It was also for ages an important link in one of the world’s great commercial highways. From time immemorial there were three great trade routes which connected India and China with Europe. One was the Persian Gulf route which ran from the mouth of the Indus to the Euphrates and along this latter river to Zeugma, or Thapsacus, whence it proceeded to Antioch and other ports of the eastern Mediterranean. The second was the sea route which went from India along the Persian and Arabian coasts to Aden, thence by the Red Sea to Alexandria and Tyre and Sidon. The third was the great overland route which started from Bactra--long, like Babylon, a market-place for the races of the world and a great emporium for Indian and Chinese commerce--and reached the West by two roads. One was the caravan route which crossed Parthia and Mesopotamia and ended in Antioch. The other passed down the river Oxus to the Caspian Sea and thence to the Euxine. This is the trade route that has the greatest interest for us at present--a route that served as one of the world’s chief commercial highways for more than two thousand years. Long before Alexander made Bactra his base for the invasion of India, long before the Greek Skylax of Karyanda made his famous voyage from the mouth of the Indus to Arsinoe on the Red Sea, and many centuries before Hippalus made his epoch-making discovery of the existence of the moonstones of the Indian Ocean, which immensely augmented the ocean-bound traffic between India and Egypt, a very large volume of the luxuries of the Far East found their way to the Occident by the great Oxus-Caspian-Euxine trade route. And while the ships of Tarshish and _Quinquiremes of Nineveh from distant Ophir,_ _Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine,_ _With cargoes of ivory and apes and peacocks,_ _Sandalwood, cedarwood and sweet, white wine,_ were bringing to Syria and the Land of the Pharaohs treasures from the coast of Malabar and _The spicy shore_ _Of Araby the blest_, interminable caravans and countless merchantmen were always busy along the Oxus-Caspian-Euxine route bearing to Byzantium and Athens and Rome silks from China and Bengal; muslin and other stuffs from Benares and Kotumbara; tortoise-shell from the Golden Chersonese; indigo from Sind; drugs, spices, cosmetics, perfumes, pearls, beryls, and precious stones from other parts; costus from Cashmere; pepper from Malabar; gums, spikenard, lycium, and malabathrum from the forests of the Himalayas; and sapphires, rubies, and aquamarines from Burma, Siam, and Vaniyambadi.