Nature has rendered intercourse between Europe and Asia exceedingly difficult by reason of a vast stretch of almost impassable waste, extending from the bleak plains on either side of the Ural hills down across the steppes of Turkestan and the desert of Arabia to the great sandy Sahara. Through the few gaps in this desert barrier have led from early times the avenues of trade. In the fifteenth century three main trade-routes—a central, a southern, and a northern—precariously linked the two continents.
(1) The central trade-route utilized the valley of the Tigris River. Goods from China, from the Spice Islands, and from India were brought by odd native craft from point to point along the coast to Ormuz, an important city at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, thence to the mouth of the Tigris, and up the valley to Bagdad. From Bagdad caravans journeyed either to Aleppo and Antioch on the northeastern corner of the Mediterranean, or across the desert to Damascus and the ports on the Syrian coast. Occasionally caravans detoured southward to Cairo and Alexandria in Egypt. Whether at Antioch, Jaffa, or Alexandria, the caravans met the masters of Venetian ships ready to carry the cargo to Europe.
(2) The southern route was by the Red Sea. Arabs sailed their ships from India and the Far East across the Indian Ocean and into the Red Sea, whence they transferred their cargoes to caravans which completed the trip to Cairo and Alexandria. By taking advantage of monsoons,—the favorable winds which blew steadily in certain seasons,—the skipper of a merchant vessel could make the voyage from India to Egypt in somewhat less than three months. It was often possible to shorten the time by landing the cargoes at Ormuz and thence dispatching them by caravan across the desert of Arabia to Mecca, and so to the Red Sea, but caravan travel was sometimes slower and always more hazardous than sailing.
(3) The so-called "northern route" was rather a system of routes leading in general from the "back doors" of India and China to the Black Sea. Caravans from India and China met at Samarkand and Bokhara, two famous cities on the western slope of the Tian-Shan Mountains. West of Bokhara the route branched out. Some caravans went north of the Caspian, through Russia to Novgorod and the Baltic. Other caravans passed through Astrakhan, at the mouth of the Volga River, and terminated in ports on the Sea of Azov. Still others skirted the shore of the Caspian Sea, passing through Tabriz and Armenia to Trebizond on the Black Sea.
The transportation of goods from the Black Sea and eastern Mediterranean was largely in the hands of the Italian cities,[Footnote: In general, the journey from the Far East to the ports on the Black Sea and the eastern Mediterranean was performed by Arabs, although some of the more enterprising Italians pushed on from the European settlements, or fondachi, in ports like Cairo and Trebizond, and established fondachi in the inland cities of Asia Minor, Persia, and Russia.] especially Venice, Genoa, Pisa, and Florence, although Marseilles and Barcelona had a small share. From Italy trade-routes led through the passes of the Alps to all parts of Europe. German merchants from Nuremberg, Augsburg, Ulm, Regensburg, and Constance purchased Eastern commodities in the markets of Venice, and sent them back to the Germanies, to England, and to the Scandinavian countries. After the lapse of many months, and even years, since the time when spices had been packed first in the distant Moluccas, they would be exposed finally for sale at the European fairs or markets to which thousands of countryfolk resorted. There a nobleman's steward could lay in a year's supply of condiments, or a peddler could fill his pack with silks and ornaments to delight the eyes of the ladies in many a lonesome castle.
[Sidenote: Difficulties of European Commerce]
Within Europe commerce gradually extended its scope in spite of the almost insuperable difficulties. The roads were still so miserable that wares had to be carried on pack-horses instead of in wagons. Frequently the merchant had to risk spoiling his bales of silk in fording a stream, for bridges were few and usually in urgent need of repair. Travel not only was fraught with hardship; it was expensive. Feudal lords exacted heavy tolls from travelers on road, bridge, or river. Between Mainz and Cologne, on the Rhine, toll was levied in thirteen different places. The construction of shorter and better highways was blocked often by nobles who feared to lose their toll-rights on the old roads. So heavy was the burden of tolls on commerce that transportation from Nantes to Orleans, a short distance up the River Loire, doubled the price of goods. Besides the tolls, one had to pay for local market privileges; towns exacted taxes on imports; and the merchant in a strange city or village often found himself seriously handicapped by regulations against "foreigners," and by unfamiliar weights, measures, and coinage.
Most dreaded of all, however, and most injurious to trade were the robbers who infested the roads. Needy knights did not scruple to turn highwaymen. Cautious travelers carried arms and journeyed in bands, but even they were not wholly safe from the dashing "gentlemen of the road." On the seas there was still greater danger from pirates. Fleets of merchantmen, despite the fact that they were accompanied usually by a vessel of war, often were assailed by corsairs, defeated, robbed, and sold as prizes to the Mohammedans. The black flag of piracy flew over whole fleets in the Baltic and in the Mediterranean. The amateur pirate, if less formidable, was no less common, for many a vessel carrying brass cannon, ostensibly for protection, found it convenient to use them to attack foreign craft and more frequently "took" a cargo than purchased one.
[Sidenote: Venice]
These dangers and difficulties of commercial intercourse were due chiefly to the lack of any strong power to punish pirates or highwaymen, to maintain roads, or to check the exactions of toll- collectors. Each city attempted to protect its own commerce. A great city-state like Venice was well able to send out her galleys against Mediterranean pirates, to wage war against the rival city of Genoa, to make treaties with Oriental potentates, and to build up a maritime empire. Smaller towns were helpless. But what, as in the case of the German towns, they could not do alone, was partially achieved by combination.