The Monsoons Must Have Been Perceived By Them,
From Part Of The Sea-Coast Lying Within Their Influence; And It Can Hardly
Be Supposed That A Sea-Faring People Would Not Take Advantage Of Them, To
Embark In Such A Lucrative Trade As That Of India.
"There is no history
which treats of them which does not notice them as pirates, or merchants,
by sea, as robbers, or traders, by land.
We scarcely touch upon them,
accidentally, in any author, without finding that they were the carriers of
the Indian Ocean." From the earliest period that history begins to notice
them, Sabaea, Hadraumaut, and Oman, are described as the residences of
navigators; and as these places are, in the earliest historians, celebrated
for their maritime commerce, it is reasonable to suppose that they were
equally so before the ancient historians acquired any knowledge of them.
We cannot go farther back, with respect to the fact of the Arabians being
in India, than the voyage of Nearchus; but in the journal of this
navigator, we find manifest traces of Arabian navigators on the coast of
Mekran, previous to his expedition: he also found proofs of their commerce
on the coast of Gadrosia, and Arabic names of places - a pilot to direct
him, and vessels of the country in the Gulf of Persia. Large ships from the
Indus, Patala, Persis, and Karmania came to Arabia, as early as the time of
Agatharcides; and it is probable that these ships were navigated by
Arabians, as the inhabitants of India were not, at this time, and, indeed,
never have been celebrated for their maritime enterprize and skill. The
same author mentions a town, a little without the Red Sea, from whence, he
says, the Sabeans sent out colonies or factories into India, and to which
the large ships he describes came with their cargoes from India. This is
the first historical evidence to prove the establishment of Arabian
factories and merchants in the ports of India. In the time of Pliny, the
Arabians were in such numbers on the coast of Malabar, and at Ceylon, that,
according to that author, the inhabitants of the former had embraced their
religion, and the ports of the latter were entirely in their power. Their
settlements and commerce in India are repeatedly mentioned in the Periplus
of the Erythrean Sea, and likewise their settlements down the coast of
Africa to Rhaptum, before it was visited by the Greeks from Egypt. For,
besides their voyages from India to their own country, they frequently
brought Indian commodities direct to the coast of Africa. At Sabaea, the
great mart of the Arabian commerce with India, the Greeks, as late as the
reign of Philometor, purchased the spices and other productions of the
east. As there was a complete monopoly of them at this place, in the hands
of the Arabians, the Greek navigators and merchants were induced, in the
hopes of obtaining them cheaper, to pass the Straits of Babelmandeb, and on
the coast of Africa they found cinnamon and other produce of India, which
had been brought hither by the Arabian traders.
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