CHAPTER V.
Ancient India—Expedition of Sesostris—Doubts of Dr. Robertson with regard to it—Hindustan, its early commerce, and the probability, from its great value, of its having attracted Sesostris—The conquests of Darius, and of Alexander—Trade with China—Its maritime intercourse—A comparison of the Chinese boats with those of the ancient Britons—The conquests of Alexander in India, B.C. 327-5—The gain to commerce by his conquests—The spread of knowledge—His march into India—Preparations for the voyage down the Indus—Departure of his fleet from Nicæa, B.C. 326—Description of the vessels employed—Progress of the fleet—Establishment of new cities on the banks of the Indus—Character of the vessels engaged on the voyage from the Indus to Susa—Time occupied—Future voyages—Death of Alexander, B.C. 323—Eastern India—Ceylon—Internal commerce of India—Manufactures of India—State of the trade of India from the sixth to the ninth century—Change in the course of trade—Persian trade with India—The Muhammedans, A.D. 622—The extent of their commerce with the East—The trade between Constantinople and India and China.
Ancient India.
It is impossible to say at how early a period the commerce of India assumed a civilized form, and from the rude barter of the savage became a regular system of exchange and account. The opinion of ancient as well as of modern writers, is almost unanimous in considering the Hindus as one of the oldest civilized nations in the world; but their most ancient records are so blended with fables, that it would be a waste of time to attempt to separate fact from fiction. Nor shall we do more than allude to the supposed conquests of Sesostris and Semiramis, as these are now generally held to have no historical foundation. That the civilization of India may reach back two or three thousand years before the Christian era is, however, not improbable, as the oldest of the Indian sacred writings, the Vêdas, are believed by the best Sanscrit scholars to have been handed down by tradition from about B.C. 1500.[245]
The historian who attempts to trace the operations of men in their commercial pursuits during very remote ages, and to mark the various steps of their progress, will soon have the mortification of finding that the period of authentic history is limited to the time assigned to it in Holy Writ; and that all the speculations about the high civilization of the Hindus before the period usually assigned to the Deluge are mere dreams of antiquarian enthusiasm. There is no reason to doubt that the narrative usually attributed to Moses is the most ancient we can now obtain, whatever modern philosophers may say to the contrary; and it is on the whole, unquestionably, the most in conformity with the facts now deducible from antiquarian or linguistic research. Many centuries must have intervened before the first heathen historian, Herodotus, wrote; and it is simply idle to attempt to write a consecutive record of commercial enterprise for any period preceding written history, as even the sculptured monuments of Egypt and Nineveh add scarcely anything to the pages of the Bible. Dr. Robertson, who wrote before anything was known of the meaning of the hieroglyphic writing of Egypt, expresses grave doubts about the Indian expedition of Sesostris, resting as this story does on the unsupported testimony of Diodorus Siculus; but, though portions of it may be fabulous, others may be true.
Expedition of Sesostris.
Doubts of Dr. Robertson with regard to it.
“Credulity and scepticism,” he says,[246] “are two opposite extremes into which men are apt to run, in examining the events which are said to have happened in the early ages of antiquity. Without incurring any suspicion of a propensity to the latter of these, I may be allowed to entertain doubts concerning the expedition of Sesostris into India, and his conquest of that country. Few facts in ancient history seem to be better established than that of the early aversion of the Egyptians to a seafaring life. Even the power of despotism cannot at once change the ideas and manners of a nation, especially when they have been confirmed by long habit, and rendered sacred by the sanction of religion. That Sesostris, in the course of a few years, should have so entirely overcome the prejudices of a superstitious people, as to be able to fit out four hundred ships of war in the Arabian Gulf, besides another fleet which he had in the Mediterranean, appears to be extremely improbable. Armaments of such magnitude would require the utmost efforts of a great and long established maritime power.”[247]
On the other hand, we may remark that, though the extent of his fleet, especially of vessels large enough to undertake so distant a voyage as that to India, is, under any circumstances, very questionable, the aversion of the Egyptians to a sea-faring life, would not in itself be an insuperable objection against the probability of great and distant expeditions, since, as we have already shown, the Phœnicians must have had considerable fleets at an early period; and Sesostris (or whoever he may be supposed to represent), is said to have employed Phœnician ships and sailors. Nor does Herodotus’s omission of the expedition attributed to the Egyptian monarch, prove that no such undertaking could have been carried into effect. We must, in fact, be wary of rejecting the possibility of some conquest or of some expedition, while we reject unhesitatingly what is on the face of it fabulous, as the story of the seventeen hundred associates of Sesostris, who were born on the same day as the king, and were still alive: moreover, with regard to Strabo, it should be remembered, that he, like Herodotus, has doubted more than one story, which there is, nevertheless, sound reason for believing. The first duty of an historian is to separate, to the best of his judgment, fact from fiction, and especially, not to reject what may have taken place, because the account of it is mixed up with questionable or exaggerated anecdotes.
Hindustan, its early commerce, and the probability, from its great value, of its having attracted Sesostris.
There are many reasons for supposing that Hindustan, to this day famous for its riches, was at a very early period the seat of a lucrative commerce and of much accumulated wealth. As such it would be the envy of other nations, and more especially of ambitious monarchs. The narrative of Arrian shows that this commerce was then regulated by sounder principles, and carried on in a more civilized manner, than it was fifteen centuries afterwards when Vasco de Gama first visited the shores of India. As numerous elements of wealth and luxury, usually found scattered over various regions of the earth, were the natural products of Hindustan, it might be expected that a country so highly favoured should, through the mists which over-hang the dawn of history, have loomed forth imposingly in very ancient times as the special abode of luxury and refinement.
But while not admitting the extravagant descriptions in the Hindu poets and historians of the glory and wealth of their country, any more than the whole of the Egyptian story of Sesostris, there is no reason to doubt that the civilization of India dates from a period as early as that of Egypt, and that the fame of its riches may have led to more than one attempt to achieve its conquest. The Râmâyana, one of the most ancient Hindu books, where it informs us, in the glowing language of its poetry, that Ayodhya[248] (Oude), one of the leading commercial cities of India, was “filled with merchants and artificers of all kinds”; that “gold, precious stones, and jewels were there found in great abundance”; that “every one wore costly garments, bracelets, and necklaces”; that “the town always resounded with the noise and bustle of men and women, like the shouts of contending armies”; that “the great men were ever going to and fro upon chariots, elephants, and prancing steeds”; and that “the gardens of pleasure were always crowded with eager inquirers after their friends and lovers,” may have furnished an exaggerated description of its wealth, but far from a fabulous one, as the fame of that great city seems to rest on satisfactory evidence.
The conquests of Darius, and of Alexander.
Of the actual commercial resources of India we have, however, no reliable accounts previous to the conquests of Darius and to the successful navigation of the Indus by his fleets. In his time, the country through which he passed was represented to be very populous and highly cultivated; and though his conquests did not extend beyond the district watered by the Indus, below Peucela, we cannot but form a high opinion of its opulence in ancient times, as well as of the number of its inhabitants, when we learn from Herodotus that the tribute Darius levied upon it was nearly one-third of the whole revenue of the Persian monarchy.[249] But it was only when Alexander, two hundred years later, undertook his celebrated expedition, that sufficient knowledge of India was obtained to enable us fully to realize the real amount of its wealth, and some of the actual conditions of its civilization and commerce. Up to that period the more valuable commerce between Europe and India was conducted mainly by caravans passing through Bactra[250] (Balkh), “the mother of cities,” as it has been called from its great antiquity. From this important seat of inland Asiatic trade, the Oxus on the N.W., the Indus on the E. and S., and the Ganges to the S.E., stretched long-branching arms, and thus afforded ready means for the distribution of the contents of the caravans to the most populous districts. Founded, as is believed, before the dawn of history, Bactra was for many centuries the most flourishing mart of Eastern commerce; the western and the northern roads into India passed through it; and the ruins still surrounding it for miles attest its former size and splendour.
Trade with China.
It was the obvious policy of the Bactrian people, holding as they did in their own hands the advantage of a great trade, to give as little information as they could of the actual sources whence came the wealth or the luxuries in such demand with the merchants of the West. Hence the dismal tales of the sandy deserts to be traversed, of the many dangers to be surmounted, and of the terrible “griffins,” which, according to Herodotus and Ctesias, were the guardians of the gold-bearing districts.[251] Even Arrian, the shrewd Alexandrian merchant, speaks of the land whence the glistening hanks of silk were obtained—the land of Thina (China), as a country practically inaccessible. “It is not easy to get there,” he says, “and of those who attempt the journey, few are ever seen again. Once a year there come to the borders of Thina, a set of ill-formed, broad-faced, and flat-nosed savages, who bring with them their wives and children, and carry great burdens in mats. They stop short at a certain place between their own territory and that of Thina, where, seated on their mats, they celebrate a kind of festival, and then, having disposed of their goods, of which their silk is the chief, to the people of Thina, they depart to whence they came. The county situated beyond Thina is unexplored, either in consequence of cold and severe frosts, which render travelling thither very difficult, or because the immortals have so willed it.”[252]
The early navigation of China, like its commerce and everything else connected with the history of that remarkable country, is involved in the utmost obscurity, but there is no reason for accepting the extravagant antiquity to which the Chinese themselves pretend. Modern researches bring down the period of early Chinese civilization to a date comparatively recent; and, though it is likely that, from an early period, some of their vessels may have reached Hindustan or Ceylon, it is equally clear that their chief commercial operations with the nations of the West, previous to the time when the merchants of Alexandria established a regular trade with the coasts of Malabar, were conducted by means of the caravans already described, and, at the same time, with as much secrecy and mystery as possible.
Its maritime intercourse.
Our knowledge of the early maritime routes to the far East is almost exclusively confined to what has been already stated with reference to those between Europe and Arabia and the western shores of Hindustan. Beyond those shores, all that is certain is, that vessels from China, from Bengal, and from other parts of the East, traded with Ceylon, and that some of the products of China found their way by circuitous routes, probably after passing through many hands, to the great central mart of Alexandria; nor, indeed, is there any greater certainty or knowledge about the character of the early Indian vessels, for, like the Egyptians, the Indians were not, and are not, as a nation, a seafaring people. Those Indians who followed seafaring pursuits, were then, as now, of the lowest caste; hence the inference is natural that their shipping would exhibit a corresponding inferiority in construction.
Pliny[253] says that their boats consisted chiefly of a large description of cane or bamboo, split down the middle, and capable of carrying three persons; and Arrian remarks that, in his time, the vessels employed on the Malabar coast were very inferior to those of most other nations. He says the small vessels, called madara, have their planks sewn together with coir—the inner fibre of the cocoa-nut—like some of the native vessels of Arabia. Others, he adds, were long vessels, trappaga and cotymba (in the native dialect),[254] used by fishermen and pilots of the port of Barygaza. But besides these, there were double canoes, which were lashed together, and were by his description not unlike, though much inferior to, those of the South Sea Islands, of which, from Captain Cook’s description, the following is an illustration (Page 131).
The Chinese junk of the present day probably affords a tolerably accurate representation of the Chinese merchant vessel of two or perhaps three thousand years ago; for all that is known of China, and of the habits of its population, tends to show that they have adhered to established types with even more than Oriental tenacity.[255] In the “Asiatic Researches” (vol. vi. p. 204) is a representation of one of the oldest Chinese merchant vessels which have been preserved: it exhibits a model almost as perfect as any of their vessels of our own time.
SMALL JUNK. PARO.
A comparison of the Chinese boats with those of the ancient Britons.
Moreover, the ordinary junk now in use for the coasting and inland navigation of that country, will be noticed as forming an exact counterpart of many of the Egyptian vessels engaged on the trade of the Nile, and, more especially, that called paro, another description of trading craft very common in China; while the account given by Sir George Staunton of some of the small vessels of China exhibits a remarkable similitude between these and the ancient boats of Britain. “The boats,” he says, “commonly in use among them, consist of five planks only, joined together without ribs or timber of any kind. These planks are bent to the proper shape by being exposed some time to a flame of fire. They are brought to a line at each end, and the edges are joined together with wooden pins, and stitched[256] with bamboo split into flexible threads, and the seams afterwards smeared with a paste made with quicklime from sea-shells and water. Others are made of wicker-work, smeared all over, and rendered watertight, by the same composition as is used for the former. The owners affect to paint eyes upon the heads of all these boats, as if to denote the vigilance requisite in the conduct of them. They are remarkable for standing the sudden shock of violent waves, as well as for being stiff upon the water, and sailing expeditiously. The boat belonging to the chief of the district was built upon the same plan, but on a larger scale, had a carved and gilt head, bearing some resemblance to that of a tiger, and a stern ornamented with sculpture, and painted with a variety of designs in lively colours. In these boats the principal sitters are generally at the stem, instead of being near the stern, as is the custom of Europe.”
Considering themselves to be the most ancient and the most learned of people, the Chinese were too vain to learn from others; they thought they knew more than anybody else, and they think so still; for, having daily before them some of the most magnificent European ships of modern times, they still retain the ancient form of the junk. To a people so fond of money, and so industrious, one would have thought that the fact of such vessels conducting the most valuable trade on the Chinese coast, would have induced them to make some endeavour, by means of shipping better found and better fitted than are any they possess, to retain a trade for centuries originally and exclusively their own.
Nowhere are their failings in this respect better exemplified than in the report of the embassy under Lord Macartney, sent from Great Britain to Pekin in 1792. “It is not uncommon,” remarks the writer of this report, “on board Chinese vessels to have maps or sketches of their intended route, with the neighbouring headlands cut out or engraved upon the back of empty gourds, the round form of which corresponds in some sort to the figure of the earth. Such a similitude may have sometimes contributed to render these sketches somewhat less erroneous, but the advantage is accidental, for neither the astronomers nor navigators of China have varied much from the first rude notions entertained among mankind, that the whole earth was one flat surface, in the middle of which the Chinese took for granted that their own empire was situated, thence emphatically styled by them, the ‘empire of the middle;’ all other countries surrounding it being, in their estimation, comparatively small, and lying towards the edge, or margin of the earth, beyond which all must be a precipitate and dreadful void.”
The conquests of Alexander in India, B.C. 327-5.
With the conquests of Alexander commence our first really historical knowledge of India. For, if Alexander left behind him, at his premature death, the fame of a mighty conqueror, he no less deserves that of a great civilizer, by the wisdom he displayed in opening up new channels of commercial intercourse.[257] In the foundation of Alexandria (B.C. 332) he showed how keenly he was alive to the value of the commerce between Europe and the East, while he was, at the same time, the first to lay down the principle that the command of the sea secures the possession of the land; and to carry that principle into practice, by raising his fleets from insignificance until they held dominion over all waters accessible to them. Alexander saw that the extension of the commercial intercourse of his people would do more to consolidate his power than military conquest; hence he had the wisdom to establish in the path of his conquests, ports, cities, and institutions, with which his name has been, and will be, imperishably associated. Although there will always be some persons who can see nothing but desolation and ruin in the paths of a great conqueror, who deem great soldiers the necessary enemies of mankind, and who cannot recognise either the foresight or the motives of men such as Alexander the Great, yet even they must admit that the world ultimately reaped a rich harvest through the creation of Alexandria, and that his triumphs in Asia gain additional renown from his efforts to increase geographical knowledge, and to bring India, by means of a more rapid communication by sea, nearer to Europe than it had ever been before his time.
Nor were the designs of this great conqueror confined to an increase of facilities for conducting with greater rapidity and safety the commercial intercourse of the nations of the West, requiring, as these did for their daily wants, commodities India could alone supply. Alexander created new channels of trade, and fresh wants, and fresh hopes for each country he successively overcame. Instead of devastation and misery marking his progress through Syria and Asia Minor, these countries were greatly enriched by his sovereignty, while their inhabitants secured more freedom and prosperity than they had ever enjoyed under their native princes. Egypt, under the dynasty of the Ptolemies, the first founder of which, Ptolemy the son of Lagos, was one of Alexander’s most trusted generals, obtained a commercial pre-eminence it had not enjoyed during any previous period of its history. Again, when Alexander advanced into the district now known as the Panjâb, he conferred many advantages on the natives, and imparted to them much practical and valuable knowledge. Almost everywhere he founded Greek cities or colonies (Plutarch gives their number as seventy), diffusing the manners and customs of his own people over the vast tracts of land from the temple of Ammon in the Lybian oasis to the banks of the Indus. Thus he brought into contact with his own refined and civilized Greeks, not merely Oriental nations that were highly gifted in their own way, but also the semi-barbarous tribes of many lands, teaching them the advantages of commercial intercourse, and extending by its influence the comforts which habits of industry can alone bestow, together with the many blessings civilization confers. His conquests, like the discoveries of Columbus, made known the existence of rich regions before unsuspected, and countries where millions of the human race could find remunerative occupation.
The gain of commerce by his conquests.
Articles of commerce, of which the Western World had had no previous experience, were thus brought to light. Rice produced from irrigated fields; a cotton tree of a superior growth, which, from its fine tissues, furnished the materials for the manufacture of paper; various descriptions of spices and opium; wine made from rice, and from the juice of palms;[258] wool from the great bombax tree;[259] shawls made of the fine hair of the Thibetan goats; silken tissues of various kinds; oil from the white sesamum; and perfumes of the richest description. These and other products, for the most part new to the Western World, soon became articles of universal commerce, while some of them were transported to Arabia, and thence to the shores of the Mediterranean.
The spread of knowledge.
But, beyond numerous commercial advantages, the Macedonian campaigns opened a large and beautiful portion of the earth to the influence of a highly-gifted race, who courted the society of the most learned men of the countries they conquered. Hence the geographical knowledge of the Greeks was more than doubled in the course of a very few years by the extraordinary and enlightened conquests of their chief.
While the comparison of notes between the geometricians, naturalists, and astronomers of two of the most learned nations of ancient times proved of immense benefit to mankind, we cannot doubt that the scientific knowledge of the Greeks, when brought to bear upon the practical experience of the Hindus with regard to the prevailing winds, mainly induced Nearchus to start without fear on his celebrated voyage, and, at the same time, encouraged the merchants of Europe to seek out new means of communication with a country producing in such abundance the articles they prized so highly.
His march into India.
The expedition through the northern portions of India, and the voyage from the Indus to the Euphrates, if not the greatest of the exploits of Alexander, were certainly, in many ways, the most important up to that time in the history of commerce and navigation.
Arrian, whom we have had so often the pleasure of quoting, has preserved copious extracts from the journal of Nearchus, and the information thus obtained has been thoroughly investigated by Dr. Robertson, in his “Disquisition on the Knowledge the Ancients had of India”; by Heeren in his “Asiatic Nations”; and most fully of all by Dr. Vincent in his “Commerce and Navigation of the Ancients in the Indian Ocean.”
With a view to secure the commerce Tyre had so long and so successfully carried on with India, Alexander, early in his career, as has been shown, established the great Egyptian port which still bears his name; and other events soon gave him the opportunity of obtaining the sovereignty of those regions that supplied the rest of the world with so many precious commodities. After his victory over the Persians, the pursuit of Darius led him across Asia, from the Caspian Sea to Maracanda (Samarcand), and during this adventurous march he naturally learnt many things, not only of the tribes through whom he passed, but also of India itself, with which those tribes had much commercial intercourse. Decisive and prompt in his resolutions, he accordingly set out from Bactra (Balkh), crossed the great chain of mountains that constitutes the north-western boundary of India, and, passing the Indus, marched on towards the Ganges and the rich provinces of the south-east, now comprehended under the general name of Hindustan.
Preparations for the voyage down the Indus.
Nor would he have hesitated in pushing onwards to the then capital of India, Palimbothra (now Patna), had he not been compelled by the remonstrances of his native troops to retrace his steps homewards. Being, however, unable to persuade his troops to cross the Hyphasis (now Setlege), and to pass on to the conquest of India, Alexander fell back upon the Hydaspes (now Jelum), where he found that the officers to whom he had entrusted the construction and collection of as many vessels as could be got ready, had so well executed his orders, that they had assembled a numerous fleet, consisting of two thousand vessels, according to Strabo, or, according to Arrian,[260] of about eight hundred boats, thirty-one of which were ships of war, and the rest such as were usually employed in the navigation of the river. But, whichever number be right—and with the dense population of the Panjâb, the larger one, comprehending anything and everything that could float, is doubtless possible—it is certain, if we except that of Xerxes, that this flotilla was one of the largest which had as yet, at least within historical times, been got together.
It is very likely that, by his eight hundred, Arrian may have meant only those employed for transports and fighting vessels, not deeming it worth while to reckon up every small craft Alexander may have pressed into his service. Moreover, Strabo[261] has remarked that in the neighbourhood of Nicæa, whence the army embarked, there was an abundant supply of fir, pine, cedar, and of other timber, fit for the construction of boats and barges; while Arrian further records the fact that Alexander, before he himself had reached the Indus, had already caused a number of vessels to be built in the country of the Assacani (the Afghâns), and to be sent down the Kophen (or river of Kâbul) to Taxila (Manykyala). It was, probably, during the preparation of this great fleet that Alexander obtained his most valuable information about the state of inner or further India, both with regard to the commerce of the country, and to the different places with which the natives traded. Many of the natives, too, embarked with him, either for the purpose of conducting the fleet, or with a view to their own advantage; and, besides the natives who rendered their services in the collection, fitting out and navigating the fleet, it is further stated that an ample supply of mariners was obtained from a number of Phœnicians, Egyptians, Cypriotes, Ionians, and others from the shores of the Hellespont, and from the Ægean islands, who had accompanied the army, in various capacities, as camp followers.[262]
Departure of his fleet from Nicæa, B.C. 326.
Description of the vessels employed.
Thus prepared, the expedition started from Nicæa on the 1st October, B.C. 326. The voyage down the river is described rather as a triumphal procession than a military progress. The size of many of the transport vessels, and of the barges for the conveyance of horses, the splendour of the equipments, the clang of arms, and the sound of musical instruments, attracted the natives in vast numbers to the banks of the river, as wondering spectators to the pomp. Nor, probably, were they less surprised at the measured chant of the rowers, and the dashing of the oars in the still waters: subjects on which all the historians of this remarkable expedition have dwelt in detail, doubtless thereby conveying an accurate account of this remarkable exploit. But though there can be no doubt of the general truth of the story as handed down to us by Arrian, the descriptions of the vessels which composed it are, in some respects, inconsistent with each other. The transports were probably short flat vessels, to which the ordinary small barge of the present day bears, perhaps, a greater resemblance than any other craft. The galleys are said to have been long and sharp, some of them having two banks of oars; others were “half-decked vessels;”[263] while some of them had keels so deep, that they could not be beached without risk of their destruction. “As the tide fell,” remarks Dr. Vincent,[264] “the vessels were left on ground; but upon the return of the flood those only that had settled upright in the mud or ooze, escaped unhurt, while all that lay inclined upon the harder ground, were exposed to the most imminent danger, and several were lost.” As any vessel, however, that is of sufficient stability to float upright, would, when the tide returned, rise to it, it is very probable that the cause of these occasional accidents was leakage, through straining or from carelessness in beaching them on uneven ground. The greater part, however, of the craft consisted, no doubt, of open boats and barges, and especially that portion of it which had been built on the upper branches of the Indus, and then transported overland to the Hydaspes.
Progress of the fleet.
The expedition having been disposed of in various divisions, had orders to observe a due distance from each other in their movements, so that no confusion might arise, its speed being at the same time regulated so as to accommodate itself to the motions of the army on the shore. Three vast armies, moving in separate divisions, encumbered with baggage as well as with munitions of war, with no roads prepared for them, and, for the most part, following the sinuosities of the river, must have had numerous difficulties to surmount. It is, therefore, unlikely that they were able to maintain their combined movement with anything like order, or to average in their progress as much as the fifteen miles a day Dr. Vincent considers a fair estimate for them. Still less is it possible that they could have accomplished the six hundred stadia, or seventy miles, in the time Pliny has recorded. The estimate of Curtius of forty stadia, or four miles and three quarters a day, is unquestionably nearer the truth, as we know that the fleet was nine months floating down a distance of little more than one thousand miles. Moreover, there were constant delays and interruptions, arising from the arrangements Alexander considered it necessary to make with the different tribes and provinces through whose territory he had to advance.
Establishment of new cities on the banks of the Indus.
At the junction of the Acesines with the Indus, Alexander established his first city on the banks of that river. The site was judiciously chosen, as a city placed in such a position would necessarily partake of all the commerce that passed up the Indus, to be distributed by means of its various tributaries, from Candahar and Kâbul on the west, to Upper India and Thibet on the north and north-east: moreover, being the centre where all the streams united, it must, consequently, derive equal emoluments from the commerce that passed downwards to the coast.[265] From the establishment of this and of other cities on the banks of the Indus, all of which he fortified, it is evident that the Macedonian conqueror destined that river to be the eastern frontier of his empire, and saw that, by holding the command of it, he would combine, by means of a river navigation to the eastern portion of his dominions, a maritime commerce with the richest portions of the interior of India.
On the arrival of the expedition at Pattala, in after days a place of great commercial importance for the maritime trade with the West, Alexander made arrangements for despatching Nearchus, with the largest and best portion of his fleet, to the Euphrates, he himself proceeding with the bulk of his army, by land, to Susa and Babylon. The importance of Nearchus’ expedition cannot be too highly estimated, as on its success greatly depended the carrying out, with thorough efficiency, that widely extended system of commerce by sea, between India and Europe, Alexander obviously had in view, and of which the fleet, under the command of Nearchus, was to serve as the pioneer. The opening of the Indus, on the one hand, and the establishment of Alexandria in Egypt on the other, are evidences of a comprehensive scheme of commercial intercourse between all the leading points of the then known world. Alexander could scarcely have failed to perceive that the junction of the great ports of the East and of the West, with well selected stations, at proper intervals between them, would secure the stability of his vast empire; indeed, no other device could have provided for it so well, or could, at the same time, have enabled him to hold in his own hands by far the largest and most valuable trade known to the merchants of ancient times.
Character of the vessels engaged on the voyage from the Indus to Susa.
Time occupied.
Although Nearchus in his journal enters into the most minute details of his voyage from the Indus to Susa on the Choaspes, it is remarkable that he has given no account whatever of the size or number of vessels under his command. An attentive perusal of his story shows however, clearly enough, that they were of the smallest description of craft then in use for sea-going purposes. During the whole voyage they closely hugged the land, invariably anchoring during the night; and though occasionally, when the wind was fair and strong, the journal records a run of sixty, and once of even eighty miles, the average distance did not exceed twenty-five, add to which, the joy of the crew when they reached Karamania, and formed a naval camp on shore, indicates but too plainly that, on board, they had been uncomfortably crammed from want of space.[266]
The voyage itself is recorded with great care by Nearchus; and Heeren, in his “Asiatic Nations,”[267] gives a condensed account of it, which is alike interesting and clear, especially in that portion of it referring to the leading outlines of the coast. It is interesting to read in the records of Nearchus that he speaks of the marauding habits of a people who, having reached a high state of civilization, and even refinement, seem to have degenerated from what they were two thousand years ago, and to observe that, by even this circumstance, the navigator by sea and the traveller by land, of our own time, can recognize the accuracy of his description.[268]
The whole time occupied on the voyage from the mouth of the Indus to Susa, appears to have been 146 days—five lunar months and six days, and not seven months, as stated by Pliny.[269] In calling attention to this fact, Dr. Vincent remarks that a modern vessel can perform in three weeks the passage which Nearchus was five months in accomplishing. “Within the memory of man,” he adds,[270] “a voyage to India required eight or nine months; but Dr. Robertson mentions that, in 1788, the Boddam East Indiaman reached Madras in 108 days, and it has since been performed in 96.” To this we may add that the voyage to India (Bombay), by way of Marseilles, Egypt, and the Red Sea, is now performed in 28 days; that auxiliary screw steam-ships from Liverpool and London perform the voyage, by way of Gibraltar and the Suez Canal, to Bombay and Ceylon, heavily laden with cargoes each way, and back to England in 80 days; and that by means of the electric telegraph we can now communicate with any portion of that vast empire in a day, practically in a few minutes if there are no obstacles in the way.[271]
Future voyages.
But conquests in Asia and Western India were not sufficient to satisfy the ambition of Alexander, which knew no limits short of the then known world. Whether he really contemplated the circumnavigation of Africa, and also its subjugation, is a matter of doubt, but it is a well established fact that he had in view the conquest of the whole of Arabia. With that object, he commissioned Nearchus, with the ships he had brought from the Indus, supplemented by forty-seven vessels from Phœnicia, which had been built in pieces and conveyed overland to Thapsacus, and by others constructed on the spot, of cypress, the only wood Babylon afforded, to form a fleet, and take command of this second great maritime expedition. Two of the vessels brought from Phœnicia are described as of five banks, three of four, twelve of three, while thirty were rowed with fifteen oars on a side.[272] The object of Alexander was evidently not so much conquest as colonization. To prepare the way for Nearchus, three single vessels were despatched at different times down the Arabian side of the Persian Gulf, to learn the nature of the coast, the character of the soil, and the best sites for stations or towns. One of these vessels had instructions to circumnavigate Arabia, and to proceed up the Red Sea as far as Suez,[273] though it does not appear whether she ever reached her destination.
Death of Alexander, B.C. 323.
Nearchus would, no doubt, have accomplished the task allotted to him by Alexander, but when the expedition was ready to start, the Macedonian conqueror lay on his death-bed. In the midst of the fever of which he died, he, according to the diary of one of his officers, “transacted business with his officers, and gave directions about the fleet.”[274] On the following day, though “the fever now ran very high, and oppressed him much, he nevertheless ordered the principal officers to attend, and repeated his orders in regard to the fleet”; and on the day of his death, when unable to speak, it would appear by the diary preserved in the extracts made from it by Arrian, that his last thoughts were directed to the conquest and colonization of Arabia. His untimely death, however, not only put an end to this project, but also to all his other splendid schemes.
As is well known, the body of Alexander was hardly cold, ere the great empire he had founded fell to pieces, and was parcelled out among those who had been his ablest lieutenants; but, though for a while suffering from the rude conflict of rival selfishness, it is a remarkable fact that the commercial relations between the different provinces he had overrun had been so well established by the sagacity of the conqueror, that on the final restoration of tranquillity, the Macedonian dominion, and with it Greek principles of trade and mutual intercourse, prevailed throughout Asia, no province succeeding for many years in shaking off the yoke. Even in the distant East, though those portions of it subdued by Alexander for a while joined a native chief Sandracottus (Chandra-gupta), the ruler of a powerful nation on the banks of the Ganges, whose plan was to attack those parts of the Macedonian dominions bordering on his territories, order was soon restored; while Alexander’s immediate successor in the government of the East, Seleucus, who had carefully studied the principles of his great master, conceived so clear an idea of the importance of a commercial intercourse with India, that he marched into that country, and, entering into relations with Ptolemy the son of Lagos, established on a firm basis the trade between the Red Sea and Hindustan, as described in the previous chapter.
Eastern India.
Of the more eastern portions of India little was then known. Indeed, so late as the geographer Ptolemy, so erroneous are his ideas of the size and position of even the great island of Ceylon, and of the peninsula of Hindustan, that it is certain he obtained the information he has recorded from the reports of persons of no scientific acquirements. His description of the character of the coasts and of the chief ports are, on the other hand, more accurate than might have been expected, considering that his only source of information was from the lips of unscientific sailors or merchants who had merely visited the places he notices. Thus, in his account of Ceylon, we find a fair description, not only of the sea coast of the island, but of the trade then carried on, and, especially of the nature of the intercourse conducted by the different nations who frequented its excellent harbours. Ptolemy, also, notices the productions for which Ceylon was then celebrated, as rice, honey, ginger, aromatic drugs, pearls, and precious stones, and especially the beryl and the hyacinth. He likewise mentions gold and silver, with a special reference to its elephants and tigers. Indeed, his description of the island resembles in all material points that given by Cosmas Indicopleustes, four centuries later. Both agree in stating that the shores were occupied by foreigners, who held the harbours and the chief seats of commerce, leaving the interior to the aboriginal inhabitants.
Ptolemy speaks also of many small islands west of Ceylon—doubtless the Maldives—and of those to the eastward, now called the Sunda Islands, more especially of Jabadia (now Java), which he describes as the richest of them all. Many other islands are also noticed by him which cannot now be identified; it seems also probable that he knew something of the Straits of Sunda, between Java and Sumatra. Indeed, he mentions boats peculiar to the Java sea, as observed also by Pliny, constructed of planks fastened together by trenails instead of iron. Moreover, his account of India beyond the Ganges, and of the various ports and cities of the peninsulas of Malacca and Serica (China), proves at least this, that long before his time these countries were accessible to navigators, and that Ceylon was the common mart for the trade of all the vessels bound thence to the westward.
Ceylon.
From the “Periplus” of Arrian still more accurate information is obtainable, and especially with regard to the Malabar coast he himself visited: from his report we learn that Cochin and Travancore then carried on a flourishing trade, and that Palæsimundum, the capital of Ceylon, was considered by him to contain upwards of two hundred thousand inhabitants, an estimate more likely to be true of the whole island than of the capital alone. Palæsimundum was on the northern side of the island, probably on or near the bay of Trincomalee, one of the finest harbours in India, although then, as now, the port and harbour of Galle on the south appears to have been the chief rendezvous for merchant vessels. A glance at the map will show that for this purpose Galle is eminently well placed.
Nor can the commercial reputation of Ceylon be said to have ever waned; for of this island alone it may be said that, during all the changes in the course of commerce, since the Phœnicians of Gerrha first, as we believe, explored the western shores of the Indian peninsula, Ceylon has maintained her natural position as the great maritime entrepôt between the East and the West. Here, doubtless, the voyagers from each distant land met, as it were, on neutral ground, none of them, perhaps, for many ages, extending their own commercial relations beyond it. We have also Pliny’s statement that the Singhalese ambassadors to Rome, in the reign of Claudius,[275] asserted that their countrymen had reached China by an overland route through India and across the Himalaya, before ships had attempted the voyage thither; while it is further certain that Ceylon also reaped the full share of the advantages maritime adventure derived from the discovery of the monsoons, and that, during the period when Rome carried on, by way of the Red Sea, an extensive commercial intercourse with the East, this island was, as it had been for so long, the chief emporium of the far East.
Internal commerce of India.
Passing on to the time when the transfer of the seat of empire was made from Rome to Constantinople, and when the Persians vied with the merchants of Egypt and the ship-owners of Arabia to divert the course of the Oriental trade from the Red Sea and Alexandria to the Euphrates and the Persian Gulf, Ceylon continued to be the great rendezvous alike for the traders of the West and the East.[276] Nor has it lost in any way its ancient fame as a place of call. At the harbour of Galle the steamships from Europe, by way of the Red Sea, destined for Calcutta and the ports of China, now exchange their passengers and specie with the lines of steamships which trade to the ports of Australia; while traders from Bombay to Bengal, and other ports of the East, still make it the centre to which, and from which, their respective routes converge or diverge. Again, India within itself has, from the earliest period of authentic history, carried on a large internal commerce both by land and sea. Rice and other necessaries of life must have been transported from the countries along the Ganges, where they grow abundantly, to the sandy shores of the peninsula; and cotton, though manufactured with the same activity on the coasts as in the interior, differed so much in each district, in its texture and mode of preparation, that a large interchange of its various kinds must naturally have occurred. Again, the mode of life, especially in such cities as Ayodhya (Oude) implies the existence of a multitude of wants, natural and artificial, which could only be supplied by a corresponding system of active commerce between the different parts of India.
It is clear, from Ptolemy, that along the shores of the Indian peninsula there were a number of ports known to the traders of his time by the name of “Emporia,” or places of rendezvous; but, as Dr. Robertson has pointed out, we have no means now of determining whether these, or most of these, were simply ports for native vessels, or for the larger ships that conveyed the merchandise of Alexandria and of the West. It seems, however, probable from his strange ignorance of the real size of Ceylon (in which ignorance he nearly equals Arrian), that even then direct communication with that island was not very common; add to which, that, beyond the Golden Chersonesus, Ptolemy has noticed but one emporium, a fact clearly showing that few, if any, reports had reached him of the trade beyond the present site of Singapore.
Manufactures of India.
But, however little we may know of the outline of the coasts of India, or of its harbours to the eastward of Cape Comorin, previous to the Christian era, there can be no doubt of the comparatively high state of civilization then prevalent among the Hindus generally, and of their skill in manufactures.
So great was the variety of cloths manufactured by it even in the days of Arrian, who gives them in detail, that we can hardly suppose the number to have afterwards much increased. In the “Periplus”[277] we read of the finest Bengal muslins; of coarse, middle, and fine cloths; of coarse and fine calicoes; of coloured shawls and sashes; of coarse and fine purple goods, as well as of pieces of embroidery; of spun silk and of furs from Serica: and it is further recorded that the Greeks who visited India in the train of Alexander the Great, were struck with the whiteness and fineness of the texture of the cotton garments of the Hindus. Moreover, it is quite possible that the “coloured cloths and rich apparel,” noticed by Ezekiel as brought to Tyre and Babylon, were partly, at least, the production of India. Again, frequent mention is made of these coloured cloths and fine garments by the poet of the Râmâyana, and of “the rich woollen stuffs,” perhaps the shawls of Cashmir, still among the richest portions of female attire in Eastern countries. Herodotus, also, speaks of the bark of trees being used in India from very remote times, for the purpose of manufacturing a species of cloth, extensively worn by pious hermits and penitents. All these facts establish beyond any question the great antiquity of Indian civilization.
India, like Asia Minor and Arabia, had its caravans. In those of the south, elephants were chiefly employed; for the whole of the peninsula being traversed by rocky mountains, could scarcely, if at all, admit of the employment of camels. The Ganges and its tributary streams, however, afforded great facilities for the commercial intercourse of Northern India, though Arrian adds also, and truly, that many of the rivers of the south were equally available for trade, and that along the eastern and western coasts extensive use was made of country-built boats. Indeed, when we consider the high antiquity of the pearl fisheries of Ceylon, we cannot doubt that such a coasting trade was carried on for many hundred years before his time.
At particular periods of the year caravans proceeded to Benares and Juggernaut, sanctuaries to which hundreds of thousands of pilgrims resorted for purposes of commerce and devotion long before the Christian era; and, as markets and fairs were established, and depôts for goods erected, partly in the interior, but particularly on the coast, to meet the wants of the vast concourse of pilgrims and traders, there must, at such times, have been considerable employment for the native vessels, beyond what was required in the pearl fisheries and in the ordinary course of traffic.
A.D. 527-65.
A.D. 535.
A.D. 150.
A.D. 1271-95.
Though from the age of Ptolemy the trade between Western Europe and India was carried on by the way of Egypt, Rome and Constantinople being alike supplied by the agency of the merchants of Alexandria, we have not, till the reign of Justinian, any further information concerning the progress of the over-sea trade, or of any discoveries with reference to the more remote regions of the East. In the course, however, of his reign, Cosmas (commonly called, from the voyages he made, Indicopleustes, an Egyptian merchant), went on more than one occasion to India; and when, in after days, he renounced the pursuits of commerce, and became a monk, he composed in the solitude and leisure of his cell, several works, one of which (his “Christian Topography”) has been preserved.[278] It is not, indeed, a work of any special merit, consisting, as it does, chiefly of fanciful views about the shape of the globe. With a condemnation of the notions of Ptolemy, and of other “speculative” geographers, it contains, however, much curious and reliable information with reference to the countries he had himself visited, and especially, to the western coast of the Indian peninsula. Indeed, from the time of the merchant Arrian to that of Marco Polo, Cosmas, who traded on the coast of Malabar about the middle of the sixth century, is the only writer of note who gives any account of the maritime and commercial affairs of India, during a period of twelve centuries.
State of the trade of India, from the sixth to the ninth century.
From Cosmas we learn that, in his day, great numbers of vessels from all parts of India, Persia, and Æthiopia, were in the habit of trading with Ceylon; and that the island itself had “numerous fleets of ships belonging to its own merchants.” He reckons the tonnage of these vessels “as generally of about three thousand amphoræ”;[279] adding that “their mariners do not make astronomical observations, but carry birds to sea, and letting them go, from time to time, follow the course they take for the land.” Cosmas further remarks, that “they devote only four months in the year to the pursuits of navigation, and are particularly careful not to trust themselves on the sea during the next hundred days after the summer solstice, for within those seas it is, at that time, the middle of winter.” But the “numerous fleets of ships” he refers to were, probably, the property of Arabian merchants settled in the island, navigated by their own countrymen, and not by the natives of Ceylon. The Singhalese, indeed, in ancient and modern times alike, have shown an apathy in all matters connected with navigation, the more remarkable as, by its position and the character of its coasts, Ceylon is singularly well adapted to be the nursery of an able race of seamen. The boats now found there are all copies from models supplied by other nations; even their strange canoes, with out-riggers and a balance log, are but repetitions of the boats of the islanders of the Eastern Archipelago; while their ballams, canoes of a larger and more substantial description, are borrowed from the vessels of Malabar. It is curious that, to this day, the gunwales of their dhows are frequently topped by wicker-work, smeared with clay to protect the deck from the wash of the sea, much after the fashion of the bulwarks of the mythical craft of Ulysses.
It is remarkable also that in the enumeration of the exports of the island of Ceylon given by Arrian, no mention whatever is made of cinnamon. Nor does Cosmas refer to it. “I have searched,” says Sir Emerson Tennent, in his work on Ceylon, “among the records of the Greeks and Romans from the earliest time, until the period when the commerce of the East had reached its climax in the hands of the Persians and Arabians: the survey extends over fifteen centuries, during which Ceylon and its productions were familiarly known to the traders of all countries, and yet in the pages of no author, European or Asiatic, from the earliest ages to the close of the thirteenth century, is there the remotest allusion to cinnamon as an indigenous production, or even as an article of commerce, in Ceylon. I may add, that I have been equally unsuccessful in finding any allusions to it in any Chinese work of ancient date.”[280] This is, in fact, but another, though a striking instance, of the secrecy with which the ancients conducted the more valuable portions of their trade, and fully confirms the notice of the cinnamon trade of Herodotus, who could only have obtained his information about it from the merchants[281] or mariners who traded along the shores of Malabar or of Æthiopia to the south of Zanzibar. He speaks of it as so mysterious in its growth, and so difficult to obtain, that the most exorbitant prices were given for it in the markets of Europe; adding that, though in great demand in Tyre, Carthage, Miletus, and Alexandria, the merchants kept the secret of its provenance as the Carthaginians kept that of British tin.
Change in the course of trade.
Persian trade with India.
The trade which the Romans “opened” with India by the way of the Red Sea, was conducted by them with success for more than five centuries; but we learn from Cosmas that, but a short time before his travels, they had met with a new and powerful rival in the Sassanian rulers of Persia, who, having overthrown the Parthians, and restored the ancient faith and monarchy of Persia, made early and vigorous efforts to acquire a share in the lucrative commerce of India. Following in the course of the early Phœnicians, the Persians with their ships commenced anew this eastern trade with India, and, in return for the productions of their own country, received the precious commodities of Hindustan, conveying them up the Persian Gulf, and, by means of the rivers Euphrates and Tigris, distributing them through every province of their empire. Rome being then in its decline, a powerful rival, such as Persia, could hardly fail to injure, if not to entirely destroy, the commerce the merchants of Alexandria had for ages nurtured with so much care. Moreover, the voyage from Persia to India, being much shorter, and attended with fewer dangers, led to an increase of the intercourse between the two countries, which the Greek merchants of Alexandria vainly attempted to resist. Even then, if Cosmas be trustworthy, few Europeans visited the eastern part of India, but were content to receive thence its silk, spices, and other valuable productions, either by caravans or the agency of native vessels.
About this period, China carried on the most prosperous trade of any of the nations of the East, both by land and sea. Her caravans passed through Asia and Tatary, and her merchants conducted an extensive business with the provinces bordering on the Caspian, and in some cases with the more distant nations to the west and the north. Four hundred Chinese vessels are said to have been seen in the port of Ormuz, at the entrance of the Persian Gulf, and China is stated to have then received ambassadors from all the countries of Asia, as well as from Constantinople, and the Khalif of Baghdad, thus holding a direct intercourse with the whole civilized world. The vessels of China, however, had ceased to repair to the Persian Gulf long before the Portuguese made their appearance in Calicut; but from the time of Cosmas to that of Marco Polo they appear to have shared with the Arabians and Persians the carrying trade of the East, and to have even extended their voyages to the remote island of Madagascar.
The Muhammedans, A.D. 622.
Within a hundred years after the death of Justinian, an event happened, which occasioned a revolution still more considerable in the intercourse of Europe with the East. A prophet and a conqueror arose in Arabia; and within forty years of his death a great part of Asia, and Africa, with no inconsiderable portion of Europe, had been subdued, and the dominion of the followers of Muhammed extended from the shores of the Atlantic to the frontier of China, with a rapidity of success to which there is nothing similar in the history of mankind. “Egypt,” remarks Dr. Robertson, “was one of their earliest conquests; and, as they settled in that inviting country, and kept possession of it, the Greeks were excluded from all intercourse with Alexandria, to which they had long resorted as the chief mart of Indian goods. Nor was this the only effect which the progress of the Muhammedan arms had upon the commerce of Europe with India. Prior to the invasion of Egypt, the Arabians had subdued the great kingdom of Persia, and added it to the empire of the Khalifs.”[282]
The extent of their commerce with the East.
Finding their new subjects engaged in the trade with India, and sensible of the vast advantages to be derived from it, the Muhammedan rulers turned their attention to it with even greater vigour than ever the Persians had done; and pursuing the same course they had followed, their enterprising merchants soon advanced far beyond the boundaries of ancient navigation as known to the nations of the West, bringing many of the most precious commodities of the East directly from the countries in which they were produced. Having founded the city of Bussorah on the western banks of the great stream formed by the junction of the Euphrates and Tigris, they thus secured the command of these two rivers, so that this entrepôt soon became the seat of a maritime commerce second only to Alexandria in its greatest prosperity. Although their knowledge of navigation scarcely exceeded that which the Phœnicians possessed when they launched their expeditions from Gerrha some two thousand years before, the followers of Muhammed had extended, as early as the ninth century, their voyages beyond the Gulf of Siam, carrying on with Sumatra, and other islands of the Indian Archipelago, a regular commerce, and extending their trading operations even to the city of Canton. At many of the intervening ports numerous Arabian merchants and ship-owners settled with their families, so that the Arabian language was understood, and spoken at most places of any importance between the mouths of the Euphrates and Tigris, and Canton.[283]
The Muhammedans were, however, not without rivals in this lucrative trade, as the Chinese themselves, who, seemingly, were much more enterprising then as navigators than they are now, no longer limited their communications with the traders of the West to the Island of Ceylon; but, rounding Cape Comorin, traded directly with the ports of Malabar and of the Persian Gulf, sometimes proceeding as far as the Euphrates, but more frequently terminating their voyage at Siraf, near to the mouth of that gulf. While these Eastern nations were thus extending their operations, the people of Europe found themselves excluded almost entirely from any intercourse with either India or China. The great port of Alexandria was under the control of the Muhammedans, and they, and the Christian subjects of the Khalifs, had, in their own extensive dominions, sufficient demand for all the Indian commodities they could import. Consequently the trading towns of the Mediterranean were obliged to seek fresh, or rather to re-open old, routes to the East, to obtain their supplies. Nor was this a task easy of accomplishment; and the difficulties surmounted in accomplishing it furnish a proof that the luxuries of the East were then in as great demand as they had ever been in ancient times.
The trade between Constantinople, and India and China.
Indeed the fabulous prices obtained for silk and various other articles of Indian produce enabled the trader to overcome any difficulty. Starting from the banks of the Indus, he found his way by one of the early routes, already described, to the river Oxus, or directly to the Caspian, and thence to Constantinople, which became, even more than it had hitherto been, the great centre of European commerce. The intercourse between Constantinople and China was much more difficult and dangerous; as in this case the trader had to proceed to the western provinces of the Chinese empire, and, having purchased his silk, to convey it by caravans, for an average of ninety days, to the banks of the Oxus, and along that stream to the Caspian; thence he followed the course of the river Cyrus, as far it was navigable, and, after a five days’ march overland, found his way to the Euxine, by the river Phasis.[284]
Such were the different means of conducting the commercial intercourse between Europe and the East in ancient times, and such they practically continued, amid various minor changes and through many wars and vicissitudes, up to the period when Vasco de Gama discovered the new and better way to India by doubling the Cape of Good Hope. We shall hereafter glance at the maritime commerce of India from the ninth century up to the time when the Portuguese landed on its shores, with some notices of the celebrated travels of Marco Polo, of the expulsion of the Arabians from its trade, and of the decline of the vast influence so long exercised by the Moors; but in the meantime we must endeavour to trace the maritime commerce of Rome, and especially of the Italian Republics, which afterwards exercised more influence in commercial affairs than the “mistress of the world” had done during her most prosperous days.