What Was At
First Undertaken From Policy And Fear, Was Afterwards Continued From
Religious Zeal, Curiosity, A Love Of Knowledge, And Other Motives.
So that,
to the devastations of Genghis Khan we may justly deem ourselves indebted
for the full and important information we possess respecting the remote
parts of Asia during the middle ages.
The accounts of India and China by the two Mahomedan travellers have been
already noticed: between the period of their journey, and the embassies and
missions to which we have just alluded, the only account of the East which
we possess is derived from the work of Benjamin, a Jew of Tudela in Spain.
It is doubted whether he visited all the places he describes: his object
was principally to describe those places where the Jews resided in great
numbers.
After describing Barcelona as a place of great trade, frequented by
merchants from Greece, Italy, and Alexandria, and a great resort of the
Jews, and giving a similar character of Montpelier and Genoa, he proceeds
to the East. The inhabitants of Constantinople being too lazy to carry on
commerce themselves, the whole trade of this city, which is represented as
surpassing all others, except Bagdad, in wealth, was conducted by foreign
merchants, who resorted to it from every part of the world by land and sea.
New Tyre was a place of considerable traffic, with a good harbour: glass
and sugar were its principal exports. The great depot for the produce and
manufactures of India, Persia, Arabia, &c., was an island in the Persian
Gulf.
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