re numerous and well-frequented routes from Hindustan, that vast
storehouse of treasure from which Europe drew its riches. Along these
routes cities flourished. There were the great ports, Licia in the
Levant, Trebizond on the Black Sea, and Alexandria. From these ports,
Venetian and Genoese traders bore the produce over the passes of the
Alps to the Upper Danube and the Rhine. Here it was a source of wealth
to the cities along the waterways, from Ratisbon and Nuremburg, to
Bruges and Antwerp. Even the slightest acquaintance with the history of
the Middle Ages must suffice to give the student an idea of the
importance of these cities.

When all these routes save the Egyptian were closed by the hordes of
savages which infested Central Asia, it became an easy matter for the
Moors in Africa and the Turks in Europe to exact immense revenues from
the Eastern trade, solely through their monopoly of the route of
transit. Thus there developed an economic parasitism which crippled the
trade with the East. The Turks were securely seated at Constantinople,
threatening to advance into the heart of Europe, and building up an
immense military system out of the taxes imposed upon the trade of
Europe with the East--a military power, which, in less than a quarter of
a century, enabled Selim I to conquer Mesopotamia and the holy towns of
Arabia, and to annex Egypt.[87] It became necessary, then, to find a new
route to India; and it was this great economic necessity which set
Columbus thinking of a pathway to India over the Western Sea. It was
this same great problem which engaged the attention of all the
navigators of the time; it was this economic necessity which induced
Ferdinand and Isabella to support the adventurous plan of Columbus. In a
word, without detracting in any manner from the splendid genius of
Columbus, or from the romance of his great voyage of discovery, we see
that, fundamentally, it was the economic interest of Europe which gave
birth to the one and made the other possible. The same explanation
applies to the voyage of Vasco da Gama, six years later, which resulted
in finding a way to India over the southeast course by way of the Cape
of Good Hope.

Kipling asks in his ballad, "The British Flag"--

"And what should they know of England, who only England know?"

There is a profound truth in the defiant line, a truth which applies
equally to America or any other country. The present is inseparable from
the