ot appear what returns were made to the Indians for
their produce, therefore it must have been money. The trade then
consisted in bringing from thence goods, comparatively weighty, and
returning, as it were, empty. The current of the rivers being in
different directions was then an object of importance.
-=-

[end of page #53]

habitants of Tyre, and gave a very great superiority to Egypt, which
was increased by the canals dug in that country, and the discovery of
the regular monsoon, (a periodical wind,) which, at a certain time of
the year, carried navigators straight from the mouth of the Red Sea to
the Malabar coast. {49}

Under these disadvantages, flowing from superior prerogatives of
Egypt, the commerce of Syria fell off almost to nothing, till, by
another of those changes to which this commerce seems peculiarly
liable, the Roman empire, which had swallowed up the whole of the
civilized world, was itself divided into two, and one of the capitals
fixed at Constantinople.

The channel through Syria obtained then a preference for all the
eastern part of the empire; and owing to some change, either in the
politics or religion of the Persians, when conquered by the Parthians,
they became willing to permit them the navigation of the Euphrates,
which had long been shut up.

This continued to be the state of matters, particularly after the fall of
the western empire, when barbarians got possession of all that part of
Europe that used to be supplied with East India produce by the way of
Alexandria. It continued till the middle of the seventh century of the
Christian aera, when the Mahometan religion was established from the
westernmost part of Africa to the confines of the Chinese empire; and
as the followers of that religion were unfriendly to commerce, and
none could be carried on with India that did not pass through their
country, it was nearly annihilated, and was almost wholly confined to
the caravans of pilgrims, who, going to visit Jerusalem and Mecca,
under the cloak of religious zeal, exchanged the various articles of
traffic which they had collected in their different countries and on
their journey.

---
{49} This passage, from the straits of Babelmandel to the point of the
peninsula of India, saved a very long and dangerous navigation by the
coast. It is almost due east, and with the advantage of being much
shorter, and having a fair wind, was next to the discovery of the
passage of the Cape of Good Ho