nd Nisibis; but
this trade, which in the intervals of truce was oppressed by avarice and
jealousy, was totally interrupted by the long wars of the rival
monarchies. The great king might proudly number Sogdiana, and even
_Serica_, among the provinces of his empire: but his real dominion was
bounded by the Oxus; and his useful intercourse with the Sogdoites
beyond the river depended on the pleasure of their conquerors the white
Huns, and the Turks, who successively reigned over that industrious
people. Yet the most savage dominion has not extirpated the seeds of
agriculture and commerce, in a region which is celebrated as one of the
four gardens of Asia; the cities of Samarcand and Bochara are
advantageously seated for the exchange of its various productions; and
their merchants purchased from the Chinese the raw or manufactured silk
which they transported into Persia for the use of the Roman Empire. In
the vain capital of China, the Sogdian caravans were entertained as the
suppliant embassies of tributary kingdoms; and if they returned in
safety, the bold adventure was rewarded with exorbitant gain. But the
difficult and perilous march from Samarcand to the first town of Shensi
could not be performed in less than sixty, eighty, or one hundred days:
as soon as they had passed the Jaxartes they entered the desert; and the
wandering hordes, unless they are restrained by armies and garrisons,
have always considered the citizen and the traveler as the objects of
lawful rapine. To escape the Tartar robbers and the tyrants of Persia,
the silk caravans explored a more southern road; they traversed the
mountains of Thibet, descended the streams of the Ganges or the Indus,
and patiently expected, in the ports of Guzerat and Malabar, the annual
fleets of the West. But the dangers of the desert were found less
intolerable than toil, hunger, and the loss of time; the attempt was
seldom renewed, and the only European who has passed that unfrequented
way applauds his own diligence, that in nine months after his departure
from Pekin, he reached the mouth of the Indus. The ocean, however, was
open to the free communication of mankind. From the great river to the
tropic of Cancer, the provinces of China were subdued and civilized by
the emperors of the North; they were filled about the time of the
Christian era with cities and men, mulberry-trees and their precious
inhabitants; and if the Chinese, with the knowledge of the compass, had
pos