s of obtaining them.

Egypt and Syria lay immediately in the road for this commerce. They
were rivals, and many contests and vicissitudes were the consequence:
for no commerce has ever created so much envy and jealousy. None
has ever raised those who carried it on so high, or, on forsaking them,
left them so low, as that which has been carried on with India.

Though at a very early period Egypt had a share of this lucrative
commerce, yet the greatest part was carried on through Syria and
Arabia, between the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean Sea; that part
now called the Levant, where Tyre and Sidon once stood. [end of page
#51]

We shall examine briefly the changes of this commerce; the only one
almost existing, in early times, or at least which gave rise to nearly all
that did exist. {46}

As the common necessaries of life are found in greater or less
abundance in every country, and as the population is in some degree
regulated by their quantity, they made no objects of trade, except in
the cases of famine. The precious metals, spices, jewels, and
aromatics, rare in their production, universally desirable and easily
transported, were long the chief objects of commerce; and the changes
which this commerce has undergone and produced, amongst those
who possessed it, greatly elucidate the subject of this inquiry.

The distance from Babylon to the Persian gulf, down the Euphrates, to
where Bussora now stands, was not great, and across the country to
Tyre there was little interruption; the Assyrian empire extending to the
sea-coast, and its monarchs being too powerful to have any thing to
fear.

There was, however, at a very early period, another channel, by which
the Tyrians obtained the productions of the East, namely, by sailing up
the Red Sea, or Arabian Gulf, and across Arabia Petrea to
Rhinocolura. {47}

The Egyptians, at that time, obtained the same sorts of merchandize,
by sailing likewise up the Red Sea, and landing at the western
extremity; from whence they were distributed through Lower Egypt.

Commerce was carried on in this manner, and was nearly all
engrossed by Tyre, when Alexander the Great, bred up under his
father, who had been educated at Athens, and travelled through
Greece,

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{46} To carry on trade, capital is necessary; that is to say, there must
be some means of getting an article before it can be carried away and
sold. Spices, precious stones, and the other produce of the East, cost