[42] For light on the beginnings of French trade at this time see Marino Sanuto, lvii. 267, 436, 503; lviii. col. 86, &c.
[43] Depping, ii. 247.
[44] Masson, pp. xii ff.
[45] Heyd, in his Commerce du Levant, ii. 546, says that Suleiman purposed to centre the spice trade of the world at Constantinople.
[46] Belon du Mans, p. 158 b.
[47] Masson, p. xvi.
[48] Ibid., p. 374, shows that the English took pepper and spices to Alexandretta in 1681. See also pp. 412, 505.
[49] Berchet, pp. 21, 25, explains the causes of this decline.
[50] For this drainage of the precious metals eastward see Masson, pp. xxxii, 371, 374, 487; Savary, op. cit., p. 835; Vansleb, op. cit., pp. 110, 127, 128; Thévenot, op. cit., ii. 77, 156. Thévenot says (p. 77), ‘it may be said of Persia, that it is a Kervanserai that serves for passage to the money that goes out of Europe and Turkey to the Indies; and to the Stuffs and Spices that come from the Indies, into Turkey and Europe, whereof it makes some small profit in the passage.’ See also Olivier, iv. 434, and P. Blancard, Manuel du Commerce des Indes, Paris, 1806, pp. 70, 106.
[51] In fact, it may be said that the great discoveries displaced approximately only about one-third of the traffic along the old routes through the Levant. Except for the precious metals, the Cape route finally took practically all of the through exchanges between southern and eastern Asia and western Europe. But the ‘short haul’ trade between western Europe and the Moslem lands and between the Moslem lands and India nearly all passed as before. Masson says, p. ii, note 1, that about 1682 the Levant trade of England and Holland was almost equally important with their East Indian trade, while that of France was her most extensive foreign trade. For the new trade in Arabian coffee, see ibid., 410; Blancard, p. 82 (the coffee that was carried round Africa was damaged on the long voyage); Olivier, iii. 326. Silks and other Persian products were brought across Turkey by caravan to Mediterranean ports; Berchet, 15; Masson, op. cit., and Savary, passim; Olivier, v. 320.