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

by W. S. Lindsay

Yemen, or Arabia Felix.

Its great wealth, and the importance attached to its trade.

There are few lands more extolled in ancient history for their natural richness, both as regards its mines and the productiveness of its soil, than Yemen, or Arabia Felix, the country of the Queen of Sheba, of which Moosa was the chief port. Though separated from India by an open sea, it was yet intimately connected with it by nature; a sky of great serenity enabling its mariners to make full use of the stars as their guides, and thus sparing them the labour and anxiety of slowly creeping along the coast, as was elsewhere necessary. Arabia was above all others the native country of frankincense, of myrrh, and of other aromatic perfumes, productions then held in such repute, that scarcely one of the then most civilized nations of the world would have dared to offer a gift to their gods without them.

Greek and Hebrew writers alike speak of the country of the Queen of Sheba as one of the richest of the ancient world. The Hebrew poets cite the names of its various cities and harbours, and their writings overflow with descriptions of its many treasures. No sooner had the Greeks obtained a knowledge of these regions than they extolled to the utmost the boundless riches concealed in Arabia Felix. “Its inhabitants, the Sabæans,” remarks Diodorus[242] quoting from Agatharchides, “not only surpass the neighbouring barbarians in wealth and magnificence, but all other nations whatever. In buying and selling their wares they maintain among all nations the highest prices for the smallest quantities. As their distant situation protects them from foreign plunderers, immense stores of precious metals have accumulated among them, especially in the capital. Curiously wrought gold and silver drinking vessels in great variety, couches, tripods with silver feet, and an incredible profusion of costly furniture in general, abound there.”

The whole of this vast wealth would seem, by the remarks of Diodorus, to have been derived, not from war and plunder, but by the prosecution throughout many ages of peaceful commerce and unwearied industry. “Before merchants,” observes Arrian, “sailed from India to Egypt, and from Egypt to India, Arabia Felix was the staple both for Egyptian and Indian goods, much as Alexandria is now for the commodities of Egypt and foreign merchandise;” a testimony fully borne out by abundant statements in Holy Scripture. Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel all speak in glowing terms of the great wealth of Arabia Felix. Nowhere, too, were the civilizing effects of commerce more noticeable than in Arabia Felix. Although Dr. Vincent remarks that “the importance of this commerce, as it appears in the “Periplus,” is manifestly far inferior to the representation of it in Agatharchides,” he adds, “still it is evident that the manners of the people in this quarter of Arabia were civilized, that the government was consistent, and that the merchant was protected. This character, as we learn from Niebuhr, Yemen still maintains, in preference to the Hijar and the whole interior of the peninsula. The same security is marked as strongly by the “Periplus” in Hadramaut; and the whole coast on the ocean being commercial, the interests of commerce have subdued the natural ferocity of the inhabitants.”[243]

It would appear that, before the settlements at Moosa and Okelis, the ships from Persia, Caramania, and the Indus came no farther than the coast just outside the straits, near the modern Aden, and that here the fleets of Egypt met them and exchanged their articles of commerce. Many writers, too, on this subject, have maintained that the fleet of Solomon, though fitted out with the view of going as far as Sofala, did not proceed beyond the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, and that they there exchanged the produce of the West for that of India, Yemen, and Africa. We, however, adhere to the opinion already expressed, that at least a portion of Solomon’s fleet visited both the Indus and the eastern coast of Africa. It is not, in itself, likely that seamen so enterprising and adventurous as the Phœnicians, would have failed in accomplishing any voyage wherein the ships of other nations had been successful; nor, viewing the profits the Arabians derived from their intercourse with the East, can it be supposed that the merchants and shipowners of Phœnicia would have cut short their voyages at the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, knowing too, as they could not fail to have known, many commercial reports about a vast country to the east abounding in riches, which the Arabians had reached by sea. It seems also more than probable that they had, at the same time, learnt something of the character of the winds which favoured such voyages, and their reasoning must have been, “What the inhabitants of the sea coasts of Arabia and Africa can perform by vessels in every way inferior to those of Phœnicia, we can accomplish so much the more successfully by means of our well appointed fleets.”

Kane.

Sachal.

The Arabians had also a considerable intercourse with the East from Kane,[244] a port on the south-western shores of Arabia, in Hadramaut, a place enjoying a direct intercourse with Sana, and thence by the great caravan route with Saba. The merchants of Kane traded, on the one hand, with Baroach, Sindh, Ormus, and Persia, and on the other, with Egypt, whence they imported wine, corn, cloths suited for the Arabian market, salt, brass, tin, resin, specie, wrought plate, carved images, and horses, and exported various commodities common to the country, and especially frankincense and aloes. From Kane the Arabian vessels, and afterwards some of the Egyptian traders in the time of Arrian, proceeded along the coast to the north-east until they reached Sachal, on the shores of Hadramaut, their chief trade being incense, which, according to Arrian, was there “collected by the king’s slaves, or by malefactors condemned to this service as a punishment.” Most of the incense, however, was sent through Thomæra, the capital of the Gebanites, to Gaza, on the coast of Palestine, by way of Petra, by the important caravan route already noticed, and continued in a great measure to find its way to Egypt by this inland route even after the merchants of Alexandria had established a regular maritime commerce with the East.

Moshka.