The weakening of Venice in consequence of the Hungarian wars, although acceptable to the Ragusans for political reasons, produced a very deleterious effect on their commerce, as piracy revived; Ragusan unfriendliness was also punished on occasion by exclusion from the Venetian ports. Shipbuilding had declined to such an extent that in 1329 the Venetian Senate ordered the Ragusans to construct an arsenal where ships could be built or repaired.[218] A resolution added to the Statute-book in 1358 declares that “marineriza Racusii erat amissa.” Ragusan ships were now very few, and seaborne commerce was carried chiefly on foreign bottoms and in partnership with foreigners. With the separation from Venice, Ragusan trade came to be almost wholly in foreign hands. A series of statutes were enacted forbidding Ragusans from associating with foreigners, and various other measures were taken to revive national shipping; the results were very successful, and by the end of the fifteenth century the city had more than regained its old position. The overland trade of the Balkans attained a remarkable development in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and regular trade routes were established from the Adriatic coast through the interior to Constantinople and the Black Sea. Of these routes which, together with that from Hungary, formed the connecting link between Western and Eastern Europe, there were several. One was from Spalato, one from the Narenta mouth, one from Ragusa, one from Cattaro, and one from the mouth of the Bojana. They all joined the Belgrad-Constantinople route at different points, and all had branch routes to the various mining and commercial centres of Servia, Bosnia, Hlum, Albania, and Bulgaria. Ragusa, owing to her geographical position, was always the chief market on the Adriatic for the hinterland, and Ragusan caravans were constantly travelling along the various routes. The chief exports from the Slavonic lands were cattle, cheese, dried fish from the lake of Scutari, skins, wool, honey, wax, timber, silver, and iron. Ragusa imported salt, manufactured cloths, clothes, brocades, arms, axes, horse-trappings, glass-ware, perfumes, sweetmeats, southern fruits, fish, oil, wine, and gold- and silversmiths’ wares.[219] The salt trade formed one of the Republic’s chief sources of income, as the interior, although rich in other minerals, was absolutely wanting in this necessary commodity. Salt-pans were established at four points along the Illyrian coast—the Narenta, Ragusa, the Bocche di Cattaro, and San Sergio on the Bojana. The Ragusans, by means of old treaties with the Slaves, had almost acquired a monopoly of the traffic, and they were often able to punish the depredations to which their territory was subjected by cutting off the supply. The largest salt-pans were in the neighbourhood of Ragusa itself, but after 1333 they were removed to Stagno, where the industry is carried on to this day, and