to truth. But in remote countries, which have neither been the feat of military operations, nor explored by Caravans travelling frequently through them, every thing is more vague and undefined, and the refemblance between the ancient descriptions of them, and their actual figure, is often fo faint that it can hardly be traced. The latitude of places too, as might be expected, was in general much more accurately known by the ancients than their longitude. The obfervations by which the former was determined are fimple, made with ease, and are not liable to much error. The other can not be afcertained precifely, without more complex operations, and the ufe of inftruments much more perfect than any that the ancients feem to have poffeffed. Among the vaft number of places, the pofition of which is fixed by Ptolemy, I know not if he approaches as near to truth in the longitude of any one, as he has done in fixng the latitude of the three cities which I formerly mentioned as a ftriking, tho' not fingular, inftance of his exactness*. Thefe obfervations induce me to ádhere to an opinion, which I propofed in another place, that the Greeks and Romans, in their commercial intercourfe with India, were feldom led, either by curiofity or the love of gain, to vifit the more eaftern parts of it. A variety of particulars occur to confirm this opinion. Though Ptolemy bestows the appeilation of Emporia og feveral places fituated on the coaft, which flretches from the eastern mouth of the Ganges to the extremity of the Golden Cherfonefus, it is uncertain, as I formerly obferved, whether, from his having gives them this name, we are to confider them as harbours frequented by hips from Egypt, or merely by veffels of the country. Beyond the Golden Cherfonefus, it is remarkable that he mentions one Em

porium only, which plainly indicates the intercourfe with this region of India to have been very inconfiderable. Had voyages from the Arabian Gulf to thofe countries of India been as frequent as to have entitled Ptolemy to ipecify fo minutely the longitude and latitude of the great number of places which he mentions, he must, in confequence of this, have acquired fuch information as would have prevented feveral great errors into which he has fallen. Had it been ufual to double Cape Comorin, and to fail up the Bay of Bengal to the mouth of the Ganges, fome of the ancient geographers would not have been fo ancertain, and others fo widely niftaken, with refpect to the fituation and magnitude of the island of Ceylon. If the merchants of Alexandria had often vifited the ports of the Golden Cherfonefus, and of the Great Bay, Ptolemy's defcriptions of them muft have been rendered more correfpondent to their real form, nor could he have believed feveral places to lie beyond the line, which are in truth fome degrees on this fide of it.

But though the navigation of the ancients may not have extended to the farther India, we are certain that various commodities of that country were imported into Egypt, and thence were conveyed to Rome, and to other parts of the empire. From circumftances which I have already enumerated, we are warranted in concluding, that these were brought in veffels of the country to Eufiris, and to the other ports on the Malabar coaft, which were, at that period, the ftaples of trade with Egypt. In a country of fuch extent as India, where the natural productions are various, and greatly diverfi. fred by art and induftry, an active domeftic commerce, both by fea and by land, muft have early taken place among its different provinces. Of this

we

we have fome hints in ancient authors; and where the fources of information are fo few and fo fcanty, we must reft fatisfied with hints. Among the different claffes, or cafts, into which the people of India were divided, merchants are mentioned as one, from which we may conclude trade to have been one of the establified Occupations of men in that country. From the Author of the Circumnavigation of the Erythrean Sea, we learn that the inhabitants of the Coromandel coaft traded in veffels of their own with thofe of Malabar; that the interior trade of Barygaza was confiderable; and that there was, at all feafons, a number of country hips to be found in the harbour of Mufiris. By Strabo we are informed, that the most valuable productions of Taprobane were carried to different Emporia of India. In this way the traders from Egypt might be fupplied with them, and thus could finish their voyages within the year, which must have been protract ted much longer if they had extended as far towards the eaft as is generally fuppofed.

From all this it appears to be proba. ble, that Ptolemy derived the information concerning the eastern parts of India, upon which he founds his calculations, not fo much from any direct and regular intercourfe between Egypt and thefe countries, as from the reports of a few adventurers, whom an enterprifing fpirit, or the love of gain, prompted to proceed beyond the ufual limits of naviga. tion.

Though, from the age of Ptolemy, the trade with India continued to be carried on in its former channel, and both Rome, the ancient capital of the empire, and Conftantinople, the new feat of government, were fupplied with the precious commodities of that country by the merchants of Alexandria, yet, until the reign of the emperor Juftinian, we have no new information concerning the intercourfe with

the Eaft by fea, or the progrefs which was made in the difcovery of its remote regions. Under Juftinian, Cofmas, an Egyptian merchant, in the courfe of his traffic, made fome voyages to India, whence he acquired the firname of Indicopleuftes; but afterwards, by a tranfition not uncommon in that fuperftitious age, he renounced all the concerns of this life, and affumed the monaftic character. In the folitude and leifure of a cell, he compofed feveral works, one of which, dignified by him with the name of Chriftian Topography, has reached us. The main defign of it is to combatthe opinion of thofe philofophers, who affert the earthto be of a spherical figure, and to prove that it is an oblong plane, of twelve thousand miles in length from caft to weft, and of six thousand miles in breadth from north to fouth, furrounded by high walls, covered by the firmament as with a canopy or vault: that the viciffitude of day and night was occafioned by a mountain of prodigious height, fitua ed in the extremities of the north, round which the fun moved; that when it appeared on one fide of this mountain, the earth was illuminated; when concealed on the other fide, the earth was left involved in darkness. But amidst thofe wild reveries, more fuited to the credulity of his new profeffion, than to the found fenfe characteriftic of that in which he was formerly engaged, Cofmas feems to relate what he himself had obferved in his travels, or what he had learned from others, with great fimplicity and regard for truth.

He appears to have been well acquainted with the weft coal of the Indian peninfula, and names feveral places fituated upon it; he defcribes it as the chief feat of the pepper trade, and mentions Male, in particular, as one of the most frequented ports on that account. From Male, it is probable that this fide of the Continent has de ived its modern name of Malabar;

and

and the clutter of iflands contiguous to it, that of the Maldives. From him too we learn, that the ifland of Taprobune, which he fuppofes to lie at an equal difiance from the Perfian Gulf on the weft, and the country of the Sine on the caft, had become, in confequence of this commodious fituation, a great staple of trade; that into it were imported the filk of the Sina, and the precious fpecies of the East ern countries, which were conveyed thence to all parts of India, to Perfia, and to the Arabian Gulf. To this iland he gives the name of Sielediba, the fame with that of Selendib, or Serendib, by which it is ftill known all over the Eaft.

To Cofinas we are alfo indebted for the first information of a new rival to the Romans in trade having appeared in the Indian feas. The Perfians, after having overturned the em pite of the Parthians, and re-establish ed the line of their ancient monarchs, feem to have furmounted entirely the averfion of their anceflors to maritime exertion, and made early and vigorous efforts in order to acquire a fhare in the lucrative commerce with India. All its confiderable ports were frequented by traders from Perfia, who, in return for fome productions of their own country in request among the Indians, received the precious commodities which they conveyed up the Persian Gulf, and by means of the great rivers, Euphrates and Tigris, diftributed them through every province of their empire: As the voyage from Perfia to India was much thorter than that from Egypt, and attended with lefs expence and danger, the intercourfe between the two countries increafed rapidly. A circumftance is mentioned by Cofmas which is a ftriking proof of this. In most of the cities of any note in India he found Christian churches established, in which the functions of religion were performed by priests ordained by the archbishop of Seleucia, the capital of

the Perfian empire, and who continued fubject to his jurifdiction. India appears to have been more thoroughly explored at this period, than it was in the age of Ptol.my, and a greater number of ftrangers feem to have been fettled there. It is remarkat le, however, that, according to the account of Cofmas, none of thefe ftrangers were accustomed to visit the caftern regions of Afia, but refted fatisfied with receiving their filk, their spices, and other valuable productions, as they were imported into Ceylon, and conveyed thence to the various marts cf India.

The frequency of open hoftilities between the emperors of Conflantinople and the monarchs of Perfia, together with the increafing rivalfhip of their fubjects in the trade with India, gave rife to an event which produced a confiderable change in the nature of that commerce. As the ufe of filk, both in drefs and furniture, became gradually more general in the court of the Greek emperors, who imitated and furpafied the fovereigns of Afia in fplendour and magnificence; and as China, in which, according to the concurring teftimony of Oriental writers, the culture of filk was originally known, ftill continued to be the only country which produced that valuable commodity; the Perfians, improving the advantages which their fituation gave them over the merchants from the Arabian Gulf, fupplanted them in all the marts of India to which fill was brought by fea from the eaft.-Having it likewife in their power to moleft or to cut off the caravans, which, in order to procure a fupply for the Greek empire, travelled by land to China, through the northern provinces of the kingdom, they entirely engrofied that branch of commerce. Conftantinople was obliged to depend on a rival power for an article which luxury viewed and defired as effential to elegance. The Perfiars, with the ufual rapacity of menopolifts, raifed the price of filk to fuch an exorbitant

height.

height, that Juftinian, eager not only to obtain a full and certain fupply of a commodity which was become of indifpenfible use, but folicitous to deliver the commerce of his fubjects from the exactions of his enemies, endeavoured, by means of his ally, the Christian monarch of Abyffinia, to wreft fome portion of the filk trade from the Periians. In this attempt he failed; but when he least expected it, he, by an unforeseen event, attained, in fome meafure, the object which he had in view. Two Perfian monks having been employed as miffionațies in fome of the Chriftian churches, which were eftablished (as we are informed by Cofmas) in different parts of India, had penetrated into the country of the Seres, or China. There they obferved the labours of the filk-worm, and became acquainted with all the arts of man in working up its productions into fuch a variety of elegant fabrics. The profpect of gain, or perhaps an indignant zeal, excited by feeing this Jucrative branch of commerce engrof fed by unbelieving nations, prompted them to repair to Conftantinople.There they explained to the emperor the origin of filk, as well as the various modes of preparing and manufaç

turing it, myfteries hitherto unknown, or very imperfectly understood in Eyrope; and encouraged by his libera promifes, they undertook to bring to the capital a fufficient number of thofe wonderful infects, to whose labours man is fo much indebted. This they accomplished by conveying the eggs of the filk-worm in a hollow cane. They were hatched by the heat of a dunghill, fed with the leaves of a wild mulberry tree, and they multiplied and worked in the fame manner as in those climates where they firft became ob. jects of human attention and care.Vaft numbers of thefe infects were foon reared in different parts of Greece, particularly in the Peloponefus. Sicily afterwards undertook to breed filkworms with equal fuccefs, and was įmitated, from time to time, in several towns of Italy. In all these places extenfive manufactures were established, and carried on, with filk of domeftic production. The demand for filk from the east diminished of course, the fubjects of the Greek emperors were no longer obliged to have recourfe to the Perfians for a fupply of it, and a confiderable change took place in the nature of the commercial intercourfe between Europe and India.

T

and thefe are procured at an expence, which a few years back would have been looked upon as next to an annihilation of their commercial existence,

It is an incontrovertible fact, that fince the French have evacuated Capada, the fur trade from the inland parts of Hudfon's Bay has been carried on to a greater extent than ever it was before; for the Company, who till then confined themselves to the feafhore, knew nothing of the numerous

nations