This carrying trade between South Arabia, Egypt, Syria, and Mesopotamia must have increased when the cities of the Phenicians on the Syrian coast became centres of trade which carried the manufactures of Babylonia, as well as the products of their own industry, over the sea to the West, and when the tribes of Greece and Italy began to desire the incense and spices of Arabia. And it was not only the products of South Arabia which the Arabs brought to Syria, Egypt, and Babylonia, but also those of the south coast of Africa, and even of India. Artemidorus told us that the Sabæans crossed the Arabian Gulf on boats of skins in order to bring back the products of Ethiopia. Though it was possible to cross the narrow basin by these means of transit, the mouths of the Indus and the coasts of Malabar were beyond the reach of such skiffs. If in the course of time Indian wares reached Syria through the Sabæans, they must have been brought by the Indians themselves to the coasts of the Sabæans. At the beginning of the second century B.C. the island Dioscoridis, off the coast of Somali, which was known to the West as the Land of Cinnamon, formed the centre of the trade between Egypt, South Arabia, and India. To this island the ships of the Indians brought the products of their land. In the first instance the Arabs transported the goods from South Arabia to the Euphrates and the Nile on their camels, and afterwards it lay with them to permit or refuse a passage for the caravans of the Babylonians and Phenicians. First one tribe and then another lay in wait for the caravans, plundered them, or allowed them to buy a passage, convoy, or guide.[450] Eratosthenes has already told us that the merchants took seventy days in going from the Minæans to Aela, _i.e._ to Elath, on the north-east point of the Arabian Gulf, and Pliny fixes the distance from Gaza to Thamna, the chief city of the Cattabani, at seventy-five days' journey. Of the caravan road which led from the Sabæans, _i.e._ in all probability from Maryab to Elath, we only know that it ran along the coast, then passed from Elath by Sela and Bosra into the mountains of the Edomites, then divided the land of the Moabites and Ammonites, passed by Kir Moab (Charak Moab) and Rabbat Ammon, Edrei and Ashtaroth Karnaim, through the land of the Jeturites, to Damascus, and finally, from this place reached the cities of the Phenicians. A second road led apparently past the Oasis of Duma (Dumætha of Ptolemy, Dumat-el-Dshandal) straight to Damascus. In the east the Dedanites brought the products of South Arabia through the desert, by the land of the Temanites and Kedarites, to the Lower Euphrates.[451] The goods not required for Babylonia then passed up the Euphrates to Harran (Charræ). From this point the caravans turned to the west, and in twenty days arrived through the desert at the coasts of the Phenicians.[452]