Maskat.
Omana.
From Sachal the traders on the coast proceeded to Moskha, where vessels from Baroach and Larike, on the Gulf of Cambay, if too late for the favourable monsoons, usually endeavoured to exchange their Indian muslins for the frankincense of the place. From this place, also, native vessels made a coasting voyage till they reached Maskat and Kalaiso. Near these ports they were able to cross the gulf at its narrowest parts, and steered nearly due north, or about N.N.E. for the port of Omana, which evidently takes its name from Oman in Arabia, and was, doubtless, a colony of Arabs, established on the coast opposite to their own, for the purpose of approaching nearer to Western India. From Omana they steered almost due east along the coast of Beloochistan until they reached their destination at the mouth of the Indus or in the Gulf of Cambay.
Although Omana was the centre of commerce between Arabia and India, and afterwards became a place of great commercial importance, no produce of the latter country appears to have been shipped from it at the time of Arrian. Dates in large quantities were then, as they were long afterwards, its chief articles of export; as also, coarse cloths, wine, slaves, some gold, and many pearls. Here were built for the Arabians the vessels they employed in the Persian Gulf, and along the whole line of the coast, their hulls consisting of planks sewed together, without nails. To this day similar vessels, known as frankees and dhows, may be seen in great numbers, engaged in much the same trade their ancestors followed two or three thousand years ago.
We have now given a brief outline of the routes by land and by sea, by which commerce was conducted with the East, before the commencement of the Christian era, and the map we have prepared ([see frontispiece]) may assist our readers in tracing the different routes. Of the maritime commerce of India itself, and of the trade and shipping of the East during the earliest periods of history, we shall attempt to furnish an outline in the following chapter.
FOOTNOTES:
[193] Herod. iv. c. 42.
[194] Herod. iv. c. 33.
[195] It is probable that Sataspes got as far as the Gulf of Guinea, and was then stopped by the south-east trade-winds. It is to avoid these that our ships, bound to India via the Cape of Good Hope, stand across to South America.
[196] Plin. ii. 169.