The historian who attempts to trace the operations of men in their commercial pursuits during very remote ages, and to mark the various steps of their progress, will soon have the mortification of finding that the period of authentic history is limited to the time assigned to it in Holy Writ; and that all the speculations about the high civilization of the Hindus before the period usually assigned to the Deluge are mere dreams of antiquarian enthusiasm. There is no reason to doubt that the narrative usually attributed to Moses is the most ancient we can now obtain, whatever modern philosophers may say to the contrary; and it is on the whole, unquestionably, the most in conformity with the facts now deducible from antiquarian or linguistic research. Many centuries must have intervened before the first heathen historian, Herodotus, wrote; and it is simply idle to attempt to write a consecutive record of commercial enterprise for any period preceding written history, as even the sculptured monuments of Egypt and Nineveh add scarcely anything to the pages of the Bible. Dr. Robertson, who wrote before anything was known of the meaning of the hieroglyphic writing of Egypt, expresses grave doubts about the Indian expedition of Sesostris, resting as this story does on the unsupported testimony of Diodorus Siculus; but, though portions of it may be fabulous, others may be true. [Sidenote: Expedition of Sesostris.] [Sidenote: Doubts of Dr. Robertson with regard to it.] “Credulity and scepticism,” he says,[246] “are two opposite extremes into which men are apt to run, in examining the events which are said to have happened in the early ages of antiquity. Without incurring any suspicion of a propensity to the latter of these, I may be allowed to entertain doubts concerning the expedition of Sesostris into India, and his conquest of that country. Few facts in ancient history seem to be better established than that of the early aversion of the Egyptians to a seafaring life. Even the power of despotism cannot at once change the ideas and manners of a nation, especially when they have been confirmed by long habit, and rendered sacred by the sanction of religion. That Sesostris, in the course of a few years, should have so entirely overcome the prejudices of a superstitious people, as to be able to fit out four hundred ships of war in the Arabian Gulf, besides another fleet which he had in the Mediterranean, appears to be extremely improbable. Armaments of such magnitude would require the utmost efforts of a great and long established maritime power.”[247]