[Sidenote: Trade with China.] It was the obvious policy of the Bactrian people, holding as they did in their own hands the advantage of a great trade, to give as little information as they could of the actual sources whence came the wealth or the luxuries in such demand with the merchants of the West. Hence the dismal tales of the sandy deserts to be traversed, of the many dangers to be surmounted, and of the terrible “griffins,” which, according to Herodotus and Ctesias, were the guardians of the gold-bearing districts.[251] Even Arrian, the shrewd Alexandrian merchant, speaks of the land whence the glistening hanks of silk were obtained—the land of _Thina_ (China), as a country practically inaccessible. “It is not easy to get there,” he says, “and of those who attempt the journey, few are ever seen again. Once a year there come to the borders of _Thina_, a set of ill-formed, broad-faced, and flat-nosed savages, who bring with them their wives and children, and carry great burdens in mats. They stop short at a certain place between their own territory and that of Thina, where, seated on their mats, they celebrate a kind of festival, and then, having disposed of their goods, of which their silk is the chief, to the people of Thina, they depart to whence they came. The county situated beyond Thina is unexplored, either in consequence of cold and severe frosts, which render travelling thither very difficult, or because the immortals have so willed it.”[252] The early navigation of China, like its commerce and everything else connected with the history of that remarkable country, is involved in the utmost obscurity, but there is no reason for accepting the extravagant antiquity to which the Chinese themselves pretend. Modern researches bring down the period of early Chinese civilization to a date comparatively recent; and, though it is likely that, from an early period, some of their vessels may have reached Hindustan or Ceylon, it is equally clear that their chief commercial operations with the nations of the West, previous to the time when the merchants of Alexandria established a regular trade with the coasts of Malabar, were conducted by means of the caravans already described, and, at the same time, with as much secrecy and mystery as possible. [Sidenote: Its maritime intercourse.]