Such were the different means of conducting the commercial intercourse between Europe and the East in ancient times, and such they practically continued, amid various minor changes and through many wars and vicissitudes, up to the period when Vasco de Gama discovered the new and better way to India by doubling the Cape of Good Hope. We shall hereafter glance at the maritime commerce of India from the ninth century up to the time when the Portuguese landed on its shores, with some notices of the celebrated travels of Marco Polo, of the expulsion of the Arabians from its trade, and of the decline of the vast influence so long exercised by the Moors; but in the meantime we must endeavour to trace the maritime commerce of Rome, and especially of the Italian Republics, which afterwards exercised more influence in commercial affairs than the “mistress of the world” had done during her most prosperous days. FOOTNOTES: [245] The earliest dated MS. (a Syriac one, now in the British Museum) is dated in the first decade of the fifth century of our era. The Alexandrian codex may be a few years earlier. The oldest Egyptian inscriptions may ascend to B.C. 2000: that on the Moabite stone, perhaps, to B.C. 890. [246] Robertson’s “Hist. Disquis. on India,” note i. p. 179 (ed. 1791). [247] It may be added, that while Herodotus alludes to other portions of the history of Sesostris, he omits the tale of his Indian conquests; that Strabo rejects it altogether (xv. p. 85); while Arrian equally doubts it. [248] Heeren, vol. ii. p. 227, in his “Asiatic Researches,” believes this city to have been founded from 2,000 to 1,500 years before the Christian era. [249] Herod. iv. 42-44; iii. 84. [250] Pliny, who calls this city Bactrum, points out the peculiarity of its double-humped camel, yet seen on the Bactrian coins (vii. 87). [251] Herod. iii. 116; iv. 27. Ctesias, ap. Ælian. Nat. Animal. iv. 27 Mela, ii. c. 11. [252] Arrian, “Periplus,” c. 64, 65 [253] Plin. xiv. 162. Cuvier (ap. Rawlinson’s Herod. iii. 98) speaks of a bamboo (_Bambus arundinacea_) which grows to the height of sixty feet. Colonel Yule states that the largest bamboos are in the Malay Islands and Cambodia. He has seen them from eighty to one hundred feet high. “Early Travels to India,” 1867, p. 93. [254] Arrian, “Periplus,” c. 44. [255] Sir John Herschel has called attention to the fact that the Chinese have preserved registers of comets and other celestial phenomena for more than a thousand years before the Christian Era. “Familiar Lectures,” p. 94, 1868. [256] Friar Oderic (ap. Colonel Yule, p. 57) speaks of vessels, like the ancient boats at Rhapta, stitched with twine, without any iron, employed along the coast approaching the modern site of Bombay. [257] See an excellent life of Alexander by Archdeacon Williams, “Family Library,” No. iii. 1829. [258] Arrian, Ind. vii. [259] Strabo, book xv. p. 694. [260] Arrian, Exped. Alex. v. 3. [261] Lib. xvi. p. 752.