Chapter IV (2)

Barygaza, on the same coast, soon, however, became a more important mart than Pattala; and, by the minute description Arrian has given of its position, that port would seem to correspond with Baroach, on the great river Nerbudda, by means of which it had navigable communication for many hundred miles into the rich interior of India. The articles of import and export were much more various and abundant at Barygaza than at Pattala. Besides those already mentioned, Arrian enumerates among the former, Italian, Greek, and Arabian wines, brass, tin, lead, girdles or sashes of curious textures, white glass, red arsenic, black lead, and gold and silver coin. Among the exports were the onyx and other gems, ivory, myrrh, various fabrics of cotton, both plain and ornamented with flowers, and pepper. At Musiris, the port Hippalus reached when he first took advantage of the monsoons, the articles imported were much the same as at Barygaza; but, as it lay nearer to the eastern parts of India, the commodities exported from it were more numerous and more valuable. Pearls are specified as being there obtainable in great abundance and of extraordinary beauty, besides a variety of silk stuffs, rich perfumes, tortoise-shell, different kinds of transparent gems, especially diamonds, and pepper of the best quality.

[Sidenote: Cape Comorin.]

[Sidenote: Ceylon.]

Although Arrian, from the accurate description he has given of it, would seem to have sailed along the coast as far as Cape Comorin, the southernmost point of the Indian peninsula, the ships from Berenice do not appear to have traded with any place on the coast south of Musiris, where, however, various Egyptian commodities were to be found. Probably these articles were received in exchange for the produce of the East, brought by native vessels from the countries near the Ganges, or from Malacca and China to Ceylon. Many native vessels were, however, evidently confined, in their trading operations, exclusively to that coast. Although the island of Ceylon was the great mart or depôt, where the manufactures and produce of the West were exchanged for those of the then far distant and almost unknown East, it is probable that the ships from Egypt did not, at least during the early portion of their operations, proceed as far as that island, but that their cargoes were transported thither in the native coasters, and there bartered for silk and for other commodities produced in Ceylon, or in the countries to the eastward of it. In all likelihood the merchants of Alexandria were deterred from sending their ships as far as Ceylon, through fear of the dangers of which Pliny has preserved a report. “The sea,” he remarks, “that lies between the island and the mainland, is full of shallows, not more than six paces in depth; but in certain channels no anchor has ever found a bottom. For these reasons,” he adds, “the vessels are constructed with prows at each end, so that there may be no necessity for tacking in channels which are extremely narrow.”[240]

[Sidenote: Time of departure of the fleets for Africa and the coasts of Arabia.]

[Sidenote: Rhapta, or Quiloa.]

While the fleets for India sailed in July, the vessels destined for the various ports on the coast of Africa or Arabia took their departure with equal regularity in the month of September. By clearing the gulf before November, they made certain of a favourable wind down the eastern coasts of Africa, and had ample time to transact their business, and to return with the change of wind by the following May. Abdooli, contiguous to Orine, was the first port of call for the African traders. Here large quantities of ivory and horn were shipped, brought from Axume, an inland town eight days’ journey from the coast, and an important mart for their collection and sale, as it lay in the central part of the district, where both the elephant and the rhinoceros were killed in great numbers. From Abdooli, the fleets, after passing through the straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, reached Malao, Moondus, Mossulon, and Daphnon, four harbours, or rather roadsteads, of some commercial importance, which lay not far from each other on the line of coast extending to the eastward. At all of these places boats or rafts had to be used for the transport of goods and produce between the ships and the shore, as no attempt had been made to construct wharves. After rounding Cape Aromata, the extreme eastern point of the African continent, they shaped their course to the south, steering about S.S.W., along the coast of Azania, calling at various places, including Melinda, until they reached Rhapta or Quiloa, in about nine degrees south latitude. The merchants of this place had many ships of their own employed in the trade, on board of which they had Arabian commanders and factors, employing such only as had experience of the country, or as, having contracted marriages with the natives, understood the language, and were familiar with the navigation.[241]

Arrian gives a picture of these people, and of their habits, resembling much that presented to the Portuguese, fifteen centuries afterwards, when they first cast anchor off Quiloa. Here, too, as well as from the more northern port of Melinda, a trade seems, though we have no positive knowledge of the fact, to have been carried on with India in ages before Hippalus. Corn, rice, butter or ghee, oil of cinnamon, cotton in the web, and in the flock for stuffing, sashes, and “honey from the cane called sugar,” had, long before Arrian, been articles of commerce imported thence. “Many vessels,” he says, “are employed in this commerce, expressly for the importation of these articles; and others, which have a further destination, dispose of part of their cargoes on this coast, and take in such commodities as they find here in return.” The cargoes specified are just such as could be now imported from India.

[Sidenote: Sofala.]

[Sidenote: Articles of commerce.]

From Quiloa the Egyptian fleets appear to have traded as far south as Sofala, obtaining thence the produce of Æthiopia as well as of Abyssinia, and rhinoceros horns, tortoise-shell, myrrh, and odoriferous gums, frankincense, cinnamon of a common description, and slaves of a superior order, principally for the Egyptian market. In exchange, Alexandria sent cloths of various kinds, and linen, glass, porcelain, white copper for ornaments and for coin; brass for the manufacture of culinary vessels, bracelets and ornaments for the legs, such as are still worn in Abyssinia; iron for weapons of all sorts, as well as hatchets, adzes, knives, and daggers, manufactured and ready for use. The invoices also mention drinking vessels of brass, large and round; denarii or Roman specie, for the use of the merchants resident on the coast; Laodicean (or Syrian) and Italian wines; gold and silver plate, according to the fashion of the country, as presents for the native kings; jackets, watchcoats, coverlids, Indian cotton, besides cotton in its raw state; sashes of variegated colours, and cloths with the nap on, of various sorts, suited for the barbarian coasts. Tin, the produce of the British mines, formed likewise an article of export from Berenice and Leuke Kome, to the coast of Africa, although only in small quantities. Plated silver, and flint glass, or crystal, were shipped to a considerable extent; while corn from Egypt constituted one of the most bulky articles of export to the more populous of the places we have named.

[Sidenote: Moosa.]

The merchants of Alexandria, likewise, carried on an extensive and valuable commerce with various ports in Arabia, especially with Moosa, at the entrance to the Red Sea, a place believed to have had a very ancient trade with India. Moosa also imported large quantities of coffee from Africa, and, mixing it with the coffee of Arabia, sold the adulterated article as the produce of the latter country. Its imports from Egypt consisted, among other manufactures, of various descriptions of cloths, and of clothes made up after the Arabian fashion, with sleeves plain and embroidered. Its merchants gave in exchange the produce of their own country, and that of India, imported in their own vessels from Baroach.

[Sidenote: Yemen, or Arabia Felix.]

[Sidenote: Its great wealth, and the importance attached to its trade.]

There are few lands more extolled in ancient history for their natural richness, both as regards its mines and the productiveness of its soil, than Yemen, or Arabia Felix, the country of the Queen of Sheba, of which Moosa was the chief port. Though separated from India by an open sea, it was yet intimately connected with it by nature; a sky of great serenity enabling its mariners to make full use of the stars as their guides, and thus sparing them the labour and anxiety of slowly creeping along the coast, as was elsewhere necessary. Arabia was above all others the native country of frankincense, of myrrh, and of other aromatic perfumes, productions then held in such repute, that scarcely one of the then most civilized nations of the world would have dared to offer a gift to their gods without them.

Greek and Hebrew writers alike speak of the country of the Queen of Sheba as one of the richest of the ancient world. The Hebrew poets cite the names of its various cities and harbours, and their writings overflow with descriptions of its many treasures. No sooner had the Greeks obtained a knowledge of these regions than they extolled to the utmost the boundless riches concealed in Arabia Felix. “Its inhabitants, the Sabæans,” remarks Diodorus[242] quoting from Agatharchides, “not only surpass the neighbouring barbarians in wealth and magnificence, but all other nations whatever. In buying and selling their wares they maintain among all nations the highest prices for the smallest quantities. As their distant situation protects them from foreign plunderers, immense stores of precious metals have accumulated among them, especially in the capital. Curiously wrought gold and silver drinking vessels in great variety, couches, tripods with silver feet, and an incredible profusion of costly furniture in general, abound there.”

The whole of this vast wealth would seem, by the remarks of Diodorus, to have been derived, not from war and plunder, but by the prosecution throughout many ages of peaceful commerce and unwearied industry. “Before merchants,” observes Arrian, “sailed from India to Egypt, and from Egypt to India, Arabia Felix was the staple both for Egyptian and Indian goods, much as Alexandria is now for the commodities of Egypt and foreign merchandise;” a testimony fully borne out by abundant statements in Holy Scripture. Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel all speak in glowing terms of the great wealth of Arabia Felix. Nowhere, too, were the civilizing effects of commerce more noticeable than in Arabia Felix. Although Dr. Vincent remarks that “the importance of this commerce, as it appears in the “Periplus,” is manifestly far inferior to the representation of it in Agatharchides,” he adds, “still it is evident that the manners of the people in this quarter of Arabia were civilized, that the government was consistent, and that the merchant was protected. This character, as we learn from Niebuhr, Yemen still maintains, in preference to the Hijar and the whole interior of the peninsula. The same security is marked as strongly by the “Periplus” in Hadramaut; and the whole coast on the ocean being commercial, _the interests of commerce have subdued the natural ferocity of the inhabitants_.”[243]

It would appear that, before the settlements at Moosa and Okelis, the ships from Persia, Caramania, and the Indus came no farther than the coast just outside the straits, near the modern Aden, and that here the fleets of Egypt met them and exchanged their articles of commerce. Many writers, too, on this subject, have maintained that the fleet of Solomon, though fitted out with the view of going as far as Sofala, did not proceed beyond the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, and that they there exchanged the produce of the West for that of India, Yemen, and Africa. We, however, adhere to the opinion already expressed, that at least a portion of Solomon’s fleet visited both the Indus and the eastern coast of Africa. It is not, in itself, likely that seamen so enterprising and adventurous as the Phœnicians, would have failed in accomplishing any voyage wherein the ships of other nations had been successful; nor, viewing the profits the Arabians derived from their intercourse with the East, can it be supposed that the merchants and shipowners of Phœnicia would have cut short their voyages at the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, knowing too, as they could not fail to have known, many commercial reports about a vast country to the east abounding in riches, which the Arabians had reached by sea. It seems also more than probable that they had, at the same time, learnt something of the character of the winds which favoured such voyages, and their reasoning must have been, “What the inhabitants of the sea coasts of Arabia and Africa can perform by vessels in every way inferior to those of Phœnicia, we can accomplish so much the more successfully by means of our well appointed fleets.”

[Sidenote: Kane.]

[Sidenote: Sachal.]

The Arabians had also a considerable intercourse with the East from Kane,[244] a port on the south-western shores of Arabia, in Hadramaut, a place enjoying a direct intercourse with Sana, and thence by the great caravan route with Saba. The merchants of Kane traded, on the one hand, with Baroach, Sindh, Ormus, and Persia, and on the other, with Egypt, whence they imported wine, corn, cloths suited for the Arabian market, salt, brass, tin, resin, specie, wrought plate, carved images, and horses, and exported various commodities common to the country, and especially frankincense and aloes. From Kane the Arabian vessels, and afterwards some of the Egyptian traders in the time of Arrian, proceeded along the coast to the north-east until they reached Sachal, on the shores of Hadramaut, their chief trade being incense, which, according to Arrian, was there “collected by the king’s slaves, or by malefactors condemned to this service as a punishment.” Most of the incense, however, was sent through Thomæra, the capital of the Gebanites, to Gaza, on the coast of Palestine, by way of Petra, by the important caravan route already noticed, and continued in a great measure to find its way to Egypt by this inland route even after the merchants of Alexandria had established a regular maritime commerce with the East.

[Sidenote: Moshka.]

[Sidenote: Maskat.]

[Sidenote: Omana.]

From Sachal the traders on the coast proceeded to Moskha, where vessels from Baroach and Larike, on the Gulf of Cambay, if too late for the favourable monsoons, usually endeavoured to exchange their Indian muslins for the frankincense of the place. From this place, also, native vessels made a coasting voyage till they reached Maskat and Kalaiso. Near these ports they were able to cross the gulf at its narrowest parts, and steered nearly due north, or about N.N.E. for the port of Omana, which evidently takes its name from Oman in Arabia, and was, doubtless, a colony of Arabs, established on the coast opposite to their own, for the purpose of approaching nearer to Western India. From Omana they steered almost due east along the coast of Beloochistan until they reached their destination at the mouth of the Indus or in the Gulf of Cambay.

Although Omana was the centre of commerce between Arabia and India, and afterwards became a place of great commercial importance, no produce of the latter country appears to have been shipped from it at the time of Arrian. Dates in large quantities were then, as they were long afterwards, its chief articles of export; as also, coarse cloths, wine, slaves, some gold, and many pearls. Here were built for the Arabians the vessels they employed in the Persian Gulf, and along the whole line of the coast, their hulls consisting of planks sewed together, without nails. To this day similar vessels, known as _frankees_ and _dhows_, may be seen in great numbers, engaged in much the same trade their ancestors followed two or three thousand years ago.

We have now given a brief outline of the routes by land and by sea, by which commerce was conducted with the East, before the commencement of the Christian era, and the map we have prepared (see frontispiece) may assist our readers in tracing the different routes. Of the maritime commerce of India itself, and of the trade and shipping of the East during the earliest periods of history, we shall attempt to furnish an outline in the following chapter.

FOOTNOTES:

[193] Herod. iv. c. 42.

[194] Herod. iv. c. 33.

[195] It is probable that Sataspes got as far as the Gulf of Guinea, and was then stopped by the south-east trade-winds. It is to avoid these that our ships, bound to India _via_ the Cape of Good Hope, stand across to South America.

[196] Plin. ii. 169.

[197] Strab. ii. 81.

[198] Larachi or Al Arish, on the coast of Marocco.

[199] Humboldt, in confirmation of this statement, quotes the case of a counterpart for the horse’s head belonging to the Gades-ship, referred to by Eudoxus, as having occurred in the remains of a ship of the Red Sea, which was brought to Crete by westerly currents, according to the account of the trustworthy Arabian historian Masudi.—Humboldt’s “Cosmos,” vol. ii. p. 389.

[200] Periplus of the Erythræan Sea, vol. ii. p. 189 et seq.

[201] Numbers xx. 14.

[202] Judges viii. 24-26.

[203] Macpherson, i. pp. 7, 8.

[204] Heeren, Gen. Introd. p. xxv.

[205] Herod. i. 1.

[206] Ezek. xxvii. v. 7.

[207] Herod. v. 52.

[208] These are the greater and lesser Záb.

[209] Referring, probably, to the numerous canals this great conqueror cut, for purposes of irrigation as well as navigation, between the Euphrates and Tigris.

[210] “Royal stations” were the abodes of the king’s couriers. Cf. Herod. viii. 98. These couriers were very rapid, like the Indian _harkâreh_ of the present day. Strabo (xv. p. 725) states that Alexander’s order for the execution of Parmenio, given near Herât, was conveyed eight hundred and fifty miles in eleven days, to Ecbatana. The present route from Smyrna to Baghdad, is nearly the same as that described by Herodotus, from Sardes to Susa; it turns a little to the N., to avoid the arid deserts about the Upper Euphrates and the Upper Tigris, and passes Sart (Sardes), Allah Shehr (Philadelphia), Kaisariyeh, Malatiyeh, Diarbekr, Mosul, Arbil (Arbela), and Kerkuk (Circesium). If Herodotus went to Babylon, he would have gone by this route as far as the river Gyndes (Diyala), where the route from Babylon to Ecbatana crossed it, as is clear from the account of the march of Cyrus. (Herod. i. 189.)

[211] Strabo, xvi. 766.

[212] 1 Kings ix. 18.

[213] Plin. v. 87. Procop. Bell. Pers. ii. 5. Gibbon, c. xi,

[214] Xenoph. Anab. i. 4, 11.

[215] Plin. vi. 144.

[216] Plin. vi. 28.

[217] Strab. xvi. 779. Diod. Sic. xix. 98.

[218] See note on principal canals of Babylonia, by Sir H. C. Rawlinson, in Rawlinson’s Herodotus, i. p. 571.

[219] It is not distinctly stated anywhere that Tyre was actually taken; but the inference from Ezek. c. xxvi. is that it was—or the prophecy has remained unfulfilled.

[220] Isaiah, xliii. 14.

[221] Heeren, i. p. 438.

[222] Herod. i. 183.

[223] Arrian, vii. 7.

[224] Arrian, iii. 16.

[225] Pliny, vi. 17.

[226] Strabo, p. 782.

[227] Herod. iii. chap. 24.

[228] Plin. vi. 102.

[229] Itin. Antonin. p. 172.

[230] Belzoni, “Travels,” ii. p. 36.

[231] Plin. vi. 104.

[232] Herod. ii. 20, compared with vi. 140; vii. 168. Plin. vi. 102.

[233] Pliny, ibid.

[234] Hippalus is believed to have lived in the reign of the Emperor Claudius.—Vincent, i. pp. 47-49.

[235] Plin. vi. 101.

[236] Dr. Vincent’s “Periplus,” p. 288.

[237] Plin. xii. 83.

[238] Plin. ix. 119-121. Gibbon, ch. 3.

[239] Arrian, the merchant, must not be confounded with the famous Arrian of Nicomedia; nothing is, however, known about him.

[240] Pliny, vi. 82.

[241] Dr. Vincent’s “Periplus,” vol. ii. p. 170.

[242] Diodorus, iii. 46.

[243] “Periplus,” vol. ii. p. 317.

[244] Pliny, vi. 104, identified by Welsted with Hisn Ghorab, ii. p. 421.