History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce, Volume 1 (of 4)

by W. S. Lindsay

The ports through which it was conducted.

Course of the voyage to India.

When Rome came into possession of Egypt, its commercial intercourse was conducted chiefly through the port of Berenice, while the port of Myos Hormus was in a great measure abandoned. Yet some trade was still carried on from this port as also from Leuke Kome, on the north-western coast of the Red Sea, near the entrance to the Gulf of Akabah. The whole of these ports being in possession of Rome, there were custom-houses established at each, with Roman officers to collect the duty of twenty-five per cent. imposed on all articles of import and export, as well as Roman garrisons to enforce its payment, where necessary. Caravans from Petra and from the shores of the Mediterranean, brought to Leuke Kome the manufactures and other produce of the North, destined for shipment to the East, while Berenice became the chief port for the manufactures of Rome and of the West, which were conveyed up the Nile, by the route described, to Coptos, and thence forwarded by caravan. Caravans also, from Thebes and other places in Upper Egypt, were the agents of an extensive trade through Berenice and Myos Hormus. Pliny, as has been stated, when compared with Arrian, gives a clear account of the length of time required to make the voyage from Berenice to the straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, a distance between of five and six hundred miles; and the whole of this question has been fully examined by Dr. Vincent.

Outwards.

It would seem that the chief anxiety of the fleets of those days arose from the intricacy and consequent danger of the navigation, even with a favourable wind, within the Straits, and hence that vessels invariably anchored during the night when an opportunity offered. But after passing Bab-el-Mandeb, the steady influence of a favourable monsoon enabled the pilots to make a continuous and comparatively rapid passage. Those ships destined for the more distant voyage to Malabar remained at Okelis (the modern Ghella or Cella), near Aden, for a longer time than those whose destination was only Guzerat. The pilots had observed from the commencement of this new route to India, that the interval between the change of the monsoons was invariable, not merely fluctuating, but that in June and July the weather sometimes proved so tempestuous as to render the navigation of the Indian Ocean perilous, if not almost impracticable; that in August and September the winds become more settled, and that by the month of October fine weather, with steady breezes, could be depended upon. Accordingly, one portion of the fleet, which left Berenice about the 10th of July, arriving at the mouth of the Arabian Gulf within a month, remained at Okelis for a week, ten days, or a fortnight, and by this arrangement the vessels bound for the coast of Malabar reached their destination at the best season of the year.[236]

Homewards.

The homeward voyage was regulated by the same experience. Remaining on the coast of India from the end of September, or beginning of October, to the early part of December, two months of the finest weather were thus obtained for the discharge of the vessels and the disposal of their cargoes, as also for taking on board the return lading in exchange. The 13th of January was fixed as the latest date for leaving the coast; and it is here worthy of remark, that the original order for the fleets of Portugal, fifteen centuries afterwards, was subject to a similar regulation. Quitting the coast of India on or about the 10th of January, they would easily reach Aden in twenty or thirty days, where they would most probably remain until they could derive the benefit of the Gunseen winds, which, from about the middle of March, blow steadily from the south for fifty or sixty days, and thus have a fair wind to carry them to Berenice. Thus the winds prevailing in the Gulf at different seasons of the year were as valuable to the ancient ships as the true monsoons in the Indian Ocean.

The vessels engaged in the trade with India.

It is much to be regretted that no descriptions exist of the character of these fleets, of the men by whom they were navigated, or of their merchant owners. It seems, however, a reasonable conjecture that they were in many respects similar to the vessels the Romans employed in the grain trade between Alexandria and Egypt, of which St. Paul’s ship may be considered as a type. In all likelihood they were chiefly owned by the merchants of Rome and of Alexandria, and commanded by men from the Grecian and other maritime states of the Roman empire; the crew, on the other hand, were probably Arabians, as the natives of Arabia are known to have been from remote times settled on the western shores of India. Indeed, we learn the same fact from the historian of Vasco de Gama’s celebrated voyage, who speaks of the vast number of Arabians whom the Portuguese found settled at Calicut, and engaged in commercial and maritime occupations.

The nature of their cargoes.