In The Year 100 After The Incarnation Of Christ, The Emperor Trajan
Fitted Out A Fleet On The Rivers Tigris
And Euphrates, whence he sailed
to the islands of Zyzara; and passing the straits of Persia, entered
into the ocean,
By which he sailed along the coast to India, till he came
to the place where Alexander had been. He there took some ships which
came from Bengal, and learned the state of the country from the mariners.
But being in years, and weary of the sea, and because he found it
difficult to procure necessaries for his army, he returned back to
Assyria[40].
After the Romans had subdued most part of the world, many notable
discoveries were made. But then came the Goths, Moors, and other
barbarous nations, who destroyed all A.D. 412, the Goths took the city
of Rome. Thereafter the Vandals went out of Spain, and conquered Africa.
In 450, Attila destroyed many cities in Italy, at which time Venice began;
and in this age the Franks and Vandals entered into France. In 474, the
empire of Rome was lost, and fell from the Romans to the Goths. In 560,
the Lombards came into Italy. About this time the sect of the Arians
prevailed greatly, and Merlin the English prophet flourished. In 611,
the Mahometan sect sprung up, and the Moresco government, which invaded
both Africa and Spain. By this it may appear that all the world was in a
state of war, and all places so very tumultuous, that traffic and
merchandize ceased, no nation daring to trade with another by sea or
land; nothing remaining stedfast, neither in kingdoms, signories,
religions, laws, arts, sciences, or navigation. Even the records and
writings of these things were burnt and destroyed by the barbarous power
of the Goths, who proposed to themselves to begin a new world, and to
root out the memory and knowledge of all other nations.
Those who succeeded in the government of Europe, perceiving the great
losses of the Christian world by want of traffic and the stoppage of
navigation, began to devise a way of passing into India, quite different
from the route of the Nile and the Red Sea, and much longer and more
costly[41]. The goods of India were brought up the river Indus as far as
it was navigable. They were then carried by land in caravans through the
country of Parapomissus into the province of Bactria, and shipped on the
river Oxus, which falls into the Caspian, and thence across that sea to
the haven of Citracan, or Astracan, on the river Rha, or Volga. Thence up
that river, and to the city of Novogrod, in the province of Resan, which
now belongs to the great duke of Muscovy, in lat. 54 deg. N. The goods were
carried thence overland to the province of Sarmatia and the river Tanais
or Don, which is the division between Europe and Asia. Being there loaded
in barks, they were carried down the stream of that river into the Paulus
Maeotis to the city of Caffa, anciently called Theodosia, which then
belonged to the Genoese, who came thither by sea in _galliasses_, or
great ships, and distributed Indian commodities through Europe.
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