robe of brilliant green, studded with the pure white of the marguerite, the gold of the ranunculus, and the rich satin of the purple tulip. [Illustration: FIG. 259.--Detail of embroidery; from Layard.] § 8. _Commerce._ The industry whose products we have been describing presupposed an active and widely extended commerce. It made use of many things that were not to be found within its own country, and it produced so much that it could not fail to seek for profitable exchanges. “Thou [Nineveh] hast multiplied thy merchants above the stars of heaven,”[453] says the prophet Nahum; and Ezekiel calls Chaldæa “a land of traffic” and Babylon “a city of merchants.”[454] Like Egypt, neither Chaldæa nor Assyria understood the use of money, but its absence did not affect their trade. Whether their system was one of barter, or whether they employed the precious metals in rough ingots or rings of a certain weight, weighing them in the balance for each transaction, we cannot say, but we know that the great cities of Mesopotamia had intimate business relations with the surrounding countries for many centuries, and that their merchants had ingenious methods of mobilizing their capital. It is even asserted that they made use of the bill of exchange or of something strongly resembling it.[455] It was only at its southern extremity that Mesopotamia had a sea-board, and we have very little information as to its maritime commerce. There seems to be no doubt, however, that it held communication with India by sea. Ur, the oldest of the successive capitals of Chaldæa, was near the Persian Gulf, and its ships are often mentioned in the inscriptions.[456] As civilization advanced those vessels must have increased in number. Isaiah speaks of the ships of the Chaldæans.[457] The regular winds of the Indian Ocean enabled a sea traffic to be carried on without danger; ships could proceed to the mouths of the Indus and return to the Persian Gulf almost to the day. That communication of some kind existed between the two countries can be proved. The _zebu_, or humped ox, is often represented on the Mesopotamian monuments; and that animal is indigenous in India, where its domestication dates back to the remotest antiquity. Among the half decomposed beams that have been disinterred from the ruins in Lower Chaldæa, some of teak have been recognized.[458] Now the home of that tree is in India; it is to be found neither in Chaldæa nor in any other part of Western Asia. Finally a large proportion of the ivory consumed by the artificers of Babylon and Nineveh must have come from India. The same ships may have brought African ivory from the land of the Somalis, and, as they coasted along Arabia they may have increased their cargoes with myrrh, incense, and other aromatic spices from that country.[459]