambassadors, or spies, to discover the country before him, finding he could no longer rely upon the Shepherds. These found it full of black war-like people, of great size, and prodigious strength of body; active, and continually exercised in hunting the lion, the elephant, and other monstrous beasts which live in these forests.

The inhabitants so abounded with gold, that the most common utensils and instruments were made of that metal, whilst, at the same time, they were utter strangers to bread of any kind whatever ; and, not only so, but their country was, by its nature, incapable of producing any sort of grain from which bread could be made. They subsisted upon raw flesh alone, dried in the fun, especially that of the rhinoceros, the elephant, and giraffa, which they had slain in hunting. On such food they have ever since lived, and live to this day, and on such food I myself have lived with them; yet still it appears strange, that people confined to this diet, without variety or change, should have it for their characteristic that they were long livers.

They were not at all alarmed at the arrival of Cambyses's ambassadors. On the contrary, they treated them as an inferior species of men. Upon asking them about their diet, and hearing it was upon bread, they called it dung, I suppose as having the appearance of that bread which I have seen the miserable Agows, their neighbours, make from seeds of bastard rye, which they collect in their fields under the burning rays of the sun. They laughed at Cambyses's requisition of submitting to him, and did not conceal their contempt of his idea of bringing an army thither.

They treated ironically his hopes of conquest, even supposing all difficulties of the desert overcome, and his army ready to enter their country, and counseled him to return while he was well, at least for a time, till he should produce a man of his army that could bend the bow that they then sent him; in which case, he might continue to advance, and have hope of conquest. — The reason of their reference to the bow will be seen afterwards. I mention these circumstances of the quantity of gold, the hunting of elephants, their living upon the raw flesh, and, above all, the circumstances of the bow, as things which I myself can testify to have met with among this very people. It is, indeed, highly satisfactory in travelling, to be able to explain truths which, from a want of knowledge of the country alone, have been treated as falsehoods, and placed to the discredit of historians.

The Persians were all famous archers. The mortification, therefore, they experienced, by receiving the bow they could not bend, was a very sensible one, though the narrative of the quantity of gold the messengers had seen made a much greater impression upon Cambyses. To procure this treasure was, however, impracticable, as he had no provision, nor was there any in the way of his march. His army, therefore, wasted daily by death and dispersion; and he had the mortification to be obliged to retreat into Egypt, after part of his troops had been reduced to the necessity of eating each other *^[11].

Darius, king of Persia, attempted to open this trade in a much more worthy and liberal manner, as he sent ships down the river Indus into the ocean, whence they entered the Red Sea. It is probable, in this voyage, he acquired all the knowledge necessary for establishing this trade in Persia; for he must have passed through the Persian Gulf, and along the whole eastern coast of Arabia; he must have seen the marts of perfumes and spices that were at the mouth of the Red Sea, and the manner of bartering for gold and silver, as he was necessarily in those trading places which were upon the very same coast from which the bullion was brought. I do not know, then, why M. de Montesquieu †^[12] has treated this expedition of Darius so contemptuously, as it appears to have been executed without great trouble or expence, and terminated without loss or hardship; the strongest proof that it was at first wisely planed. The prince himself was famous for his love of learning, which we find by his anxiety to be admitted among the Magi, and the sense he had of that honour, in causing it to be engraved upon his tomb. The expedition of Alexander into India was, of all events, that which most threatened the destruction of the commerce of the Continent, or the dispersing it into different channels throughout the East: First, by the destruction of Tyre, which must have, for a time, annihilated the trade by the Arabian Gulf; then by his march through Egypt into the country of the Shepherds, and his intended further progress into Ethiopia to the head of the Nile. If we may judge of what we hear of him in that part of his expedition, we should be apt not to believe, as others are fond of doing, that he had schemes of commerce mingled with those of conquests. His anxiety about his own birth at the Temple of Jupiter Ammon, this first question that he asked of the priest, "Where the Nile had its source," seemed to denote a mind busied about other objects; for else he was then in the very place for information, being in the temple of that horned god *^[13], the deity of the Shepherds, the African carriers of the Indian produce; a temple which, though in the midst of sand, and destitute of gold or silver, possessed more and better information concerning the trade of India and Africa, than could be found in any other place on the Continent. Yet we do not hear of one question being made, or one arrangement taken, relative to opening the India trade with Thebes, or with Alexandria, which he built afterwards.

After having viewed the main ocean to the south, he ordered Nearchus with his fleet to coast along the Persian Gulf, accompanied by part of the army on land for their mutual assistance, as there were a great many hardships which followed the march of the army by land, and much difficulty and danger attended the shipping as they were sailing in unknown seas against the monsoons. Nearchus himself informed the king at Babylon of his successful voyage, who gave him orders to continue it into the Red Sea, which he happily accomplished to the bottom of the Arabian Gulf.

We are told it was his intention to carry on the India trade by the Gulf of Persia, for which reason he broke down all the cataracts and dams which the Persians had built over the rivers communicating with the Euphrates. No use, however, seems to have been made of his knowledge of Arabia and Ethiopia, which makes me imagine this expedition of Alexander's fleet was not an idea of his own. It is, indeed, said, that when Alexander came into India, the southern or Indian Ocean was perfectly unknown; but I am rather inclined to believe from this circumstance, that this voyage was made from some memorials remaining concerning the voyage of Darius. The fact and circumstances of Darius's voyage are come down to us, and, by these very same means, it must be probable they reached Alexander, who I do not believe ever intended to carry on the India trade at Babylon.

To render it impossible, indeed, he could not have done three things more effectual than he did, when he destroyed Tyre, and dispersed its inhabitants, persecuted the Orites, or land-carriers, in the Ariana, and built Alexandria upon the Mediterranean; which last step fixed the Indian trade in that city, and would have kept it there eternally, had the Cape of Good Hope never been discovered. The Ptolemies, the wisest princes that ever sat upon the throne of Egypt, applied with the utmost care and attention to cultivate the trade of India, to keep up perfect and friendly understanding with every country that supplied any branch of it, and, instead of disturbing it either in Asia, Arabia, or Ethiopia, as their predecessors had done, they used their utmost efforts to encourage it in all quarters.

Ptolemy I. was then reigning in Alexandria, the foundation of whose greatness he not only laid, but lived to see it arrive at the greatest perfection. It was his constant saying, that the true glory of a king was not in being rich himself, but making his subjects so. He, therefore, opened his ports to all trading nations, encouraged strangers of every language, protected caravans, and a free navigation by sea, by which, in a few years, he made Alexandria the great store-house of merchandize, from India, Arabia, and Ethiopia. He did still further to insure the duration of his kingdom, at the same time that he shewed the utmost disinterestedness for the future happiness of his people. He educated his son, Ptolemy Philadelphus, with the utmost care, and the happy genius of that prince had answered his father's utmost expectations; and, when he arrived at the age of governing, the father, worn out by the fatigue of long wars, surrendered the kingdom to his son.

Ptolemy had been a soldier from his infancy, and consequently kept up a proper military force, that made him every where respected in these warlike and unsettled times. He had a fleet of two hundred ships of war constantly ready in the port of Alexandria, the only part for which he had apprehensions. All behind him was wisely governed, whilst it enjoyed a most flourishing trade, to the prosperity of which peace is necessary. He died in peace and old age, after having merited the glorious name of Soter, or Saviour of the kingdom, which he himself had founded, the greatest part of which differed from him in language, colour, habit, and religion.

It is with astonishment we see how thoroughly he had establifhed the trade of India, Ethiopia, and Arabia, and what progress he had already made towards uniting it with that of Europe, by a passage in Athenæus *^[14], who mentions a festival and entertainment given by his son, Ptolemy Philadelphus, to the people of Alexandria at his accession, while his father was alive, but had just given up his crown.

There was in this procession a great number of Indian women, besides of other countries; and by Indians we may understand, not only the Asiatic Indians, but the Abyssinians, and the inhabitants of the higher part of Africa, as all these countries were comprehended under the common appellation of India. These were in the habit of slaves, and each led, or was followed by, a camel loaded with incese of Sheher, and cinnamon, besides other aromatics. After these came a number of Ethiopian blacks carrying the teeth of 600 elephants. Another troop had a prodigious quantity of ebony; and again others loaded with that finest gold, which is not dug from the mine, but washed from the mountains by the tropical rains in small pieces, or pellets, which the natives and traders at this day call Tibbar. Next came a pack of 24,000 Indian dogs, all Asiatics, from the peninsula of India, followed by a prodigious number of foreign animals, both beasts and birds, paroquets, and other birds of Ethiopia, carried in cages; 130 Ethiopian sheep, 300 Arabian, and 20 from the Isle Nubia *^[15]; 26 Indian buffaloes, white as snow, and eight from Ethiopia; three brown bears, and a white one, which last must have been from the north of Europe; 14 leopards, 16 panthers, four lynxes, one giraffa, and a rhinoceros of Ethiopia.

When we reflect upon this prodigious mixture of animals, all so easily procured at one time, without preparation, we may imagine, that the quantity of merchandises, for common demand, which accompanied them, must have been in the proper proportion.

The current of trade ran towards Alexandria with the greatest impetuosity, all the articles of luxury of the East were to be found there. Gold and silver, which were sent formerly to Tyre, came now down to the Isthmus (for Tyre was no more) by a much shorter carriage, thence to Memphis, whence it was sent down the Nile to Alexandria. The gold from the west and south parts of the Continent reached the same port with much less time and risk, as there was now no Red Sea to pass; and here was found the merchandise of Arabia and India in the greatest profusion. To facilitate the communication with Arabia, Ptolemy built a town on the coast of the Red Sea, in the country of the Shepherds, and called it Berenice *^[16], after his mother. This was intended as a place of necessary refreshment for all the traders up and down the Gulf, whether of India or Ethiopia; hence the cargoes of merchants, who were afraid of losing the monsoons, or had lost them, were carried by the inhabitants of the country, in three days, to the Nile, and there embarked for Alexandria. To make the communication between the Nile and the Red Sea still more commodious, this prince tried an attempt (which had twice before miscarried with very great loss) to bring a canal †^[17] from the Red Sea to the Nile, which he actually accomplished, joining it to the Pelusiac, or Eastern branch of the Nile. Locks and sluices moreover are mentioned as having been employed even in those early days by Ptolemy, but very trifling ones could be needed, for the difference of level is there but very small.

This noble canal, one hundred yards broad, was not of that use to trade which was expected; merchants were weary of the length of time consumed in going to the very bottom of the Gulf, and afterwards with this inland navigation of the canal, and that of the Nile, to Alexandria. It was therefore much more expeditious to unload at Berenice, and, after three days journey, send their merchandise directly down to Alexandria. Thus the canal was disused, the goods passed from Berenice to the Nile by land, and that road continues open for the same purpose to this day. It should appear, that Ptolemy had employed the vessels of India and the Red Sea, to carry on his commerce with the peninsula, and that the manner of trading directly to India with his own ships, was either not known or forgotten. He therefore sent two ambassadors, or messengers, Megasthenes and Denis, to observe and report what was the state of India since the death of Alexander. These two performed their voyage safely and speedily. The account they gave of India, if it was strictly a true one, was, in all respects, perfectly calculated to animate people to the further prosecution of that trade. In the mean time, in order to procure more convenience for vessels trading on the Red Sea, he resolved to attempt the penetrating into that part of Ethiopia which lies on that sea, and, as historians imagine, with an intention to plunder the inhabitants of their riches.

It must not, however, be supposed, that Ptolemy was not enough acquainted with the productions of a country so near to Egypt, as to know this part of it had neither gold nor silver, whilst it was full of forests likewise; for it was that part of Ethiopia called Barbaria, at this day Barabra, inhabited by shepherds wandering with their cattle about the neighbouring mountains according as the rains fall. Another more probable conjecture was, that he wanted, by bringing about a change of manners in these people, to make them useful to him in a matter that was of the highest importance.

Ptolemy, like his father, had a very powerful fleet and army, he but was inferior to many of the princes, his rivals, in elephants, of which great use was then made in war. These Ethiopians were hunters, and killed them for their subsistence. Ptolemy, however, wished to have them taken alive, being numerous, and hoped both to furnish himself, and dispofe of them as an article of trade, to his neighbours.

There is something indeed ridiculous in the manner in which he executed this expedition. Aware of the difficulty of subsisting in that country, he chose only a hundred Greek horsemen, whom he covered with coats of monstrous appearance and size, which left nothing visible but the eyes of the rider. Their horses too were disguised by huge trappings, which took from them all proportion and shape. In this manner they entered this part of Ethiopia, spreading terror every where by their appearance, to which their strength and courage bore a strict proportion whenever they came to action. But neither force nor intreaty could gain any thing upon these Shepherds, or ever make them change or forsake the food they had been so long accustomed to; and all the fruit Ptolemy reaped from this expedition, was to build a city, by the sea-side, in the south-east corner of this country, which he called Ptolemais Theron, or Ptolemais in the country of wild beasts.

I have already observed, but shall again repeat it, that the reason why ships, in going up and down the Red Sea, kept always upon the Ethiopian shore, and why the greatest number of cities were always built upon that side is, that water is much more abundant on the Ethiopian side than the Arabian, and it was therefore of the greatest consequence to trade to have that coast fully discovered and civilized. Indeed it is more than probable, that nothing further was intended by the expedition of the hundred Greeks, just now mentioned, than to gain sufficient intelligence how this might be done most perfectly. Ptolemy Evergetes, son and successor of Ptolemy Philadelphus, availed himself of this discovery. Having provided himself amply with necessaries for his army, and ordered a fleet to coast along beside him, up the Red Sea, he penetrated quite through the country of the Shepherds into that of the Ethiopian Troglodytes, who are black and woolly-headed, and inhabit the low country quite to the mountains of Abyssinia. Nay *^[18], he even ascended those mountains, forced the inhabitants to submission, built a large temple at Axum, the capital of Sirè, and raised a great many obelisks, several of which are standing to this day. Afterwards proceeding to the south-east, he descended into the cinnamon and myrrh country, behind Cape Gardefan, (the Cape that terminates the Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean) from this, crossed over to Arabia, to the Homerites, being the same people with the Abyssinians, only on the Arabian shore. He then conquered several of the Arabian princes, who first resisted him, and had it in his power to have put an end to the trade of India there, had he not been as great a politician as he was a warrior. He used his victory, therefore, in no other manner, than to exhort and oblige these princes to protect trade, encourage strangers, and, by every means, provide for the surety of neutral intercourse, by making rigorous examples of robbers by sea and land.

The reigns of the latter Ptolemies were calculated to bring this commerce to a decline, had it not been for two great events, the fall of Carthage, destroyed by Scipio, and that of Corinth, by the consul Mummius. The importance of these events to Alexandria seems to have sustained the prosperity of Egypt, even against the ravages committed in the war between Ptolemy the VI. and VII. Alexandria was then besieged, and not only deprived of its riches, but reduced to the utmost want of necessaries, and the horrid behaviour of Ptolemy VII. (had it continued) would have soon rendered that city desolate. The consequence of such a conduct, however, made a strong impression on the prince himself, who, at once recalling his unjust edicts, by which he had banished all foreign merchants from Alexandria, became on a sudden wholly addicted to commerce, the encourager of arts and sciences, and the protector of strangers.

The impolitic conduct in the beginning of his reign, however, had affected trade even in India. For the story preserved by Posidonius, and very improperly criticised by Strabo, seems to import little less. One day, the troops posted on the Arabian Gulf found a ship abandoned to the waves, on board of which was one Indian only, half dead with hunger and thirst, whom they brought to the king. This Indian declared he sailed from his own country, and, having lost his course and spent all his provisions, he was carried to the place where he was found, without knowing where he was, and after having survived the rest of his companions: he concluded an imperfect narrative, by offering to be a guide to any person his majesty would send to India. His proposals were accordingly accepted, and Eudoxus was named by the king to accompany him. Strabo *^[19] indeed laughs at this story. However, we must say, he has not seized the most ridiculous parts of it.

We are told that the king ordered the Indian to be taught Greek, and waited with patience till he had learned that language, Surely, before any person could thus instruct him, the master must have had some language in common with his scholar, or he had better have taught Eudoxus the Indian language, as it would have been as easy, and of much more use in the voyage he was to undertake. Besides, is it possible to believe, after the many years the Egyptians traded backwards and forwards to India, that there was not a man in Alexandria who could interpret for him to the king, when such a number of Egyptians went every year to India to trade, and stayed there for months each time? Could Ptolemy Philadelphus, at his father's festival, find 600 Indian female slaves, all at once, in Alexandria; and, after the trade had lasted so much longer, were the people from India decreased, or would their language be less understood? The king's wisdom, moreover, did not shew itself greatly, when he was going to trust a ship with his subjects to so skilful a pilot as this Indian, who, in the first voyage, had lost himself and all his companions.

India, however, and the Indian seas, were as well known in Egypt as they are now; and the magnificence and shew which attended Eudoxus's embassy seems to prove, that whatever truth there is in the Indian being found, Eudoxus' errand must have been to remove the bad effects that the king's extortions and robberies, committed upon all strangers in the beginning of his reign, had made upon the trading nations. Eudoxus returned, but after the death of Ptole my. The necessity, however, of this voyage appeared still great enough to make Cleopatra his widow project a second to the same place, and greater preparations were made than for the former one.

But Eudoxus, trying experiments probably about the courses of the trade-winds, loft his passage, and was thrown upon the coast of Ethiopia ; where, having landed, and made himself agreeable to the natives, he brought home to Egypt a particular description of that country and its produce, which furnished all the discovery necessary to instruct the Ptolemies in every thing that related to the ancient trade of Arabia. In the course of the voyage, Eudoxus discovered the part of the prow of a vessel which had been broken off by a storm. The figure of a horse made it an object of inquiry; and some of the sailors on board, who had been employed in European voyages, immediately knew this wreck to be part of one of those vessels used to trade on the western ocean. Eudoxus *^[20] instantly perceived all the importance of the discovery, which amounted to nothing less, than that there was a passage round Africa from the Indian to the Atlantic Ocean. Full of this thought, he returned to Egypt, and,, having shewn the prow of his vessel to European ship-masters, they all declared that this had been part of a vessel which had belonged to Cadiz, in Spain.

This discovery, great as it was, was to none of more importance than to Eudoxus; for, some time after, falling under the displeasure of Ptolemy Lathyrus, VIIIth of that name, and being in danger of his life, he fled and embarked on the Red Sea, sailed round the peninsula of Africa, crossed the Atlantic Ocean, and came safely to Cadiz.

The spirit of inquiry, and desire of travelling, spread itself instantly through Egypt, upon this voyage of Eudoxus; and different travellers pushed their discoveries into the heart of the country, where some of the nations are reported to have been so ignorant as not to know the use of fire: ignorance almost incredible, had we not an instance of it in our own times. It was in the reign of Ptolemy IX. that Agatharcides *^[21] drew up his description of the Red Sea.

The reigns of the other Ptolemies ending in the XIIIth of that name, though full of great events, have nothing material to our present subject. Their constant expence and profusion must have occasioned a great consumption of trading articles, and very little else was wanting; or, if there had, it must have arrived at its height in the reign of the celebrated Cleopatra; whose magnificence, beauty, and great talents, made her a wonder, greater than any in her capital. In her time, all nations flocked, as well for curiosity as trade, to Alexandria; Arabs, Ethiopians, Troglodytes, Jews, and Medes; and all were received and protected by this princess, who spokc to each of them in his own language †^[22].

The discovery of Spain, and the possession of the mines of Attica from which they drew their silver, and the revo lution that happened in Egypt itself, seemed to have superseded the communication with the coast of Africa; for, in Strabo's time, few of the ports of the Indian Ocean, even those nearest the Red Sea, were known. I should, indeed, suppose, that the trade to India by Egypt decreased from the very time of the conquest by Cæsar. The mines the Romans had at the source of the river Betis *^[23], in Spain, did not produce them above L. 15,000 a-year; this was not a sufficient capital for carrying on the trade to India, and therefore the immense riches of the Romans seem to have been derived from the greatness of the prices, not from the extent of the trade, In fact †^[24], we are told that 100 per cent. was a profit in common trade upon the Indian commodities. Egypt now, and all its neighbourhood, began to wear a face of war, to which it had been a stranger for so many ages. The north of Africa was in constant troubles, after the first ruin of Carthage; so that we may imagine the trade to India began again, on that side, to be carried on pretty much in the same manner it had been before the days of Alexander. But it had enlarged itself very much on the Persian side, and found an easy, short inlet, into the north of Europe, which then furnished them a market and consumption of spices.

I must confess, notwithstanding, if it is true what Strabo says he heard himself in Egypt, that the Romans employed one hundred and twenty vessels in the Indian trade ‡^[25], it must at that time have lost very little of its vigour. We must, however, imagine, that great part of this was for the account, and with the funds of foreign merchants. The Jews in Alexandria, until the reign of Ptolemy Phiscon, had carried on a very extensive part of the India trade. All Syria was mercantile; and lead, iron, and copper, supplied, in some manner, the deficiency of gold and silver, which never again was in such abundance till after the discovery of America.

But the ancient trade to India, by the Arabian Gulf and Africa, carried on by the medium of these two metals, remained at home undiminished with the Ethiopians, defended by large extensive deserts, and happy with the enjoyment of riches and security, till a fresh discovery again introduced to them both partners and masters in their trade.

One of the reasons that makes me imagine the Indian trade was not flourishing, or in great esteem, immediately upon the Roman conquest of Egypt, is, that Augustus, very soon after, attempted to conquer Arabia. He sent Elius Gallus, with an army from Egypt into Arabia, who found there a number of effeminate, timid people, scarcely to be driven to self-defence by violence, and ignorant of every thing that related to war. Elius, however, found that they overmatched him in cunning, and the perfect knowledge of the country, which their constant employment as carriers had taught them. His guides led him round from hardship to hardship, till his army almost perished with hunger and thirst, without seeing any of those riches his master had sent him to take possession of. Thus was the Arabian expedition of Augustus conceived with the same views as those of Semiramis, Cyrus, and Cambyses, deservedly as unhappy in its issue as these first had been.

That the African trade, moreover, was lost, appears from Strabo *^[26], and his reasoning upon the voyage of Eudoxus, which he treats as a fable. But his reasoning proves just the contrary, and this voyage was one foundation for opening this trade again, and making this coast more perfectly known. This likewise appears clear from Ptolemy †^[27], who, speaking of a promontory or cape opposite to Madagascar, on the coast of Africa, says it was inhabited by anthropophagi, or man-eaters, and that all beyond 8° south was unknown, and that this cape extended to and joined the continent of India ‡^[28].

 

---

1. * 1 Kings, chap. xxii. ver. 48. 2 Chron. chap. xx. ver. 36.
2. † 2 Kings, chap. viii. ver. 22. 2 Chron. chap. xxi. ver. 10.
3. ‡ 2 Kings, chap. xiv. ver. 22. 2 Chron. chap. 26. ver. ii.
4. ║ 2 Kings, chap. xvi. ver. 6.
5. * 2 Kings, chap. xvi. ver. 6.
6. † Ezek. chap, xxvi. ver. 7.
7. ‡ 2 Kings, chap. xxiv ver. 13. and 2 Chron. chap. xxxvi. ver. 7.
8. * Dan. chap. vi. ver. 8. and Esther, chap. i. ver. 19.
9. † Ezra, chap. v. ver. 14 and chap. vi. ver. 5.
10. ‡ Dan. chap. v. ver. 30.
11. * Lucan lib. x. ver. 280.
12. † Vide Montesq. liv. 21. chap 8-
13. * Lucan, lib. 9. ver. 515.
14. * Athen, lib. 5.
15. * This is probably from Atbara, or the old name of the island of Meroë, which had received that last name only as late as Cambyses.
16. * Plin. lib. 6. cap. 23.
17. † Strabo, lib. 17. p. 932.
18. * Mon. Aduli.
19. * Strabo, lib. ii. p. 98.
20. * Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. 2. cap. 67.
21. * Dodwell's Dissertat. vol. I. Scrip. Græc. Min. Id. Ox. 1698. 8vo.
22. † Plut. Vita. Ant. p. 913. tom. 1. part 2. Lubec. 1624. fol.
23. * Strabo, lib. 3.
24. † Plin. ilb. vi. cap. 23.
25. ‡ Strabo, lib. 2. p. 81.
26. * Strabo, lib. ii. p. 98.
27. † Ptol. lib. iv. cap. 9. p. 115.
28. ‡ Ptol. lib. vii. cap. 3.