That His Tzenistsae, Are The Chinese, There Can Be No Doubt; For He Mentions Them As Inhabiting A Country Producing Silk, Beyond Which There Is No Country, For The Ocean Encircles It Oh The East.

From this it is evident that the Tzenistae of this author, and the Seres of the ancients, are the same; and in specifying the imports into Ceylon, he mentions silk thread, as coming from countries farther to the east, particularly from the Chinese.

We thus see by what sea route silk was brought from China to those places with which the western nations had a communication; it was imported either into the peninsula of Malacca by sea, and thence by sea to Nelkundah, whence it was brought by a third voyage to the Red Sea; or it was brought directly from China to Ceylon, from which place there was a regular sea communication also with the Red Sea.

The author of the Periplus informs us, that raw as well as manufactured silk were conveyed by land through Bactria, to Baraguza or Guzerat, and by the Ganges to Limurike; according to this first route, the silks of China must have come the whole length of Tartary, from the great wall, into Bactria; from Bactria, they passed the mountains to the sources of the Indus, and by that river they were brought down to Patala, or Barbarike, in Scindi, and thence to Guzerat: the line must have been nearly the same when silk was brought to the sources of the Ganges; at the mouth of this river, it was embarked for Limurike in Canara.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 341 of 1007
Words from 93547 to 93813 of 273188