It is remarkable also that in the enumeration of the exports of the island of Ceylon given by Arrian, no mention whatever is made of cinnamon. Nor does Cosmas refer to it. “I have searched,” says Sir Emerson Tennent, in his work on Ceylon, “among the records of the Greeks and Romans from the earliest time, until the period when the commerce of the East had reached its climax in the hands of the Persians and Arabians: the survey extends over fifteen centuries, during which Ceylon and its productions were familiarly known to the traders of all countries, and yet in the pages of no author, European or Asiatic, from the earliest ages to the close of the thirteenth century, is there the remotest allusion to cinnamon as an indigenous production, or even as an article of commerce, in Ceylon. I may add, that I have been equally unsuccessful in finding any allusions to it in any Chinese work of ancient date.”[280] This is, in fact, but another, though a striking instance, of the secrecy with which the ancients conducted the more valuable portions of their trade, and fully confirms the notice of the cinnamon trade of Herodotus, who could only have obtained his information about it from the merchants[281] or mariners who traded along the shores of Malabar or of Æthiopia to the south of Zanzibar. He speaks of it as so mysterious in its growth, and so difficult to obtain, that the most exorbitant prices were given for it in the markets of Europe; adding that, though in great demand in Tyre, Carthage, Miletus, and Alexandria, the merchants kept the secret of its provenance as the Carthaginians kept that of British tin.
Change in the course of trade.
Persian trade with India.
The trade which the Romans “opened” with India by the way of the Red Sea, was conducted by them with success for more than five centuries; but we learn from Cosmas that, but a short time before his travels, they had met with a new and powerful rival in the Sassanian rulers of Persia, who, having overthrown the Parthians, and restored the ancient faith and monarchy of Persia, made early and vigorous efforts to acquire a share in the lucrative commerce of India. Following in the course of the early Phœnicians, the Persians with their ships commenced anew this eastern trade with India, and, in return for the productions of their own country, received the precious commodities of Hindustan, conveying them up the Persian Gulf, and, by means of the rivers Euphrates and Tigris, distributing them through every province of their empire. Rome being then in its decline, a powerful rival, such as Persia, could hardly fail to injure, if not to entirely destroy, the commerce the merchants of Alexandria had for ages nurtured with so much care. Moreover, the voyage from Persia to India, being much shorter, and attended with fewer dangers, led to an increase of the intercourse between the two countries, which the Greek merchants of Alexandria vainly attempted to resist. Even then, if Cosmas be trustworthy, few Europeans visited the eastern part of India, but were content to receive thence its silk, spices, and other valuable productions, either by caravans or the agency of native vessels.
About this period, China carried on the most prosperous trade of any of the nations of the East, both by land and sea. Her caravans passed through Asia and Tatary, and her merchants conducted an extensive business with the provinces bordering on the Caspian, and in some cases with the more distant nations to the west and the north. Four hundred Chinese vessels are said to have been seen in the port of Ormuz, at the entrance of the Persian Gulf, and China is stated to have then received ambassadors from all the countries of Asia, as well as from Constantinople, and the Khalif of Baghdad, thus holding a direct intercourse with the whole civilized world. The vessels of China, however, had ceased to repair to the Persian Gulf long before the Portuguese made their appearance in Calicut; but from the time of Cosmas to that of Marco Polo they appear to have shared with the Arabians and Persians the carrying trade of the East, and to have even extended their voyages to the remote island of Madagascar.
The Muhammedans, A.D. 622.
Within a hundred years after the death of Justinian, an event happened, which occasioned a revolution still more considerable in the intercourse of Europe with the East. A prophet and a conqueror arose in Arabia; and within forty years of his death a great part of Asia, and Africa, with no inconsiderable portion of Europe, had been subdued, and the dominion of the followers of Muhammed extended from the shores of the Atlantic to the frontier of China, with a rapidity of success to which there is nothing similar in the history of mankind. “Egypt,” remarks Dr. Robertson, “was one of their earliest conquests; and, as they settled in that inviting country, and kept possession of it, the Greeks were excluded from all intercourse with Alexandria, to which they had long resorted as the chief mart of Indian goods. Nor was this the only effect which the progress of the Muhammedan arms had upon the commerce of Europe with India. Prior to the invasion of Egypt, the Arabians had subdued the great kingdom of Persia, and added it to the empire of the Khalifs.”[282]
The extent of their commerce with the East.
Finding their new subjects engaged in the trade with India, and sensible of the vast advantages to be derived from it, the Muhammedan rulers turned their attention to it with even greater vigour than ever the Persians had done; and pursuing the same course they had followed, their enterprising merchants soon advanced far beyond the boundaries of ancient navigation as known to the nations of the West, bringing many of the most precious commodities of the East directly from the countries in which they were produced. Having founded the city of Bussorah on the western banks of the great stream formed by the junction of the Euphrates and Tigris, they thus secured the command of these two rivers, so that this entrepôt soon became the seat of a maritime commerce second only to Alexandria in its greatest prosperity. Although their knowledge of navigation scarcely exceeded that which the Phœnicians possessed when they launched their expeditions from Gerrha some two thousand years before, the followers of Muhammed had extended, as early as the ninth century, their voyages beyond the Gulf of Siam, carrying on with Sumatra, and other islands of the Indian Archipelago, a regular commerce, and extending their trading operations even to the city of Canton. At many of the intervening ports numerous Arabian merchants and ship-owners settled with their families, so that the Arabian language was understood, and spoken at most places of any importance between the mouths of the Euphrates and Tigris, and Canton.[283]
The Muhammedans were, however, not without rivals in this lucrative trade, as the Chinese themselves, who, seemingly, were much more enterprising then as navigators than they are now, no longer limited their communications with the traders of the West to the Island of Ceylon; but, rounding Cape Comorin, traded directly with the ports of Malabar and of the Persian Gulf, sometimes proceeding as far as the Euphrates, but more frequently terminating their voyage at Siraf, near to the mouth of that gulf. While these Eastern nations were thus extending their operations, the people of Europe found themselves excluded almost entirely from any intercourse with either India or China. The great port of Alexandria was under the control of the Muhammedans, and they, and the Christian subjects of the Khalifs, had, in their own extensive dominions, sufficient demand for all the Indian commodities they could import. Consequently the trading towns of the Mediterranean were obliged to seek fresh, or rather to re-open old, routes to the East, to obtain their supplies. Nor was this a task easy of accomplishment; and the difficulties surmounted in accomplishing it furnish a proof that the luxuries of the East were then in as great demand as they had ever been in ancient times.