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

by W. S. Lindsay

The conquests of Darius, and of Alexander.

Of the actual commercial resources of India we have, however, no reliable accounts previous to the conquests of Darius and to the successful navigation of the Indus by his fleets. In his time, the country through which he passed was represented to be very populous and highly cultivated; and though his conquests did not extend beyond the district watered by the Indus, below Peucela, we cannot but form a high opinion of its opulence in ancient times, as well as of the number of its inhabitants, when we learn from Herodotus that the tribute Darius levied upon it was nearly one-third of the whole revenue of the Persian monarchy.[249] But it was only when Alexander, two hundred years later, undertook his celebrated expedition, that sufficient knowledge of India was obtained to enable us fully to realize the real amount of its wealth, and some of the actual conditions of its civilization and commerce. Up to that period the more valuable commerce between Europe and India was conducted mainly by caravans passing through Bactra[250] (Balkh), “the mother of cities,” as it has been called from its great antiquity. From this important seat of inland Asiatic trade, the Oxus on the N.W., the Indus on the E. and S., and the Ganges to the S.E., stretched long-branching arms, and thus afforded ready means for the distribution of the contents of the caravans to the most populous districts. Founded, as is believed, before the dawn of history, Bactra was for many centuries the most flourishing mart of Eastern commerce; the western and the northern roads into India passed through it; and the ruins still surrounding it for miles attest its former size and splendour.

Trade with China.

It was the obvious policy of the Bactrian people, holding as they did in their own hands the advantage of a great trade, to give as little information as they could of the actual sources whence came the wealth or the luxuries in such demand with the merchants of the West. Hence the dismal tales of the sandy deserts to be traversed, of the many dangers to be surmounted, and of the terrible “griffins,” which, according to Herodotus and Ctesias, were the guardians of the gold-bearing districts.[251] Even Arrian, the shrewd Alexandrian merchant, speaks of the land whence the glistening hanks of silk were obtained—the land of Thina (China), as a country practically inaccessible. “It is not easy to get there,” he says, “and of those who attempt the journey, few are ever seen again. Once a year there come to the borders of Thina, a set of ill-formed, broad-faced, and flat-nosed savages, who bring with them their wives and children, and carry great burdens in mats. They stop short at a certain place between their own territory and that of Thina, where, seated on their mats, they celebrate a kind of festival, and then, having disposed of their goods, of which their silk is the chief, to the people of Thina, they depart to whence they came. The county situated beyond Thina is unexplored, either in consequence of cold and severe frosts, which render travelling thither very difficult, or because the immortals have so willed it.”[252]

The early navigation of China, like its commerce and everything else connected with the history of that remarkable country, is involved in the utmost obscurity, but there is no reason for accepting the extravagant antiquity to which the Chinese themselves pretend. Modern researches bring down the period of early Chinese civilization to a date comparatively recent; and, though it is likely that, from an early period, some of their vessels may have reached Hindustan or Ceylon, it is equally clear that their chief commercial operations with the nations of the West, previous to the time when the merchants of Alexandria established a regular trade with the coasts of Malabar, were conducted by means of the caravans already described, and, at the same time, with as much secrecy and mystery as possible.

Its maritime intercourse.

Our knowledge of the early maritime routes to the far East is almost exclusively confined to what has been already stated with reference to those between Europe and Arabia and the western shores of Hindustan. Beyond those shores, all that is certain is, that vessels from China, from Bengal, and from other parts of the East, traded with Ceylon, and that some of the products of China found their way by circuitous routes, probably after passing through many hands, to the great central mart of Alexandria; nor, indeed, is there any greater certainty or knowledge about the character of the early Indian vessels, for, like the Egyptians, the Indians were not, and are not, as a nation, a seafaring people. Those Indians who followed seafaring pursuits, were then, as now, of the lowest caste; hence the inference is natural that their shipping would exhibit a corresponding inferiority in construction.

Pliny[253] says that their boats consisted chiefly of a large description of cane or bamboo, split down the middle, and capable of carrying three persons; and Arrian remarks that, in his time, the vessels employed on the Malabar coast were very inferior to those of most other nations. He says the small vessels, called madara, have their planks sewn together with coir—the inner fibre of the cocoa-nut—like some of the native vessels of Arabia. Others, he adds, were long vessels, trappaga and cotymba (in the native dialect),[254] used by fishermen and pilots of the port of Barygaza. But besides these, there were double canoes, which were lashed together, and were by his description not unlike, though much inferior to, those of the South Sea Islands, of which, from Captain Cook’s description, the following is an illustration (Page 131).

The Chinese junk of the present day probably affords a tolerably accurate representation of the Chinese merchant vessel of two or perhaps three thousand years ago; for all that is known of China, and of the habits of its population, tends to show that they have adhered to established types with even more than Oriental tenacity.[255] In the “Asiatic Researches” (vol. vi. p. 204) is a representation of one of the oldest Chinese merchant vessels which have been preserved: it exhibits a model almost as perfect as any of their vessels of our own time.